The Start of Something Amazing with KDE 4.0 Release

Several years of design, development and testing came together today for the release of KDE 4.0. This is our most significant release in our 11 year history and marks both the end of the long and intensive development cycle leading up to KDE 4.0 and the start of the KDE 4 era. Join us now in #kde4-release-party on Freenode to celebrate or come to the release event in person next week. Packages are available for all the major distributions with live CDs available currently from Kubuntu and openSUSE. Read on for details or take the KDE 4.0 Visual Guide to find your way around.

The KDE 4.0 desktop

The KDE 4 Libraries have seen major improvements in almost all areas.
The Phonon multimedia framework provides platform independent multimedia support to all
KDE applications, the Solid hardware integration framework makes interacting with
(removable) devices easier and provides tools for better powermanagement.

The KDE 4 Desktop has gained some major new capabilities. The Plasma desktop shell
offers a new desktop interface, including panel, menu and widgets on the desktop
as well as a dashboard function. KWin, the KDE Window manager, now supports advanced
graphical effects to ease interaction with your windows.

Lots of KDE Applications have seen improvements as well. Visual updates through
vector-based artwork, changes in the underlying libraries, user interface
enhancements, new features, even new applications -- you name it, KDE 4.0 has it.
Okular, the new document viewer and Dolphin, the new filemanager are only two
applications that leverage KDE 4.0's new technologies.

The Oxygen Artwork team provides a breath of fresh air on the desktop.
Nearly all user-visible parts of the KDE desktop and applications have been given a
facelift. Beauty and consistency are two of the basic concepts behind Oxygen.

Distributions known to have packages:

  • An alpha version of KDE4-based Arklinux 2008.1 is expected
    shortly after this release, with an expected final release within 3 or 4 weeks.
  • Debian KDE 4.0 packages are available in the experimental branch.
    The KDE Development Platform will even make it into Lenny. Watch for
    announcements by the Debian KDE Team.
  • Fedora will feature KDE 4.0 in Fedora 9, to be released
    in April, with Alpha releases being available from
    24th of January. KDE 4.0 packages are in the pre-alpha Rawhide repository.
  • Gentoo Linux provides KDE 4.0 builds on
    http://kde.gentoo.org.
  • Kubuntu packages are included in the upcoming "Hardy Heron"
    (8.04) and also made available as updates for the stable "Gutsy Gibbon" (7.10).
    A Live CD is available for trying out KDE 4.0.
    More details can be found in the
    announcement on kubuntu.org
    .
  • Mandriva will provide packages for
    2008.0 and aims
    at producing a Live CD with the latest snapshot of 2008.1.
  • openSUSE packages are available
    for
    openSUSE 10.3 (
    one-click
    install
    ),
    openSUSE Factory (
    one-click
    install
    )
    and openSUSE 10.2. A KDE
    Four Live CD
    with these packages is also available. KDE 4.0 will be part of the upcoming
    openSUSE 11.0 release.
  • openSUSE based KDE Four Live CD

Thanks to the coders, artists, usability experts, testers, bug triagers and many more who have made this release the start of something amazing. Tell us what you think on this
4.0 feedback page.

Dot Categories: 

Comments

by Diederik van de... (not verified)

Don't forget Apache 2.0 and Linux 2.6.0 here ;-)

Alright... But comparing KDE to another KDE only proves that the same mistake has been done more than once. It's no excuse, it's rather a proof of a principle which in my opinion is very wrong.

When it comes to MacOS X... Well, a lot of things have changed in Apple since then and I think they've learned a lesson that a brand new product should be shiny and beautiful if you want to sell it, no matter what product you are talking about: a player, a phone or an OS. I do not think that official MacOS 11.0 will be as unusable as official KDE 4.0 is now. The problem is that KDE team have generated a buzz around KDE4 but - contrary to Apple - they did not manage to release a product as good as they said it would be.

GNOME? I don't know, I'm not a GNOME guy, so I can't say anything about that.

