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!

Dot Categories: 

Comments

by Anonymous (not verified)

Another fact: if Raptor or Lancelot would be "done"/tested by users there would be also people complaining about it.

by Bobby (not verified)

Thank you very much. Lancelot looks very nice but like you said, it's not done. Raptor's concept sounds good but I haven't had the possibility of testing it so I can't make a comparison and I can do just about anything with Kickoff which is presently the only usable Start Menu for KDE4.

by Erunno (not verified)

There's probably also users like me who have been using Kickoff since openSUSE 10.2 released it and are quite content with it and don't feel the need to praise it on each and every occasion that presents itself.

I still fail to see how the application browser is a regression for anyone *but* the power users who are used to moving their mouse very precisely (which is required for tree-based menues as slipping often means that either the node disappears or another gets opened). Kickoff on the other hand has a very large horizontal click area and an acceptable height, the buck button (at least when left aligned) is almost impossible to miss and, in my oppinion, the decision to only show a node with its leaves/subtrees at any given moment makes it far easier to navigate as too many entries can make a tree based menu look gigantic (I've been burned by that too often in Windows where application don't even go to sub-categories) and less overwhelming (yes, it obfuscates the fact that there are dozens of applications in your menu by only showing small subsets). Plus, introducing scrolling allows you to have additional information (like descriptions) for each entry which in a tree based menu could lead too aforementioned escalation of height.

And judging by some complains here it sounds like people use the application browser all day long (why?).

by uuhmyeahrightnstuff (not verified)

Uhm..OK I'll bite. Press Alt+F2 and then in krunner type 'kcmshell4 desktop' then enter. It lets you set a number of virtual desktops as in KDE3. Then start the pager-applet from the plasma widget browser and your ready to switch desktop like crazy!
kcmshell4 --list gives you a list of kcontrol modules. Some of them work, some of them don't.

by Melchior FRANZ (not verified)

Sounds like an excellent procedure for a *release* candidate!

by Prom (not verified)

Congratulations to the KDE team for their great work. My respect. :)

by marce (not verified)

Include apps (either extragears or playgrounds) that have not kde3 versión into "test distros". I'm referring specially to kaider.

by bsander (not verified)

Can anyone tell me how it performs on a Xinerama or TwinView setup? Thanks!

by sebas (not verified)

It works really well, I'm using it daily.

by muesli (not verified)

sadly not that well here. the panel is only semi-visible and my most-left monitor starts rendering the background somewhere mid-screen. the rest is just white. no sure if it's related to that, but i can't make the rc last longer than 2 minutes before crashing completely.

by Skeith (not verified)

Some screenshots I see here ( http://vizzzion.org/?blogentry=742 ) have compiz-like effects but are powered by kwin. Is Kwin4 intended to replace compiz for KDE or can you still use them both?

by chris.w (not verified)

KWin4 is a game. I guess you mean KWin 4. :-P

by Louis (not verified)

That's confused me a time or two, as well. Maybe a rename is in order?

by chris.w (not verified)

Totally agreed.

by Dan Leinir Turt... (not verified)

What, like... KWin Composite? ;)

by Louis (not verified)

I was kinda suggesting a rename for KWin4. I just don't get the "win" part in that name. It subliminally tells me that it has something to do with windows or windowing, when, in reality, it's a Connect 4 game. Would Konnect4 push legal boundaries? Or how about something new, sans "k"?

by Paul Eggleton (not verified)

I think Konnect4 was not chosen for that reason.

How about KJoin4?

by T. J. Brumfield (not verified)

You can enable compiz, but without swapping out the window manager itself, it isn't really all that nifty. You can use compiz and KDE 4 at the same time, but the new Kwin has built in composite effects, and largely is meant to replace compiz and compiz-fusion.

by Skeith (not verified)

For some reason I thought that Kwin didn't provide its own effects, but had just been made compatible with compiz (as in you didn't have to switch it when using Compiz). Thanks for clearing that up.

by T. J. Brumfield (not verified)

Kwin in KDE 3.5.x did not provide effects. Kwin in KDE 4.x does.

by chris.w (not verified)

Well, actually KWin in KDE 3.5 has not been "made compatible" with Compiz Fusion, but rather the other way round: There is a Compiz plugin that can emulate the look & feel of KWin, so you can control the decoration settings via the KDE control center as if you were actually using KWin. I guess that's what you meant.

by Leo S (not verified)

Yes, Kwin is the default window manager and now has compiz-style effects. It is probably still possible to use compiz though.

by Sutoka (not verified)

You can't use both KWin and Compiz at the same time. Both want to be the X Server's Window Manager (+ Composite Manager). Compiz does have a plugin that will allow you to use KWin's window decorations, but that ONLY emulates the borders for Compiz, without actually using KWin's (far superior IMO) window management code.

