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.
Dot Categories:
Comments
> Just because I agree with Bob about KDE4 doesn't mean I am a hater.
It means exactly this cause his comment has exactly nothing to do with critics. The "shame on you" part alone is enough to don't cheerlead for him like you did. Don't expect anyone to take him or you serious with such an anti-social message attached.
Or in short: Don't wonder to have shit in the corner if you shit in the corner.
>It means exactly this cause his comment has exactly nothing to do with critics. The "shame on you" part alone is enough to don't cheerlead for him like you did. Don't expect anyone to take him or you serious with such an anti-social message attached.
It sounds to me like you are arguing with "Bob's" delivery primarily content. I don't really care for his approach either, there's a lot of anger, and in this context it's pretty irrational. But facing up to real problems is the way forward, and on that point I agree with him.
Besides this, I get the same vibe from your posts. A lot of anger, a lot of excuses. I don't know you except for the few posts you've made here, but it sounds to me like you're just making excuses for the state of KDE4.
> Besides this, I get the same vibe from your posts.
> A lot of anger, a lot of excuses.
Correct. I feel guilty for not being able to do what your parents missed: teach you how to interact with others in a social and constructive way. Depending on your age it may even be to late and this would be hard because staying alone in this world, without real friends, without trust and without love, will destroy you.
Here is my tip: try to get in contact with others. You don't like something withint KDE? Well, try to change it in a *constructive* way. The KDE family welcomes anyone, anybody can participate and its a good feeling to work with others on similar goals. You can do something good rather then flaming your personal frustration out anonymously within a forum. Be constructive, feel good, enjoy your time on earth and start to love and be loved!
>Pretending it already IS better is just a hindrance in the long run, not a help.
Agreed, 100%. It seems like nobody in the core KDE team seems to want to admit that their approach to calling a heavily developed new branch a stable build is a mistake. Admitting it was a mistake and restating the direction would only help.
Being honest about mistakes is probably the only reason DreamHost has stayed in business as long as they have. Sure they had a lot of undue breakage and downtime, but they were forthright with their customers, and admitted it was their own fault. Why they've lost so much marketshare to the likes of AS and similar is because after admitting their mistakes, they largely failed to remedy them.
Not to say that all KDE devs are paid, that isn't my point. In fact very few are, and most motivations are probably very positive. But if you are really trying to help people, and build a reputation as the best coders out there, pretending KDE4 is on task and everything's shiny is a misstep.
Hello Bob,
it comes down to that: A stable release is one with bug fixes and security fixes being down by the project. Any project obviously will only expand to that effort where it makes sense and KDE found it made sense to release KDE 4.0.0, which was its own decision.
The quality of 4.0.0 was downright amazingly bad compared to the quality of 3.5 and all earlier releases that I have seen from 2.2 on. The rewrite mistake has been made by the project with regards to kicker (luckily not for kwin), and I am told, it was the only choice.
Given that the project is usually making decent choices, I am willing to wine at the loss of an alternative reality with a KDE 4.0.0 release that had only bugs, not so much feature removal in the core desktop shell at the same time, but then, probably users would have liked that, but no developers were there to implement it, including myself. I regret it, because I think that was a good opportunity to give back.
So, at least I am at peace with KDE 4, even though I won't be able to use it before 4.3 or so.
And one more thing: No KDE developer owes anybody to work for universal success of KDE against all other desktops. Why would they? KDE is e.g. not there to extinguish Gnome, is it? What would be the purpose of that?
Yours,
Kay
Hello Bob,
it comes down to that: A stable release is one with bug fixes and security fixes being down by the project. Any project obviously will only expand to that effort where it makes sense and KDE found it made sense to release KDE 4.0.0, which was its own decision.
The quality of 4.0.0 was downright amazingly bad compared to the quality of 3.5 and all earlier releases that I have seen from 2.2 on. The rewrite mistake has been made by the project with regards to kicker (luckily not for kwin), and I am told, it was the only choice.
Given that the project is usually making decent choices, I am willing to wine at the loss of an alternative reality with a KDE 4.0.0 release that had only bugs, not so much feature removal in the core desktop shell at the same time, but then, probably users would have liked that, but no developers were there to implement it, including myself. I regret it, because I think that was a good opportunity to give back.
