KDE 4.0 Release Candidate 2 Out Now, Codename "Coenig"

The KDE Community is happy to announce the immediate availability of the
second release candidate for KDE 4.0
. This release candidate marks the last
mile on the road to KDE 4.0. This release sees increasing participation from distributions, you can download packages for Debian, Kubuntu, Mandriva, openSUSE & Fedora or grab the live CDs from Kubuntu & openSUSE.


KDE's webbrowser Konqueror

KOffice has also put out a sixth alpha release, released separately.

While progress on the quality and completeness of what is to become the KDE 4.0 desktop
has been great, the KDE Community decided to have another release candidate before releasing
KDE 4.0 on January 11th. The codebase is now feature-complete. Some work is still being done
to put the icing on the KDE 4.0 cake. This includes fixing bugs,
finishing off artwork and smoothing out the user experience.

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Comments

by SVG crazy (not verified)

I agree with you... I think it should be set as an option, like they did with the battery applet (classic theme and oxygen theme). For those who like the old fashioned,ugly, clunky and boring clock (like it is now) choose classic, for those who like the beautifully amazing animated train station-like clock, choose Oxygen style.

by Bernhard (not verified)

yeah.. i'm of the same opinion.. the normal clock looks just sooo boring.

plz bring the trainstation clock back! .. at least make it available with KHotNewStuff2

by sebas (not verified)

We'll probably revive the fancy trainstation clock, but as a different plasmoid. It might take some time until it's in, and it's not critical to 4.0. If you care enough for it, show up on the panel-devel mailinglist and state that you'd like to help. Ruphy and I will be happily providing guidance how you can get it back.

Hope that addresses your issues with being bored by a clock. :-)

And what is that, everyone being totally obsessed with clocks in KDE4, I like it because it's kind of strange and geeky, but sometimes I ask myself where this comes from ... :>

by T. J. Brumfield (not verified)

It was removed?!?!

I loved the train-station clock!

by Marc (not verified)

But i don't understand... it was there, and you killed it, and now i should bring it back? Ahm, can't i not just have it?

by Marc (not verified)

But i don't understand... it was there, and you killed it, and now i should bring it back? ;-( Ahm, can't i not just have it?

About your question with the clock obsession: The love for clocks was spread by people like aseigo and the whole bunch of plasma guys, always using clocks as demonstration for about everything. Don't say clocks wouldn't matter now...

by sebas (not verified)

The train station model and the current one sat in the same plasmoid for a bit. We've transitioned the first into the latter, then the first had to go because we wanted something really simple. Getting the train station model back is a matter of pulling it out of SVN from some weeks ago, renaming it so it becomes another plasmoid and backporting a bunch of fixes that went into the plain clock and are also applicable.

Instead follow steps above, send patch to panel-devel, address comment and import it into extragear after approval.

Wait, let me start over, trying to go at the same level as your post:

"No, be patient, kid."

by Roey Katz (not verified)

Oh God, another Clock issue.

If I had a nickel for every time I've read "Clock Applet" mentioned in the same line as Plasma or the KDE4 Desktop, I'd be a rich man. It's as if these clocks are what everyone is most impressed or disappointed with in KDE4.

- Roey

by SVG crazy (not verified)

It's because WE LOVE CLOCKs, especially the animated train station-like kinds. :)

by reihal (not verified)

I want a true digital clock with red LEDs.

> > Oh God, another Clock issue.

It's the prophecy of another trumpet, right on time.

by you're a bummer (not verified)

"in a screencast Aaron once did there was this design with a horizontal line with an animated train station-like letter change. Now this was really kind of fresh and new"
--

Not at all a good default, as many - including me - *hated* that clock. It was horrendously ugly and gimmicky. Good call changing it, I say...

by Marc (not verified)

The majority of the posters around liked it. So obviously YOU are the narrow minded gnome, who pushed the poor developers into killing the trainstation design? ;-/ I'd say it should be default again, and you change your settings one time.

by Anon (not verified)