Anyway, I think it's partly a KDE devel team's fault - they are the ones who boasted about the new KDE's improvements, speed, ease of use etc. If you are not ready to release a REALLY good product on time, you should either wait or stop boasting about how great things you have done while developing a new program because disappointing people always brings worse effects than giving them an average product.

by Aaron J. Seigo (not verified)

> The problem is that they highlight and don't un highlight automatically.

already fixed in 4.0.1

> Second the desktop effects (rotations and window movement is really choppy.

those are actually not the same app coming into play. in either case, this is composite making life miserable for you. if you're using nvidia drivers, make sure you're using the latest from the end of december and use the nvidia hack envvar mentioned earlier in the comments on this story. otherwise, wait for kwin's compositing to mature or just turn it off

> Third half of the customization options from KDE3 are missing.

i call bullshit on this one. if you mean "half the customizations from kicker", yes. if you mean "half the customizations from kdesktop" your probably not right (haven't counted exactly, but i'm pretty sure plasma is currently beyond its feature count). if you mean "half the customizations of all kde together" you're wildly wrong as there are new features all over the place.

so... kicker features: coming.

in the meantime, you may enjoy life more by keeping some perspective.

> Fourth amarok started twice when I double clicked on an MP3 file.
> It then crashed.

amarok2? if so, you do realize that amarok is not release with the kde libs/base/extras packages and that amarok2 is currently pre-alpha?

as for starting twice, that's also been fixed in svn (you have to turn on double click, of course)

> Fifth did I mention this release was incredibly slow.

you ran out of things at four? ;)

> PS I don't like the icons becoming widgets!

you may find that if you stop fighting the tools that you'll find ways to work better. note that i didn't say "make the software work better" but *you* can work better. now, we've only got a few of the new user visible tools in plasma ready for 4.0, in part because we spent so much time on the traditional components to keep people such as yourself as content as possible in the time we had, but as those come out you'll start to get a much better idea of why the icons being widgets is actually a really smart idea.

no, i'm not going to explain it here. i'd probably do a poor job of it, it's not a trivial topic and i really don't feel like arguing about it with random passers-by either =)

by Bobby (not verified)

"but as those come out you'll start to get a much better idea of why the icons being widgets is actually a really smart idea"

Already it is a pretty good idea because one can easily change the sizes of each individual icon without going to system settings, they can be rotated and closed instead of being deleted.
If one locks the widgets then they will look like normal icons :)

For people with performance problems, it's more of a composite problem. If the effects or turned off or the nVidia hack is applied then the world will change instantly like you mentioned.
Aaron you and the rest of the team are doing a fine job. The vision is unfolding and I can see the light :)

by Markus Büchele (not verified)

I would like to thank Frederik Gladhorn and the KDE Edu team for their outstanding work! Frederik has ported or actually rewritte KVocTrain and has put in an incredible amount of work.
Parley is an excellent vocabulary (and partly grammar) trainer and will be even better with the new features implemented in KDE 4.1! A BIG thanks!!!

by KDE User (not verified)

Did anyone notice the screenshot at the top? Konsole now has its rightful place back on Kicker!!

by Pavel os (not verified)

GO gnome

by Hans (not verified)

Sorry to disappoint you, but
1. Kicker is dead in the 4 series
2. The screenshot is showing Konsole in the taskbar.

by Stephan (not verified)

you can add any program to panel with right click in menu..

by Remulus (not verified)

You've all done a terrific job! Ale or lager?

by Aaron J. Seigo (not verified)

scotch! =)

by Bram (not verified)

Thanks to all the KDE developers for this release! I am a KDE user since 0.x and believe KDE 4.0 is a good base for the future.

