KDE 4.3.0 is out, and it is a great release. It is unlikely that any one specific thing will strike the user as the most noticeable improvement; rather, the overall user experience of KDE has improved greatly in KDE 4.3.0. The release's codename, Caizen, is a Japanese philosophy that focuses on continuous improvement throughout all aspects of life. That has been the goal of the KDE team for 4.3.0: polish, polish, polish. The statistics from the bug tracker speak for themselves: 10,000 bugs have been fixed. In addition, close to 63,000 changes were checked in by a little under 700 contributors. That is not to say that the KDE team did not add a large number of new features: 2000 feature requests were implemented in the past 6 months, meaning that any user's pet feature might well be among the improvements KDE 4.3.0 brings.
The changes in KDE 4.3 are largely in three categories: the desktop workspace, the applications, and the development platform.
- Plasma, KDE's desktop interface and KWin, KDE's window and compositing manager are now working more closely together. Desktop effects and the Plasma shell now share their themes, and it is also possible to have separate sets of Plasma widgets and wallpapers on each virtual desktop. The new Air theme makes a visual difference. It is much lighter than the Oxygen theme, which is still available through the Desktop Settings dialog.
- On the applications front, KDE 3 users will like the new tree view in System Settings, which more closely resembles KDE 3's KControl. Dolphin, KDE's file manager, now show previews of images contained in a directory as an overlay for the directory icon. Hovering over it enables a slideshow of the images in the directory the icon represents.
- KDE's development platform has become more stable, more performant, leaner and at the same time more complete. For Plasma applet developers, there is now a geolocation plugin that makes it possible to query the current location. This is used in the OpenDesktop applet to show people near you. The new KDE PolicyKit library provides a mechanism for applications to authorise certain actions based on profiles. A KDE-style API makes it secure and easy to temporarily elevate privileges for an application.
Of course, those are just a few examples of the changes in KDE 4.3.0. All of the seemingly small changes add up to make a wonderful difference to our users.
The KDE 4.3.0 Desktop
The KDE 4.3.0 release will be followed by the usual monthly bugfix and translation updates. The next feature release, KDE 4.4.0, will see the light of day in January 2010. For those among our readers who enjoy microblogging, we have set up an experimental "LifeStream" tracking the "!kde" tag on Identi.ca and Twitter. Check out buzz.kde.org for the stream. Jos Poortvliet, who also wrote the excellent release announcement, has created a screencast (Ogg Theora, HTML 5) that gives an overview of the versatility and coolness of KDE 4.3.0. As always, be sure to check out the release announcement for more details.
Comments
Thank you to all KDE developers and all others involved (translators, artists, usability experts, ...) in making this release as awesome as it is! I have been using it since the betas and am highly impressed. It surely is the best free desktop release I have ever seen. If you would only not tease us with all those reports about the progress toward 4.4... :P
So, again, thank you to all! :)
Thank you very much indeed and Congrats to you all! I love it! Though thanks to your merciless teasing now I can't wait for 4.4 :D
Yes, we're like that. And we're not even sorry!!! MUHAHAHA
(be careful: the screencast was made with trunk. It is barely visible to the naked eye, if at all, but on an unconscious level it will tease you into installing KDE 4.4 beta as soon as it is out)
Thanks KDE team for this great release
... you good and faithful developers. Thanks for another great release, for your good work, your invested energy, time and patience which I think all KDE users appreciate greatly.
I am using 4.3 on openSuse 11.2 M4 and it feels really great, it feels even better than it does on openSuse 11.1. I tell you, Vista 2 aka Win 7 is going to get cold feet ;)
Big thanks to the KDE team.
updating from KDE 4.3 RC 3.... cant wait to have it :D
How to mount an external disk in KDE4?
I already have one disk plugged in and now I plugged another one in.
Clicking on device notifier plasmoid it shows:
- Volume (ext3)
- Volume (ext3)
I know that version 4.3 means it's still "alpha quality", but I would expect
to show at least size and /dev/name so one can see some difference between
two disk and know which one to mount. OK, move one, I'll mount them both.