So, at least I am at peace with KDE 4, even though I won't be able to use it before 4.3 or so.
And one more thing: No KDE developer owes anybody to work for universal success of KDE against all other desktops. Why would they? KDE is e.g. not there to extinguish Gnome, is it? What would be the purpose of that?
Yours,
Kay
Not a cheerleader, don't stress yourself too much about it Ben. Joe's comment was just the right reply for all that bs.
I don't like the current state KDE 4 is in either, and that's why I'm not using it, just playing around and reporting bugs when I get some spare time. But I see great potential, and that's why I'm willing to wait until 4.2 or 4.3...
On the menu thing: I love the new menu (no cheerleading). I've been using it on KDE 3 for more than 1 year, and it really is a great productivity boost for me. I'm not bothering to explain why or how, I know you're not interested.
>> When we say the menu sucks
>Then "we" failed to note that the traditional menu is still available.
The traditional menu is available in a hackish way. The Suse-provided menu is a mistake, pure and simple. Defending the new, shitty menu because the old one is technically still around doesn't make much sense to me.
>> When we say kicker is broken
>Then "we" failed to realize that it can't be cause there is no kicker any longer.
It's not called "kicker", but it's fundamentally the same. If we are going to regress in to arguing semantics, we may as well bark and growl at this point.
>> When we say Dolphin sucks functionality-wise compared to Konqueror
>Then "we" failed to realize that Konqueror is still there.
Konqueror is still there... as the web browser. But which is the default system browser?
Your "rebuttals" are exactly the same ilk as all the other blind KDE fanboyism which seems to support the KDE4 team no matter what they do. I love KDE, and I think that they have a lot of the best code practices around, even down to using GIT, which is pretty progressive. But again, my primary complaints are about the direction, not about the specific technology. That's just the icing on the cake.
"Defending the new, shitty menu because the old one is technically still around doesn't make much sense to me."
Maybe so, but if someone present the thesis that KDE are depriving the users of choice and power users of their preferred menu, then pointing out the old menu is still there and officially sanctioned by the KDE devs (heck - switching to it is as simple as right-clicking on the menu and choosing "Classic"!) makes perfect sense.
"Konqueror is still there... as the web browser."
And a file manager.
"But which is the default system browser?"
Dolphin. There is of course a GUI option in KDE4.2 to change this which, incidentally, did not exist in KDE3.
It seems to me you're just making excuses. I agree with the parent that the direction KDE is taking frankly sucks. If you really like Vista you probably disagree, but not everybody thinks like that. In fact, things like Window's new ad campaigns like "Mojave Project" go to show that not even MS fans like Vista very much.
Cheers,
-Ben
You mean the direction of having more immediate choice in menus by default and adding the option to configure which file manager you want to use out of the two now installed by default? Sorry, this doesn't make any sense, and I can't imagine how you perceive it as "making excuses".
No, I mean the defaults being [very poor] Vista/OSX rippoffs.
Two options:
1. Set defaults for power users, and hope that less sophisticated users will figure out how to simplify it to their tastes.
2. Set defaults for more naive users, and hope that power users will figure out how to tweak it to their tastes.
You seem to be someone with the ability and interest in tweaking your environment, and once the KDE4 gets fully fleshed out it probably won't take you long to achieve what you want. So, I vote we go with #2.
Maybe I miss your point, but in the comment you're replying to, I was talking about the look and feel. There's no excusable reason to bootleg the look and feel off Vista or Leopard. I mean, even if they were all that attractive (hint: they're overrated), KDE shouldn't be a clone or emulation of their design philosophies. Should it?
I keep seeing claims that KDE4 has the same look and feel as OS X and Vista. I have to admit that I find it difficult to see these claimed similarities. If you are refering to optimizations based on research and proven experience on Human Computer Interaction then I think is better to optimize the experience rather than make it more difficult. Of course one can do without mouse, menus, windows etc because they are "copying" technology and concepts first illustrated with the Xerox Alto personal computer back in 1973, but is this what you want?
Obviously Apple and MS have the resources to pursue research and mass trials on Human Computer Interaction and one can see the results of these studies as part of their products. KDE and other desktop environments do not have the resources to pursue similar studies so they usually come late in improving their interfaces. Sincerely, I do not see anything wrong with developers learning from their experience with other systems. If humans were not learning from others then we would probably have still been living in caves...