Does anyone managed to get a dual head setup running with the new 'intel' X driver and randr 1.2? When I try to add a second screen next to the existing one with the xrandr command line tool, strange things happen (white screens etc).

by Aaron J. Seigo (not verified)

yeah, xrander 1.2 does some brilliantly *stupid* things with regards to how it reports via xinerama API. apparently the x.org developers don't understand how implementation details, while useful for configuration tools and the implementation itself, is completely useless and even dangerous to expose to applications using your API. with xrandr 1.2 they've put out a bunch of implementation detail related information to do with screens via the xinerama API, resulting in what really amounts to a practical behaviour change in the API.

it was a remarkably short sighted thing to do, and when i brought it up with the responsible parties very nicely with detailed reasons why ... they replied with "well, we like it that way. i hope you can get your app to work with it." that's nearly a word-for-word quote.

we'll probably end up working around it in QDesktopWidget, but i still can't believe they thought it was a good idea in the first place.

yes, i'm looking at you keithp.

by mornfall (not verified)

Eh, it works for other WMs (and I have been using it with xmonad for months now, without much ado -- it actually works great). I think some other people use it with Flux and possibly others and I haven't heard anyone complaining so far. But then, I haven't looked under the hood. From the user standpoint, it works well enough for me not to have the need to get nosy.

by Bram (not verified)

yups, randr 1.2 even works pretty well in the latest KDE 3.5 releases so their should be a way to fix it. The functionality in randr 1.2 is a huge improvement for users (eg connecting a beamer etc). I guess it just takes some time before KDE is fully compatible with randr 1.2. A configuration utility is also missing.

(thanks for the numerous interesting answers on this website, Aaron)

by Thomas Zander (not verified)

Using Qt has spoiled you :)

Not everyone can design APIs, and maybe there are others that really liked it. I don't know. The question is if it *can* be used properly or that it really requires a hack.
If the latter; you might get them to change behavior. But your public dissing of this guy might not have bought you cookies ;)

by Saulo (not verified)

I'd like to contragulate KDE Development Team, programmers, designers, documenters, testers, everyone of them, for this release; I believe that every new KDE release is 'the most important', because it shows to the world how open source can be efficient, beautiful, socially responsable, communitarially sustentable; a happy 2008 for every of you with big advance in KDE 4 development!

by Confidence guy (not verified)

It will be the most impressive and amazing release ever done.

Congratulations for all KDE team.

by Oh Calcutta (not verified)

Sir,

We would like to hear from you.

by David James (not verified)

I downloaded the Kunbuntu live CD image. I guess my first comment is that this took forever @ 40 kb/s; surprisingly there was no listing under the KTorrent search engine for a torrent.

I tested this on a computer with a serial mouse, which, while more Kubuntu's fault than KDE's, the lack of being able to do anything until I pulled the USB mouse out of my main computer and plugged it into the test computer was not an auspicious start. Ya, that's right - a serial mouse wasn't supported "out of the box".

I found the launch menu irritating, especially the arrow system. And why is it so short yet so wide? I mean there was a scroll bar in it in the default layout. That's ridiculous. I haven't yet figured out how to configure that sucker, but it needs an overhaul to make it useable.

Dolphin seems fine once it is configured and customized, but the default is next to unusable. I had to change just about every setting to something else. Even basic things like file attributes under detail view and the lack of the up button in the default set up. And where are my tabs?

Has Konqueror been stripped of its search bar or is that a Kubuntu thing?

About this time I noticed that overall KDE 4 is a lot faster than KDE 3.x, even though it was running from a CD! That I have to say is impressive.

Next I decided to do something about the clock in the tray. What happened to the configuration options? Where's the option to show seconds? Either leave the option in place or take the setting from the system date/time preferences where seconds are set but removeable. And the date - I want to see the numeric date, not the short format date. Even the handy little ability of being able to copy the date/time to the clipboard has been stripped out.