Right click - nothing, right click again - nothing. Strange. OK. Left
click... I think it tries to open dolphin but fails, of course, since I
don't use dolphin and don't have it installed. Also, I don't want to open
that device, JUST to mount it so I can save some files to it from
application that's ALREADY OPEN. Simple task, but not so simple if you are
using KDE. Back to konsole and mount(8). We have bling bling, that's what's
important!
I haven't seen so much "innovation" since I started using GUIs (Windows 3.1
time). Congrats people! Fanboys, you know the drill. ;)
Well, very nice ideas you have to improve the current behavior. So, go there and code it!
...in KDE3, but they had to innovate. ;)
...so I went to the console, but did not know which /dev/... actually to mount and how many partitions there are... so I found out, but it told me I have to be root to mount it... damn, I should have never left my Windows 3.1!
Well, seriously: this was the first thing I got crazy about with KDE4, and 4.3 is actually the first version to improve it. But I have to admit, that the fact that I have to add manually(!) an "empty action" (i.e. a "do-nothing-action"!) to do a "do-mount-only"... does not really make me very comfortable as a user.
(Well, at least that was the RC version... is it better with the final release?)
Well so far I'm less than impressed, but in all fairness KDE 4.x *IS* improving, but still has a long ways to go. To date no one has given a justifiable reason for the 180 on the desktop. I still do not know why I can't put icons on the desktop proper as well as "containers". It would be a vast improvement if KDE would simply splice both the good features of the KDE 3.x series with the new ideas in KDE 4.x series. Right now KDE is re-inventing the wheel. If you look at both Windows 3.1 and KDE 4.x they are almost identical in their approach. Probably what ticks me off more than KDE was the force fed diet of KDE 4.0 by the Fedora Project. Indeed Fedora has gone in the wrong direction by putting stuff not ready for prime time and making it the "default". More than anything else their rather hasty decisions have prejudiced me against potentially good technologies, such as KDE 4.x. into their distro. To be sure KDE still has a lot of work to do to bring it up to the quality of the KDE 3.5 series. But at the end of the day the user is left with an sub-par GUI that is almost identical to Windows 3.1, though M$ did it better. Fair is fair we have to wait till all the apps are "converted" to the "new" system of KDE 4.x which differs little from Windows 3.1. we understand that. The question is WHY when we already had an excellent desktop with KDE 3.5x. If something is not broke why "fix" it? To be sure Windows 3.1 -- and KDE 4.x -- had/have good idea using "containers" -- or whatever you want to call them, but it is the exact same idea. KDE 3.x also had good ideas that have been trashed to make room for the "innovative" -- NOT!!! -- ideas of KDE 4.x. It would be wonderful to see a marriage of both the standard desktop of the KDE 3.x series with the "container" ideas of the KDE 4.x aka Windows 3.1, series. In the current format -- KDE 4.2 -- It is still way too confusing to use: lost containers, lost locations, etc, etc, etc., still KDE 4.2 is a VAST improvement over KDE 4.0. Please do us all a favor and shoot -- metaphorically speaking -- the project manager of the FEDORA PROJECT: More than anything, or any one, else he did more damage to your project could have. He is single handedly destroying an excellent distro by incorporating a bunch of crapware and making it the default. I'll be looking forward to KDE 4.3, and all future versions of KDE 4.x I most sincerely hope that it will someday reach the quality of the KDE 3.5x series. The marriage of the standard desktop along with the "container" ideas of KDE 4.x would go a long ways to creating a universal and flexible desktop that the USER can set up to THEIR desire. I sincerely hope that will be one of your incorporated improvements in future releases of the KDE 4.x series.
It is quite funny to see you comparing kde 4.3 with windows 3,1, as they both have close to nothing in common.
This is like comparing windows 7 with windows 3, by pointing out they both are using windows to show different applications at the same time on the screen..
> The marriage of the standard desktop along with the "container" ideas
it's called Folderview and you can switch your whole desktop to it, giving you what you refer to as a "standard" desktop, by right clicking on your desktop and going to Desktop Settings. it's the first setting right at the top.
this has been there since 4.2 and you could do it manually (with some caveats) in 4.1.