-- John
> doesn't make much sense to me.
Before it was all not there and now it's there but does not make sense to be there? Interesting shift in your troll-strategy.
> But which is the default system browser?
Man, you can set whatever you like to your default. Seems you continue to fail and realize just anything.
> Your "rebuttals"
Yet I did prove that ALL of your points are BS and that's your answer? Come on...
> But again, my primary complaints are about the direction
Let me be very clear here: Your primary problem is your attitude and your social interaction.
You still haven't answered the overhanging complaints about a shift towards Vista/Leopard wannabe-ism. In fact, if you were to, it would be a first on any KDE blog or mailing list; at least that I've ever read.
-Ben
> You still haven't answered the overhanging complaints about
> a shift towards Vista/Leopard wannabe-ism.
You are really amazing. First you did present that as fact and now it's a question?
Ultimate answer: Either improve your social skills or stop wasting our time.
#It means exactly this cause his comment has exactly nothing to do with critics. The "shame on you" part alone is enough to don't cheerlead for him like you did. Don't expect anyone to take him or you serious with such an anti-social message attached.
You might take a little of your own advice friend. Plus, it wasn't even a question. What I said that KDE is starting to look like a Vista/Leopard rippoff, and nobody seems to want to talk about it. You answered by changing the subject... if you were trying to rebut the point, you're going about it backwards. :)
-Ben
>> What I said that KDE is starting to look like a Vista/Leopard ripoff, and nobody seems to want to talk about it.
Well instead of running around crying that the sky is falling, what do you propose KDE should look like? I personally feel that one of KDE's greatest strengths is that I can change my icons, colour, window style, splash screen, etc any time I feel like with just a few clicks. And if you're talking less about looks and more about functionality as to how KDE is ripping off everyone else you'll have to provide some examples because I don't see any blatant ripoffs happening. Similarities? Sure. All OS's are going to have some things in common. Hell there are things in Leopard I would love to see in KDE. I'm sure there are going to be things in Windows 7 that are going to be brilliant. I'm also 100% sure that there are and are going to continue to be better than anything else available.
>>the best way is to actually **listen to the power users in your community**
Like when some users said that they wanted the old menu back and so someone rolled up their sleeves and implemented it? Just because things aren't the default way of doing things doesn't mean you weren't listened to. And just because something has yet to be implemented doesn't mean it won't.
>> A healthy open-source effort needs to take negative criticism into account as much or more so than the positive criticism.
When I hear "negative criticism" I think of what you are doing, repeating over and over that such and such feature is broken and not providing any real solutions to remedy it. "Positive criticism" is saying this doesn't work for me what if we tried this or maybe that would work better. No wonder the developers stop listening. If all I ever heard was "it sucks, it looks like Vista" I'd stop listening too. Be constructive, be positive and you might have a better chance of being taken seriously. Otherwise you get labeled a Troll.
The old menu is fundamentally broken. If you install the whole of KDE, it becomes an unusable mess. Make the mistake of changing the font size up too large and it moves into "reformat and install windows" territory. If you have any amount of software installed on your machine, for example to satisfy more than one user, it becomes a mess.
I've watched the iterations on the old menu over the 3.x series, trying to make it work. Different ordering schemes, reorganizations, re classifying, etc. It didn't work.
The only way the old hierarchical menu works is if you severely limit the available selection of software. I find that an insult and travesty. One of the strengths of free software is the available choice.
The new menu is an attempt to deal with reality. You are seeing the second iteration, with many of the frustrations of the first iteration fixed. There is still room for improvement. But to suggest a hierarchical menu as solution for anything is absurd.
Derek (who recently looked at gnome, and seeing a hierarchical menu, removed it. Life is too short.)
And KControl, where is it ? ^^
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=153556
It doesn't seem like KDE people want to take care of this "bug"...
> Then "we" failed to realize that Konqueror is still there.
No, you failed to realize that it uses dolphin part so they are completely the same!
> Then "we" failed to note that the traditional menu is still available.
That 'classic' menu lacks a lot of feutures the kde3 one has. It's really an insufficient replacement for it.
> Then "we" failed to realize that it can't be cause there is no kicker any longer.