The majority of the posters around disliked it. So obviously YOU are the narrow minded gnome, who pushed the poor developers into adding the trainstation design? ;-/ I'd say it should be default again, and you change your settings one time.

by Anon (not verified)

* "shouldn't be default again", of course :)

by Grósz Dániel (not verified)

The horizontal line at train station displays is a design problem of the technology and not a feature. Why should we, especially by default, imitate it with great technology when even train stations are switching to electronic displays? The purpose of a clock is to show the time/date and not to be interesting. After some time I find the horizontal line annoying and that it makes interpreting the time a bit slower because I usually see numbers without horizontal lines.

by Marc (not verified)

There are people who appreciate a hint of retro design, i'm sure you heard about the concept? And imitating something physical and functional as those clocks with great technology IS the cool thing about it. And it's what many love about kde, what sets it apart.
Because of that i want this as default, for the cool first impression. Should you really be troubled by that, you could easily change the settings.

by anon (not verified)

sorry, just had to. ;-)

by reihal (not verified)

Style matching wallpaper:
http://www.koenigsegg.nu/Pic-11.html

by Bobby (not verified)

I have installed the openSuse packages but I am having no luck with this release. It starts quite fast and seems to be more responsive than previous versions but my kde session crashes and automatically logs out after about 2 minutes each time so I can't really test this version.
Another thing is that Lancelot is not working. All I get when I click on it's start button is the dark shadow of a menu. I don't know if anyone else is having these problems or if it's the Suse packages or my specific installation.

by Anonymous (not verified)

Lancelot is not part of KDE 4.0 release because it's immature.

by Knome (not verified)

What happened to the whole-window gradient in oxygen? That one was really nice.
This way, it just looks... plain. Using the openSUSE version btw.

by Anon (not verified)

I think it accidentally got knocked out when the style devs were optimising memory consumption, or something like that. I imagine it will be back soon.

by anon (not verified)

I would like to see the simple gradient also back, the current one is hardly recognizable, if at all and the slowdown not worth.

by Luciano (not verified)

well...
The fact is that there is a gradient. It's just too light to be visible.
Try taking a snapshot of a window, then increasing the contrast of the image with your preferred image manipulation package.

As it is, that just wastes pixmap memory.

There should be a way to turn it off anyway, if the style is to be of any use over the network.

by Andreas (not verified)

...
..
Unpacking kdebase-runtime-bin-kde4 (from .../kdebase-runtime-bin-kde4_4%3a3.97.0-1ubuntu3~gutsy1~ppa2_all.deb) ...
dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/kdebase-runtime-bin-kde4_4%3a3.97.0-1ubuntu3~gutsy1~ppa2_all.deb (--unpack):
trying to overwrite `/usr/bin/kwriteconfig', which is also in package kdebase-bin
Errors were encountered while processing:
/var/cache/apt/archives/kdebase-runtime-bin-kde4_4%3a3.97.0-1ubuntu3~gutsy1~ppa2_all.deb
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

A fix anyone?

by stormwind (not verified)

Did you try
sudo apt-get -f dist-upgrade
sudo apt-get -f install
?

I had the same problem and it worked for me.

by lexxonnet (not verified)

I used dpkg --force-overwrite -i /var/cache/apt/name-of-package.deb
following that, I dist-upgraded and it all worked smoothly. It seems to happen if you have the rc1 packages installed, in which case, apt tries to upgrade them before upgrading kdebase.

by Birdy (not verified)

I do have the same error :-(

by dave (not verified)

I had the same problem as well last night. Gave up in the end. Looking for a nice easy workaround :)

by Joergen Ramskov (not verified)

I do think it lacks some contrast between the toolbars and the content window (speaking of the konqueror window).

I'm really looking forward to using KDE4 as my main desktop!

by Terracotta (not verified)

This is my first install of kde4 that I actually was able to get working, probably more due to kubuntu and my lack of knowledge.

The first impression is that it is a bit slow and that some effects are put in place just to show effects rather than having them used as a mean of help/indication what is happening.