> of KDE 4.x would go a long ways to creating a universal and flexible
> desktop that the USER can set up to THEIR desire.
as you can see, we've already done that. but we've gone one better and made it so that your definition of what users desire isn't forced on everyone else either.
Utter BS - KDE 4.3.0 is far away from being anywhere near a desktop users can set up to their desires, and forcing your definition of what users desire on everyone else is _exactly_ what is going on with KDE4.
He is one of the designers of the desktop, so what else would you expect?
i think you should try a different linux distribution.
In my case, any drive i plug in is automaticly mounted. I don't need to do any extra clicks or commands.
someone who suggests changing whole distribution to get automounting? You probably buy a new car when you want to change CD player in it?
And btw., I don't want automounting. It reminds me of reasons why I don't use windows.
"someone who suggests changing whole distribution to get automounting? "
Yup, if your distribution can't do the job, it is time to change to something else.
But in stead you blame the desktop for not doing something the operating system below should do.
"You probably buy a new car when you want to change CD player in it?"
Nope, but i do buy a new car if my current one doesn't have climate control and i like to have that feature.
I'm not blaming the cd player manufacturer for not providing buttons to adjust the climate control.
" don't want automounting. "
Then i surprises me that you aren't able to mount the drive manually.
I would expect you would have that knowledge or be able to find an application that handles the manual mounting for you.
"It reminds me of reasons why I don't use windows."
Could be me, but if you plugin a mass storage device, doesn't that mean that you want to use it?
> Yup, if your distribution can't do the job, it is time to change to something
> else. But in stead you blame the desktop for not doing something the
> operating system below should do.
?
You don't understand the basics: Distribution is just a collection of software. Enabling auto-mounting on my or any other distro is just a matter of installing and configuring appropriate software (with apt-get, rpm, emerge, whatever).
it is kinda odd that you know how to enable/disable automounting, but as soon as you have disabled it, you are clueless about how to mount the device manually.
That makes me wonder why you want to mount the device manually, and wonder why you are unable to install software that can do it for you.
Maybe if you read the original complaint once more, you will realise that this was not the problem... sheesh.
But it is.
i call shenanigans. let's see:
"but I would expect to show at least size and /dev/name so one can see some difference between two disk and know which one to mount"
i just plugged in a removable disk and i get "698.6 GiB External Hard Drive" in: the device popup, kickoff's Computer tab, dolphin and the file open/save dialog. so you do get size. as for /dev/name, that's a technical detail and not even available on all OSes we support.
"Right click - nothing, right click again - nothing. Strange."
right click? c'mon. you mouse over it and it tells you either "open in file manager" or "2 actions available". (personally, i'd like to see those actions available directly via a left-clickable menu, but that's another story). the natural action is to left click on it to launch, just like _every other icon in KDE_.
"think it tries to open dolphin but fails, of course, since I don't use dolphin and don't have it installed"
that's probably a bug, though given the rest of your comment i'd want to check locally first to confirm your assertions. i assume you don't have konqueror installed either? If so, i have to say that you're the first person i've run into who is running plasma without a KDE file manager _somewhere_
"JUST to mount it so I can save some files to it from application that's ALREADY OPEN"
in any KDE4 application, you'll see it listed in the side bar in the file save dialog. and yes, even before it's mounted.
if you're using an application that doesn't support that functionality, i suggest finding a new application to do that task because that is a farily basic function for today's modern applications.
"We have bling bling, that's what's important!"
it seems what we really have is someone who is running around and trying to out-think the system instead of just using it. you plug in a drive, an interface is there and you RIGHT click it first? you're running a desktop shell without any file managers available or configured? etc...
so yes, i call shenanigans on your entire posting. the jabs at the end of it don't lend any credibility either.
This is free software, but free speech it is not. My account got blocked by the fanboys. So, if you don't have positive experience with KDE you are not allowed to talk about it. This will be my last comment here.