Ok ;-) even worse - no kicker and no coequal replacement in terms of functionality.
> Then "we" failed to realize that Konqueror is still there.
As you obviously don't know that konqueror uses the file manager part in common with dolphin, you have to realize - i know, it's hard - that those advanced features are lost in KDE4.
Yup, it's a shame.
But lets hope for a kde 3.5.11 - or a jump to 5.0, simply skiping this KDE4 mistake
i used to be an angry user who keep moaning about the state of kde, linux etc...., but now i have changed, things are more complex then a simple vision of an angry user, kde dev are not stupid at all, they are doing all what they can, they know what they want and to be honest they are damn smart on many aspect, but simply life is not fair.
take the example of plasma team, ask yourself how many of them are paid to do that, or simply how many dev are working on it, you will be surprised by the answer,
kde as any other opensource project need more devs, more artists, more people who can write good and robust documentation, good bug reporter, people who can submit clever and usable ideas with mock-up, people who answer questions on the forum and the mailing list.
come on man, kde can't grow by itself, so please either help them, or at least be polite in your critisism.
You're right, my attitude towards KDE has gradually shifted from helpful to disenfranchised. I don't suppose it would help to say my earlier correspondence was a lot more polite? But it seems like for the most part, KDE has decided "screw the community, we'll do what we want" and users like me are left screaming at a wall.
I don't think you're a troll---you have demonstrated give-and-take in your posts, so you deserve a serious reply.
I don't think it's so much "screw the community" as "honest, guys, we know it's not perfect from a user perspective yet. But really, there's no way you can evaluate what it will become without actually diving into the code, because there hasn't been time for it to mature into its final form. So, we're not going to go into angst or massively change direction because of your criticisms just yet---we have a vision, and we're going to implement it, and we'll be quite interested in your feedback, but we'll take it seriously only after we've had a chance to show you what we think it can become."
Often key, the fundamental advances are in the libraries (think Qt4, but also all of the other underlying technologies developed for KDE4). These changes break a _ton_ of code. It takes a long time for the benefits of these changes to start outweighing the breakages. For code that can be ported, in the short term the best way to get things "up and running" is to _disable_ the features that you haven't had time to port over yet; and obviously, brand new code takes time to become feature-complete. It's that disabling/incompleteness that is bothering many people. It's not a deliberate handicapping, it's simply the most practical way to get applications to the point of being quickly useful.
The fact that it's open source and released periodically should at least be reassuring: you can see for yourself that development is proceeding at a fast pace. It's not a case of someone promising great things but not putting in the work needed to make it happen.
So mostly, it just needs time.
And if you still don't like it a year from now, pick the thing that bothers you most and try to fix it! Even if you can't program, pick a particular feature and provide very specifically-documented suggestions for improvement. I've seen that the developers are quite responsive to that sort of input, at least if the code is in a position to make those kind of changes. (Often, it's a case of, "yeah, you're right, but we first have to get X working before we can even begin to think of tackling Y." Again, it's a case of time, not "screw you.")
Thank you. If the replies I got on mailing and bug lists were more like yours, I confess that my attitude wouldn't suck so bad.
Still, you say that KDE will get better in newer versions... To me, this is a fallacious argument. Of course it will. So will Gnome. So will XFCE. So will OS X, and maybe even Windows. There is always a newer build unless a project has outright died. But the state of KDE4 right now is simply broken. It never should have been released with a stable build number... maybe it shouldn't have even been called KDE at all, but "Plasma" or something similar. That of course is moot; it's called KDE4, and it is what it is.
But this series of mistakes has given Gnome a huge shift in "market share", meaning a shift in resources and interest as well. And the fact that nobody seems to be willing to call it a mistake is perhaps the biggest mistake of all. We are a joke in the larger OSS community -- that's right, I don't exclude myself as a member of the KDE community, nor exempt from blame that it sucks -- let alone in the larger sphere of technology. In purist terms this doesn't mean anything. Who cares what people think? But answer me this. Is MS king of the desktop because the technology's any good, or because people perceive it a certain way?
"But the state of KDE4 right now is simply broken."
Can you elaborate, in detail, what makes it "broken"? I'm honestly asking this because I'm using KDE4 even on production machines, and most breakage I see is stuff I caused myself (mixing packages, old plasmoids that I forgot to update...).
