KDE 2.1 Release Delayed 1 Week

David Faure, our release manager, has announced the latest KDE 2.1 release schedule. KDE 2.1 will now be officially announced Feb 26, mainly due to popular demand and the fact that the KDE Artist Team is hard at work polishing up this release. For a preview of what's to come, check out the new KControl design. Definitely seems worth the wait!

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Comments

by KDE User (not verified)

I installed Linux-Mandrake 7.2 Complete yesterday, because I wanted to see what it was like before I sent it to my dad. (I use Debian myself)

I was a bit surprised at the amateurish graphics they've decided to use in this distribution when compared to the KDE2 originals. The Mandrake GTK applications are definitely ugly too, uneven and unpolished (sorry). Quite useful some of them, though. We should see a port to KDE for many of these utilities... There was no automatic sound config in this distribution, btw... My dad simply
can't wait for the next release of OpenLinux so I had to get Mandrake for him. ;)

The KDE splash screen is certainly not the one used in Mandrake, and all those ill-defined penguins are Mandrake's own doing. ;)

On the whole, I like Mandrake enough (they make very good use of KDE2 by default, the only distribution to do this currently) that I'll send it to my dad so that he can play around, and I'll keep around an install. Caldera OpenLinux 2.4 is definitely much more polished though, and I have no doubt that an updated version will be absolutely killer.

by Haakon Nilsen (not verified)

In Mandrake 7.2 sndconfig isn't installed automatically. Simply do a "urpmi sndconfig" :)

by Stitch (not verified)

Ok, I'm dying to know HOW you changed the default Mandrake KDE splash screen to the beautiful one you created!

Tell me! Tell me! Tell me! (grin)

Thanks,

Steve

by Geir Kielland (not verified)

Go to /usr/share/apps/ksplash/pics and replace the ugly bad-taste-penguins from mandrake (make a backup of it...). Give the new pic the same rights as the originbal one.

And yes, its uggggly....

by robert (not verified)

Is there a possibilty that KDE could use pixel based scrolling, the line based gives me a bad headache. Is this a the Qt peoples job or the KDE's?

by David Faure (not verified)

Scrolling in khtml (konqueror) is definitely pixel based. Are you talking about an application in particular ?

by robert (not verified)

Apps in particular.

by BusError (not verified)

Yes, it's great, and it's definitly better than what exists.
but why does it needs to look like windows, and why little things aren't tought of?

Like, in *every* KDE application, when there is a list, the columns jumps all over the place, seemingly 'to fit' what is to display.
really it's anoying, I'd like it to save my prefered view and stop doing that.
Same applies to dialogs and lists, which are either too small, or too big.

There are *very* little improvements that would make it looks as good as macos. Instead of going for huge leaps in hoggling technologies, I'd rather see a pause in that, and some work done on a few details.

by Psycogenic (not verified)

Is that every one of kde icons and pics has a black outline. Why?

This makes all the icons butt ugly.

It was ok with kde1 since color was not emphasised. In kde2, the finish on the widgets is so smooth. But the icons are still not of photo quality like in macos x, windowmaker, and that other open source desktop.

get rid of the black outlines. Tackat should really do something cool this time around.

I hope the new icons will be better.

Cheers

by KDE USER (not verified)

Is icons the only thing you care about?.

by Matti Pajari (not verified)

I think this really is a thing where gnome is long ahead, although it's not terribly important. But I think more stylish icons would give kde a nice finished look.

by Eron Lloyd (not verified)

KDE has the highest-quality artwork I've ever seen in an OSS project - very professional indeed. As much as I admire TigerT's work in GNOME, it is not "good" UI practice to use those high-color but low-contrast images as icons. Ask anyone with bad vision. Tacket rocks!

by YesPapa (not verified)

Ask anyone with good vision. Tacket sucks!

by cm (not verified)

> Ask anyone with good vision.

That's obviously not you. You missed the right "reply to this" link. ;-)

by rbjr (not verified)

keep up the quality work!
thanks and cheers to the team

by Bruce Stanley (not verified)

I am running both Caldera OpenDesktop 2.4

and Mandrake Linux 7.2

Will there be a CD released that will cover both
of these versions of Linux?

by James Wray (not verified)

First, let me say I am really excited for KDE 2.1.
I do all my gui programming with qt, and I feel that KDE is much snappier to use than gnome, yet I still use gnome.

There are couple of problems I have with KDE, that though I have tried several times to use it, I always go back to gnome/sawfish. One problem is configurability of the panel and window manager. The second is the look of the icons. I will elaborate.

First, the configurability. Some issues I have:
- Everything being single click with that ugly line (I can't choose the way I want)
- I can't split the panel up into parts.
- The pager leaves much to be desired, though much improvement in 2.0 series.
- If you look at sawfish, enlightenment, or fvwm2, they all had a _lot_ of control on what happened when you click, double-click, or modifier-click parts of the title bar, window, borders, etc. This type of control is really necessary for me. Once you set something up the way you like it, you need to keep it. I started out with fvwm2, and moved to enlightenment, then to sawfish, and only because each of them provided that level of control. Sawfish has really added a lot in this area. They also all allow button addition and subtraction very easily, and every button can do whatever you tell it to.

Secondly, I feel that KDE 2.0/2.0.1 has made _major_ improvements in the icon look department, but has a long way to go to look as good as gnome. The blocky, busy, look of the KDE icons really wear on me.

In conclusion, please don't take this wrong. I am sincerely looking to move to KDE, it is just that when you have something that you like, it is hard to live without that functionality, even if you want to change over. I really want to use KDE for several reasons, I just am interested if anyone else has encountered these feelings, has any suggestions, and can help me get into KDE. I would also be interested to know if the KDE team has tackled any of these issues and decided to exclude them for a reason, or if these things have not been requested before.

Sincerely,

Jim Wray
[email protected]