> i just plugged in a removable disk and i get "698.6 GiB External Hard Drive"
Why would I lie? Ok, seeing is believing:
http://img205.imageshack.us/i/mediadevices.png/
As you can see, no size is shown.
> as for /dev/name, that's a technical detail
So, hide technical details from them because KDE users are stupid? ;)
> right click? c'mon. you mouse over it and it tells you either "open in file
> manager" or "2 actions available". (personally, i'd like to see those actions
> available directly via a left-clickable menu, but that's another story). the
> natural action is to left click on it to launch, just like _every other icon in
Well, I use left click to launch and right click to get options. I'm used to that since early 90s. Now KDE invented "no right click", "no options", "no mount".
>i assume you don't have konqueror installed either? If so, i have to say that > you're the first person i've run into who is running plasma without a KDE
> file manager _somewhere_
No, I don't have konq. Konq is dolphin in KDE4. No difference between them. And dolphin, like nautilus or win. explorer sucks and is useless for me. I use krusader or konsole. I'm sure that I'm not a first such person. I just want to use my computer, not to put it on the wall and show it to my friends.
>in any KDE4 application, you'll see it listed in the side bar in the file save
>dialog. and yes, even before it's mounted.
>if you're using an application that doesn't support that functionality, i >suggest finding a new application to do that task because that is a farily >basic function for today's modern applications.
I'm not a child or a office secretary. I actually do something, just like you. Today, application you are talking about is MATLAB and there is no alternatives to it. Tomorrow, there will be some other application. So, you are suggesting me to stop using MATLAB because it doesn't allow me to mount media?! Mounting media is not MATLAB's job, but job of a desktop shell. And that desktop shell doesn't have some essential features like manual media mounting.
> it seems what we really have is someone who is running around and trying
> to out-think the system instead of just using it. you plug in a drive, an
> interface is there and you RIGHT click it first? you're running a desktop
> shell without any file managers available or configured?
It is not hard to out-think KDE. Just try to mount external device. In KDE3 I used media applet for kicker which offered a menu with actions (including mount). Right click on a device seemed obvious for me to get similar menu now. But... innovation.
darn, you're getting boring. Why don't you go and install that device notifier replacement thing from kde-look.org:
http://www.kde-look.org/content/show.php/New+Device+Notifier+with+Automo...
You're so smart you can do that for sure. And maybe, if the guy writing the device notifier replacement wants to, that functionality can make it into KDE by default. Meanwhile, the fact nobody put that functionality in Plasma YET means not many ppl need it - and the minority who do will have to use KDE-LOOK or write something themselves. That's why the devs made it possible to easily write plugins in a gazillion languages for plasma, you know...
> darn, you're getting boring. Why don't you go and install that device notifier
> replacement thing from kde-look.org
I would rather have as default something done right from the scratch than having to collect pieces all around the web which are intended to fix those shortcomings.
> Meanwhile, the fact nobody put that functionality in Plasma YET means not
> many ppl need it
Someone shown us 5 bug reports about this.
(Actually ppl don't need KDE, only internet tablet with fullscreen web browser)
99% of us are fine with the current situation because, even if we do only need to save a file on that disk, we can use the places view from the application's file dialog. The real bug is that file dialogs are not shared between GTK and Qt, so GTK applications in a KDE environment can not use the places view, and vice versa.
Of course, we could add a "Simply mount" option to the device notifier in no time if we wanted. But for KDE 4, we are not just adding options anywhere, but we think about how functionality can be added without adding bloat to the interface.
Your full of baloney... maybe. Personally I have not seen anything you have posted so far to "get you banned". Or I must have missed the post. In any case, I have complained here many times about the shoddy shape MNHO thinks konqueror is in; especially with flash (minus the kmplayer jiggle) and no one has banned me yet. So I either missed your banning post, or you might want some mustard with that baloney.
Why would I lie and create a new user?
http://img199.imageshack.us/i/bannedpwi.jpg/
I also gave a lot of negative comments about KDE4 in the past, since 4.0. And nobody banned me up until now.