KDE4 was released almost year ago and since then I see enormous amount of eyecandy added, but you still have settings in systemsettings that doesn't work or do anything (dead checkboxes), a problem reported several times in b.k.o. In my opinion, that means it's broken. Only solution I see is that they make 4.3 release a bugfix only release (or b.k.o cleaning release).
To me it only means that some areas need more manpower. Remember people, it's all about scratching an itch.
Yes, but if you don't have enough manpower, existing should be redirected to that areas. If not, we won't have a good DE. I know that most people are not paid for their work, but I'm also not paid to give only good comments.
In a volunteer-drive project, "redirecting manpower" is, unfortunately, meaningless - volunteers will work on what they want to work on. Some kind of incentive is required, and I don't know what form that would take.
Then volunteers will have to accept the fact that they will not have the best DE around.
Well the volunteers are already happy with what they are working on. that's why they volunteered. Those who don't volunteer, they get to wait like everyone else. It's not about being the best, it's about doing something that's fun, that you like, that interests you. Everything else is largely secondary.
"Yes, but if you don't have enough manpower, existing should be redirected to that areas."
So you are suggesting that the artists are told to hack the code? That would be the same if construction-crew of an apartment-building decided to make the painters work on the electrical-work on the site, because it was running behind schedule. Nevermind the fact that they have no clue about how to install electricity-stuff....
Did I mentioned artists? Don't read between the lines. There's just empty space there.
Basically he is extrapolating because people here apparently can't handle subtlety. What he means everybody's area of expertise is different and you can't just assign people to work on code which they do not understand.
If they are inclined or wish to work on something then they will take the time to understand, but you can't force anybody seeing as it is voluntary.
I know, but if devs that wrote all the good stuff in the old days (think kprinter) are now gone, that only confirms the subject of this thread.
Intersting quote at the bottom of this page:
"If you have an itch not being scratched, you can scratch it, or pay someone to scratch it for you." -- Eric Laffoon
It is true that some things are still not there, but if you don't have to patience to wait for them then you can do as the quotation suggested. Or you can go look at the feature plans on techbase and see that the printer stuff is actually being worked on.
If something is on the feature list that doesn't mean it will be in the final version. Printing stuff was planned for 4.0, then postponed for 4.1, then 4.2 and probably will soon be postponed again.
But I have patience, I use debian and they are luckily still on 3.5.
Do you know what I do to try to get bugs fixed? I donate to KDE e.V and earmark money for specific tasks, like KOffice in the hopes that the devs there will fix bugs.
That's the cheap way of doing things. I could just hire a devel and make him/her write a patch, but things aren't that important to me.
I think KDE in its current state is quite OK and it does all things I need it to do. It's far from perfect but much better than any of the alternatives (IMHO).
"KDE4 was released almost year ago and since then I see enormous amount of eyecandy added, but you still have settings in systemsettings that doesn't work or do anything (dead checkboxes)"
You do realize that artwork and functionality is handled by different people? adding artwork does not mean that functionality and bugs are not being worked on (or vice versa). Do you suggest that the artists should just twiddle their thumbs and do nothing, if the coders don't happen to be working fast enough for your tastes?
I'm sorry but eyecandy is done in c++ too. Please don't enter the conversation if you cannot understand what I write.
Really? Icons are C++? Desktop-backgrounds are C++? Themes are C++?
Damn, I used one of my own photographs as a desktop-background. I must be a real C++-wizard!
Did I mention icons or backgrounds? Themes (styles) are c++, but i'm not talking about that either. Please stop being so ignorant. Try this:
http://www.ereslibre.es/?p=98
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8wgD4gkVwU
[...]
"Did I mention icons or backgrounds?"
We are talking about artwork, are we not?
"http://www.ereslibre.es/?p=98"
Looks like a feature to me
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8wgD4gkVwU"
Looks like a feature to me, and not artwork. Artwork would be creating textures on those snowflakes. Code that simulates snowfall on the desktop is not artwork, it's a feature.
Do you even know what "artwork" is=. This is artowkr:
http://www.nuno-icons.com/
No, we are not talking about artwork! I didn't mention the word artwork not once. Stay focused, don't put words in my mouth, reduce your imagination and read the whole thread again.