I.e. the effect used to minimise a window in kwin 4 rc2 is well... confusing, the vista aero effect is IMHO one of the only good implementations out there for such an action, which is just a composited version of what happens in kwin3 when minimising a window. (the aqua effect, and compiz lookalike are way to flashy distractive if you ask me)
This effect used in kwin 4 suits better with exiting a program than minising, just as that the opposite effect is IMHO better used to open a program, rather than being used for unminimising a window. Just as the fade away effect (now used for exiting a program) would suite better with closing a program which has an icon in the system stray.

Keep up the good work though and don't let people like me bug you too much :D.

by Enrico (not verified)

Can anyone tell me how to integrate the pager plasmoid into the application-pannel? I still have it flowting on the desktop :-)

by rick (not verified)

yeah, nothing is as useless as a pager in the background.
still, i didn't figure out how to add the pager to the panel.
actually i didn't figure out how to change _anything_ in the panel setup.
using kubuntu packages...

by rdw4h (not verified)

Currently, you will have to manually edit the plasma-appletsrc file. Located in ~/.kde4/share/config/

Add the following at the end of the file

[Containments][2][Applets][8]
geometry=1202,23,58,47
plugin=pager

You may need to change "8" depending on how many applets you have in containment 2.

Hope that helps!

by conan (not verified)

A blackbox way to do it is drag the pager widget onto the *border* of the panel. This then messes it up the panel totally (it shrinks in my case) and the pager is not displayed properly, but if you now logout then back in it will appear on the far-right of screen. Only prob is that the left border of it is not drawn, clearly there are one or two things to iron out by the overworked plasma devs. We cannot expect something like a mattise (netbeans) drag and drop experience just yet I think.

by dajomu (not verified)

kickoff is crap and will be until it it possible to go to a sub-menu without having the top-lever disapearing!

by Bobby (not verified)

Kickoff is quite usable for me but hey! why don't you try Lancelot? At least it's an alternative to Kickoff.

by Aaron J. Seigo (not verified)

use the simple menu plasmoid, be happy and (i can only hope, dear $DEITY above) be quiet.

by Griobhtha (not verified)

Your answer would make no sense... if it were indeed an answer.

by Aaron J. Seigo (not verified)

*sigh* if you don't like kickoff, you can use the simple menu. it looks just like the kmenu in kde3.

was that clear enough?

by T. J. Brumfield (not verified)

Thanks to whomever was kind enough to create said simple menu alternative.

by SVG crazy (not verified)

Hi,

First of all, I am a very big fan of plasma... Congratulations to all the plasma developers for their excellent work.

Second, I heard and read a lot about plasma being completely themeable, but I never found in documentation how to do it. Please, I am so excited about plasma and have good SVG skill, I would love to know HOW to make a plasma theme myself, and create a very very very gorgeous theme for the panel.

by jospoortvliet (not verified)

many things will only come available after the 4.0 release, and I'm sure documentation about theming will be one of them. A lot of the GUI work which needs to be in plasma is not there yet. I think Aaron's plan of doing regular (monthly) plasma releases after 4.0 is out is a good idea ;-)

by Griobhtha (not verified)

Since Plasma is the centerpiece of KDE (like Aero is to Vista!), wouldn't it be a much better idea to finalize Plasma issues before releasing a Broken Knome interface package that offers less in control and customization than its predecessor (or its semantic namesake)?

by Soap (not verified)

I actually found this when browsing the Techbase Documentation. I stumbled upon it when reading the simple plasmiod tutorial.

Here's the info:
http://techbase.kde.org/Projects/Plasma/Theme

by SVG Crazy (not verified)

WOW, thank a lot for the link :D

by Marco (not verified)

Where are icons on desktop? It's a rc2 and there isn't no support to icons on the desktop.. when it will be reintroduced?

by jospoortvliet (not verified)

Drag'n'drop an icon to your desktop and watch it appear. Add the 'Desktop' plasmoid and see the icons in ~/Desktop...

The reason those are not there by default is because we think it sucked, and we want to make the desktop actually useful instead of a dumping ground for files, folders and applications...

by xapient (not verified)

word!
i appreciate that!