> So I either missed your banning post
In every post I behave heretically towards the church of KDE. That cannot be tolerated. Everybody must be happy and fully satisfied when new KDE release arrives.
the problem is that you aren't criticizing the desktop, but just trolling.
Anyone who have complaints about KDE4 is a troll here, appearantly.
with comments like " I know that version 4.3 means it's still "alpha quality""
you are indeed trolling.
> http://img205.imageshack.us/i/mediadevices.png/
right, so the labels on you disk are really poor. if you name every file on disk with a similarly bad choice of label, you'll get the same kind of problems for files in the fs too.
> So, hide technical details from them because KDE users are stupid? ;)
no, not because people are stupid but because it should not be necessary to know what a C++ pointer is to use a C++ application, to use an absurd but accurate analogy. similarly, it shouldn't be necessary to know what /dev/sda1 is to use a drive. if you need to know that information _from the device notifier_ then something is wrong.
now, if you want to know device names, use the hard disk component from the system information widget. that is designed for technical information display. different purpose, different target audiences, different information and display. aka "design".
with the design philosophy you are trying to espouse, we'd have no tools that are approachable for average users and a bunch of really gnarly to use bits that few people would want to.
> Konq is dolphin in KDE4. No difference between them.
both statements are incorrect, btw.
> I use krusader or konsole.
so set up krusader as your default file manager. or go into system settings and add/modify a device action.
if open up krunner (alt+f2) and type "device", that control panel is actually the first result i see, and i can quite easily add a manual mount command there.
(btw, i just noticed a bug in that panel: it doesn't let me modify actions that are installed system-wide; i've reported it to the maintainer)
> you are suggesting me to stop using MATLAB because it doesn't allow
> me to mount media?!
i'm suggesting that matlab, and other apps like it, have some very serious and fundamental shortcomings. i have no interest in hobbling our interfaces for other people not saddled with such applications. matlab could be (should be!) using one of the great toolkits out there that handle all this for them.
> And that desktop shell doesn't have some essential features like
> manual media mounting.
well, no. you didn't add such an action to the Device Actions configuration, and we don't have such an option by default because it's not useful to most people.
> Right click on a device seemed obvious for me to
> get similar menu now.
so you trained yourself using a tool which you found useful but which either didn't spend much time thinking about usability or had a different target audience, and now you have some habits that don't align nicely with the rest of our user base.
the device notifier widget uses standard left-click driven interaction. that shouldn't be surprising.
> But... innovation.
please stop the ridiculous trolling / flamebait comments. i don't need/want to deal with sarcasm at the end of every one of your comments. it's unnecessarily frustrating when all i'm trying to do is have a conversation with you. or is this how you talk to people in person?
> right, so the labels on you disk are really poor.
Yes, I haven't label it. I've only 2 such disk with different sizes so I never needed labels. KDE3 show me sizes and I know which is which:
http://img44.imageshack.us/i/kde3mount.png/
> similarly, it shouldn't be necessary to know what /dev/sda1 is to use a drive.
I didn't say that. Just put it there (it's small, 9 letters) as info. People who knew what that is will appreciate it. Those who don't will ignore it. Some of them will maybe look it up in google and start learning. Imagine that, LEARNING. Maybe even become KDE devs in the future.
> now, if you want to know device names, use the hard disk component from
Yeah, but I don't want to go there every time I want to mount a device.
>> Konq is dolphin in KDE4. No difference between them.
> both statements are incorrect, btw.
Konq. uses dolphin Kpart. That's end of the story.
> so set up krusader as your default file manager. or go into system settings
> and add/modify a device action.
OK, but I don't want file manager at all to mount device. Those two must be separated. Provide "open in file manager" and "mount". Those who don't know what is "mount" will use "open". Others will appreciate "mount". Why is this so hard to understand? Why assume that every KDE4 user is totally ignorant?
> i'm suggesting that matlab, and other apps like it, have some very serious
> and fundamental shortcomings. i have no interest in hobbling our
> interfaces for other people not saddled with such applications
There are hundreds of such applications. Especially those for people that do something with their computers (scientists, engineers, audio/video processing people, 3D graphics people,...). So, basically what you are saying is that KDE4 is not designed for those productive people, but for others, like children. That's good to know.