Compiz (last I checked) can't work at all if your system isn't running with Composite extension enabled with AIGLX support (or Xgl, which seems to have lost the appeal it had), KWin on the other hand will gracefully fall back depending on what your system supports. If your system has both, it'll use both, if it has Composite but not AIGLX, it'll use XRender for the compositing. If it doesn't even have Composite, it'll simply be a window manager like it is in KDE 3.x. I think for a good while it'll still be a wise choice for a large amount of users to run without XRendered's Composite/GLed' Composite, although Fedora seems to be wanting to try to flesh out the last of the Composite bugs which I'm sure will help out a great deal.

Ah the fun of rambling when I'm alternating which eye I'm attempting to keep open!

by furanku (not verified)

Will KDE 4 support the Mac OS style menu bar at the top of the screen? I liked that feature very much in KDE 3, but couldn't find it in KDE 4.

by kiwiki4e (not verified)

I second this! I use this feature in KDE all the time and could not live without it. I hope this feature will be in KDE4 soon!

by kakalto (not verified)

I third this. The integration of all KDE apps to use this bar was beautiful, one of my most recent discoveries in KDE. The only downside to it, is you can't manipulate it - In my two-screen scenario, it's stuck using the entire top of the screen (As in, across both). It'd be cooler if it was more like a kicker applet, and be managed like the other bars.

I haven't tried the RC out yet, so I wouldn't know if this is a redundant post or not =/

by dreadhead (not verified)

I had the same problem. In kde 3 you can change the file ~/kde/share/config/kickerrc and set the value of XineramaScreen to your preferred screen. The problem is, that there must be a bug that always resets the value to 0 (both screens). But if you remove the write-permissions it works. The only problem now is that you have to reset this write-permissions as root every time you want to change something on the menubar. But it works this way.

Hope this helps.

by dreadhead (not verified)

oh sorry... I meant ~/kde/share/config/kicker_menubarpanelrc...

by Lubos Lunak (not verified)

I'm not sure what the status of it is in 4.0, there are chances it got broken during the Qt4 porting. But I use it as well in KDE3 and will definitely have a look into it as soon as possible (which probably means somewhen post-4.0).

by Anon (not verified)

Much appreciated, Lubos - as was your recent blog :)

by furanku (not verified)

Thank you very much!

by cloose (not verified)

very cool! Thank you Lubos.

by chris.w (not verified)

It seems like every time I try to search bugs on bugs.kde.org, I wait and wait and wait until I get a timeout. For the very same reason, I can't file any bug reports, although I've already found plenty of problems to report. Seems like the server can't take the sudden onslaught of testers ...

by chris.w (not verified)

Sorry for the double post :-(

by T. J. Brumfield (not verified)

Judging from the new screenshots, it looks like much of the dead/empty/white space has been trimmed. It isn't nearly as tight as I'd like, but it looks much better. I'm also assuming eventually there will be plenty of themes for me to choose from on kde-look later on regardless.

I think it is starting to look really good.

Perhaps it is time for me to stop just trying out live cds everyone once in a while, and actually install KDE 4 for myself. I think this weekend, I will take the plunge!

by Luis (not verified)

I'm not trolling, it isn't what I want to do.

However, don't you think some basic stuff should be there for been able of calling it Release Candidate? And yes, I believe most KDE 4.0 is already on that state.

But come'on, plasma support a lot of nifty effects, plasmoids, dashboard, etc. and I'm not able to change my wallpaper... WTF

And, could some benevolent soul could tell me where is the config file where I can change the background? Thanks in advance.

Oh, I've seen that now Plasmoids support some kind of dialog around them, which aloud me to move them, configure them, rotate them or remove them. I like the idea, but, it's one hundred times more intuitive to move plasmoids dragging them from the border than that, whit the new dialog I had to think how I was supposed to move them!

This new dialog is also very ugly, but it isn't important, I'm sure it would change.

I know that you know that Plasma panel needs work still, so I won't complain about it, but it isn't RC quality.

Can't you hide all those pop-ups in System Settings? They're annoying.

Aside from those, KDE 4.0 RC 1 it's amazing. I love Dolphin, I wrote this from Konqueror, you can flame me, but I like kickoff, ksysguard is ten times better than the KDE 3.5.x version, juk surprised me! Amarok is nice, it has some bugs here and there, and the plasma context is still unusable, but it's shaping nicely, I love the new playlist, Kontact suite, is better too, and overall it's an impressive release.

PS: Ok, I did wrote this in Konqueror, but I couldn't post it! Filling a bug report...

by SadEagle (not verified)

Good catch on posting bug... Seems like this mode is dropping chars.. Ugh.. Looking into it (and this post is part of it -- want a wireshark log for 3.x)

by Luis (not verified)

Can you please the benevolent soul that tells me how to change the background image? XD

by SadEagle (not verified)

Let's see if this fixes it. Annoying QCString/QByteArray differences

by SadEagle (not verified)

OK, fix committed. Thanks for the heads up --- though I don't see a corresponding bugzilla report.

by Luis (not verified)

No problem. And, oops, I'm really sorry I wrote that when I was supposed to be going to the university, so I was going to make it tonight. Could you believe that I actually think that this may happen XD?

Anyway, cheers to you for fixing it.

by Luis (not verified)

No problem. And, oops, I'm really sorry I wrote that when I was supposed to be going to the university, so I was going to make it tonight. Could you believe that I actually thought that this may happen XD?

Anyway, cheers to you for fixing it.

by Michael (not verified)

I ignored all beta releases. KDE 4 RC1 is my first ever glimpse at KDE 4. I'm using the Kubuntu packages. What I like:
* Sound effects. Not too much. Very professional
* Design of windows, control elements etc
* Plasma applets. Even rotatable. Can image this will be really great,
once more applets become available
* Icons scaling dynamically when resizing the panes in Dolphin
* Didnt experience crashes. Seems already very stable.
* K Menu doesnt look as crowded and filled with icons as it used to be. Only necessary things appear.

What I didnt like (still work-in-progress, I know):
* Everything feels a bit more "sluggish" than in KDE 3. When rotating plasma applets this becomes especially evident (though this feature isnt available in KDE 3). But also other, simpler things, like scrolling, clicking menus, etc. take a little bit more time. Not so much that I would call it unusable, but just enough to keep me from using it regularly right now.
* When I start Okular there is a strange window resize problem.
* New K menu behaves a bit strange. Especially, I dont like that the menu switches between different completely different things just by "touching" them with the mouse. This happened to me accidentally quite often. Very confusing.
* Taskbar looks strange. Window titles are wrapped around unnecessarily and over 3 lines. Task icons appear in the center for no reason at all, but perhaps this is the new KDE 4 way and I still need to get used to it.

by Skeith (not verified)

According to other posts, the Kubuntu packages don't have the new taskbar ( pictured here http://vizzzion.org/images/kde-4.0-post-rc1/desktop.jpg ). Which may be the cause of your strange looking taskbar.

I'm using my KDE desktop via a openvpn connection (over 10Mbit/sec ADSL) with a SunRay2 thin client and compared to KDE 3.5.x the new KDE 4 RC1 is not too impressive. It seems to redraw my windows and desktop somewhat slower and generally seems more sluggish. Is there any known obvious reason for this?

by Petteri (not verified)

Try using freenx it's really fast and nice.

That's a bit hard when my workplace supplies me with the SunRay2 and it just connects to the department SunRay server (running Linux).
I just noticed that when the admin did a test install of KDE 4RC1 that I could pick as my login session, that it was a fair bit slower and more annoying to use compared to my regular KDE 3.5.x session.
I don't control the software on the server that I log on to and the SunRay thin client is entirely software-less.

by Arif Khan (not verified)

I was under the impression that Sunray 2 (built in vpn client) doesnot work with openvpn, since SR2 is based on IPSEC and openvpn is an SSL implementation.

Can you share any implementation detail with me ?

Thanks

by Arif Khan (not verified)

I was under the impression that sunray2 (builtin vpn client) doesnot work with openvpn, since sunray 2 is based on IPSEC and openvpn is an SSL implementaion.

Can you share any details of your implementation ?

by Matttias (not verified)

Hi,
I just wanted to tell that KDE 4 is looking great but in fact it's too slow... I have tested it on a AMD64 with kubuntu 7.10 and a 256MB video card... I hope it will be fixed