> so you trained yourself using a tool which you found useful but which either
> didn't spend much time thinking about usability or had a different target
Yes, I didn't spend much time thinking about its usability because it was usable. Now, the situation is different and what I have now is not usable at all and I think all the time about usability, unfortunately.
> or is this how you talk to people in person
I rarely encounter people just don't want to understand.
I use KDE daily for my work either directly (with applications like rkward) or as a shell for other programs, and I see no hindrance: KDE4 is perfectly usable for me.
But the more you go on, the more I think you're just trolling.
> But the more you go on, the more I think you're just trolling.
I constantly repeat the same thing. So if I was trolling, I was trolling from the start. Also, more then one person confirmed my experience, and btw., some people showed me plasmoids designed to fix obvious KDE defects I'm talking about:
http://www.kde-look.org/content/show.php/Device+Manager?content=106051
http://www.kde-look.org/content/show.php/New+Device+Notifier+with+Automo...
So I'm not imagining things, problem exists, multiple bugs are reported. multiple software fixes for the are available and are extremely popular (90% good). Story ends.
Well, why don't you act productively and ask if those people are willing to merge their work into KDE?
You know, developers aren't omniscient.
Please follow the whole discussion. Exactly THIS is the main problem! Lead developer is satisfied with current situation, thinks that this (mount with dolphin) is workflow for the majority of userbase, doesn't want to change a thing and it's impossible to persuade him to change his mind. This is why I started giving sarcastic comments.
The fact Aaron is satisfied with the current situation doesn't mean that the device notifier will never change into something that fits your needs more.
It isn't as if Aaron has to give his green light to every change and/or new feature that gets added into kde.
Also: i wonder why you don't want to automount external drives.
on my opensuse system, whenever i plugin a drive, opensuse mounts it in a subdirectory in /media.
Like aaron stated, any kde application will get the drive visibl in the open file dialog, while non kde applications that doen't use the open file dialog of kde, nor one with similar features, can access the drive via /media/
You stated that it isn't Matlab's job to mount the drive you want to use. But is other applications, like k3b, kword, openoffice, gwenview, etc are capable doing so, why can't matlab?
So what do _you_ do if you want to avoid the automounting to take place? For exmple in the case of a bad disk you want to run read-only tests on, or some other fragile media you want full control over?
i don't do such operations in a full blown desktop environment.
Do you suggest that full blown desktop environments are unfit for such... "advanced" tasks?
Indeed.
Fixing damaged drives isn't something your average user does, so not something a full blown desktop computer takes into account.
So while you find it usefull to add several options to the device manager of kde that will deal with carefully handling broken devices. i do not.
Fixing such devices in Linux often requires the use of command line applications and such. So why not startup a system that is dedicated to such tasks, in stead of ripping out automount of a desktop system, to suit people that sometimes have the need to plugin broken devices that shouldn't be mounted.
Fully blown in your face, I'd say.
Your answer nicely illustrates why I struggle to see KDE4 as anything but a toy system whos developers have no other vision than to atract morons. It just shows how immature the entire "desktop on linux" is, instead of creating something that is actually _better_ for _everyone_, you just badly mimic what is worst on certain commercial systems. Why?
Anyone got a tip for a desktop that is actually not aimed at morons?
nope.
You could try windows or mac os X, but both have automounting too, so you run into the same cave heat if you want to access damaged drives (which is apperently something you do on a dayly base, which makes me wonder why you don't take better care of your hardware).
linux on the other hand allows you to disable automount, and with the device manager of kde you can mount devices manually.
But that is something you prefer to forget, as you cannot use that in your trolling at this article.
Why would I try windows or OSX? Cave heat? What on earth are you on about?
The "broken devices" are typically USB storage, and not even mine. These kinds of operations are part of my work, and the parent bonehead want me to have a dedicated machine for this particular task. I wonder what other machines I'd need round for various particular tasks in his view.
"Why would I try window"
They have a 80% userbase, so they must be doing something right. Or are you stating that windows and macos users are morons because they are using a system dat automounts their devices?
If your job is repairing broken devices, i would expect that you are skilled enough to use a Linux system with manual mounting and aren't dependend on a default device notifier to do the job for you.
But i guess that skilled people are becoming rare in the ICT business, and that people nowadays completely rely on automated GUI software to do the job for them.
You're really good at twisting things around, arent you - you're now arguing that I should use the exact opposite tools of what I want and need.
No, I'm not against automounting per se, and there are systems where automounting works beatifully - linux is not among them, with all its different variants of automounting. My job is not repairing broken devices, but every now and then I do get a USB stick, or a disk or whatever on my desk that people hope I can pull data from. Working from command line is what I'm used to, but that has more to do with the continuing lack of functional desktops than anything else. And it's not about GUI, it's about the DESKTOP.
I would love to see an alternative KDE4 desktop, with more traditional focus than this "let's revolutionate how people use computers" that KDE4 team aimed for (ironically the result is akin to a bad windows copy, nothing revolutionary)
What different variants of automounting?
AFAIK automounting is done by the linux kernel, together with HAL/DBUS, something that works on every modern full blown linux distribution. The days of automount and supermount are over. It works quite simple: plugin something mountable, linux notices it and mounts it, creating a directory in /media where you can access it.
Desktops like KDE can pick up the device notification and offer you a gui that pops up on the desktop or in application (side bars in file managers and file::open/save dialogs), providing a convenient way to access the device.
I sometimes also get a broken mass storage device to recover, but i don't do it using my desktop system,, but with a live cd, containing the right tools for it, including descriptions on how to proceed.
Apperently, that is something you aren't used to, which is most likely a legacy of your windows computing knowledge, which doesn't (legally) provide you the convenience of using cd versions of the OS, aimed at a specific task.
As for your Windows Rant: it is funny to see that people like you consider kde4 a windows copy, as things like plasma have nothing in common with windows.
But if you are looking for another desktop experience: try gnome, try xfce, try lxde. Try windows, Try macos X. Try Windowmaker..
Or do you believe they are aimed at morons too?
If so, why don't you just start your own project, attrack other non morons and show the world how a desktop should be done.
I have tried the lot of desktops for linux, and the only one being close to comfortable was KDE3.
They have different aims, Gnome is aimed at the casual user, xfce is more of a CDE clone, lxde is lightweight win95 clone. Windowmaker is hardly a desktop, it's just a window manager inspired by NeXTStep/GNUStep. MacOSX is too rigid for me, costs money, only runs on certain hardware and is a bitch to maintain (I do have a machine with OSX on). Windows is just useless, only runs on certain hardware and lacks just about everything.
The idea that I should boot a live CD to fix disks is just utterly hilarious, there is absolutely no reason why I should not be able to do this from a desktop computer, especially one that is "full blown". You actually tell me I have to close down all the apps I have running, interrupt all the tasks I'm doing, just to mess around with "maybe broken" disk? I'm sorry, that's just insane. And Windows legacy - I dont have any windows legacy, I come from a different place.
KDE4 is a windows clone in that it doesnt allow me to control my own workflow, it tries to dictate how I shall do things in stead of offering me options so I can decide for myself. And plasma har absolutely nothing to do with this, but plasma ads a heck lot of frustration due to it still being immature and unstable, but most of all because there are no alternatives. It does add alot of "bling" though, just like Vista.
Ofcourse mounting is done by the kernel, all HAL does is detect the device and letting the rest of the system know via dbus. What actually tells the kernel to do the mounting varies alot. IMO it is _perfectly_ reasonable that the DESKTOP running on the console tells the kernel to do the mounting, _AT USERS WILL_.
As for starting yet another desktop project - I think it makes a heck lot more sense to fix KD4, the question is whether it is fixable. Technically it is, easily. But socially? Any critics on Plasma for example is being ignored or ridiculed, plasma is presented as the manna of KDE4 (yet I have not seen it offer anything even slightly impressive) If someone wrote a new kicker for KDE4, not using plasma - would it even be accepted?