I hope the clock isn't indicative of an overall change in direction towards the GNOME model of stripping out customization options as that's one of the many things about KDE that makes it truly unique and usable desktop. It would be a disappointment if this advantage is just given up.

by Michael (not verified)

>I found the launch menu irritating, especially the arrow system. And why is it >so short yet so wide? I mean there was a scroll bar in it in the default >layout. That's ridiculous. I haven't yet figured out how to configure that >sucker, but it needs an overhaul to make it useable.

The new menu has been critisized to the extent where it will be removed for sure.

>Has Konqueror been stripped of its search bar or is that a Kubuntu thing?

I think the search bar was in a separate package (kdeextras of something.) so yes, it is a Kubuntu thing.

>Dolphin seems fine once it is configured and customized, but the default is >next to unusable. I had to change just about every setting to something else. >Even basic things like file attributes under detail view and the lack of the >up button in the default set up. And where are my tabs?

What did you need to change. I'll think of some possibilities I'm sure were some:
1. No "up" button:
This was replaced by the "breadcrumbs" system. To go up, just click the button next to your current directory.
2. "Breadcrumbs are crumby":
To each it's own.

by David James (not verified)

> What did you need to change. I'll think of some possibilities I'm sure were >some:
> 1. No "up" button:
> This was replaced by the "breadcrumbs" system. To go up, just click the >button next to your current directory.
> 2. "Breadcrumbs are crumby":
> To each it's own.

Since I tested it on a live CD, I can't recall exactly, but offhand they included the lack of up and refresh buttons (need this for remote filesystems), changing to a details view, showing hidden files, showing file attributes (this ought to be in the settings or otherwise handled differently since I had to cycle through the menus a few times to get them all...), adding the "Places" panel (iirc) so I could get a tree view back, showing the location bar and making that editable (?!), showing the file preview pane and finally showing the console.

I might have missed one or two :)

by David James (not verified)

> What did you need to change. I'll think of some possibilities I'm sure were >some:
> 1. No "up" button:
> This was replaced by the "breadcrumbs" system. To go up, just click the >button next to your current directory.
> 2. "Breadcrumbs are crumby":
> To each it's own.

Since I tested it on a live CD, I can't recall exactly, but offhand they included the lack of up and refresh buttons (need this for remote filesystems), changing to a details view, showing hidden files, showing file attributes (this ought to be in the settings or otherwise handled differently since I had to cycle through the menus a few times to get them all...), adding the "Places" panel (iirc) so I could get a tree view back, showing the location bar and making that editable (?!), showing the file preview pane and finally showing the console.

I might have missed one or two :)

by David James (not verified)

I missed out a letter in my email address on the first reply - so if you reply please reply to the second one to prevent some other person from getting email messages :)

Sorry all.

David

by yman (not verified)

"showing the location bar and making that editable"

this exists by default I believe. if you put the mouse pointer over an empty space in the location bar, a vertical black line should appear. click, and it will become editable. in regards to breadcrumb navigation: it's similar to Vista, but way better. if you ever used Vista or GNOME you'll know how to navigate up any number of directories you want at once by clicking on a directory name. you'd also know (if you used Vista, although KDE does this better) that you can click on the arrow near the directory name to list all non-dot-file directories (or whatever they're called) in a drop-down list, and navigate to them by clicking on their entry in the list. try it.

to go back to breadcrumb navigation from text navigation in the address bar, click the yellow button to it's right.

by JRT (not verified)

> This was replaced by the "breadcrumbs" system. To go up, just click the
> button next to your current directory.

DUH! :-) This is simply wrong. "BreadCrumbs" can be used instead of the "Back" button. Yes, there are times when the "Up" button and the "Back" button have the same result, but that does not mean that they are the same. The "Up" button will still go up when there are NO "BreadCrumbs".

IIRC, discussion reached the conclusion that the "Up" button should be there in the Konqueror "FileManager" profile. So, it should be in Dolphin as default. Doesn't much matter to me since the toolbars are easy to configure -- a feature that I use a lot.

by Aaron J. Seigo (not verified)

> why is it so short yet so wide

this is configurable, and will be freely resizable for 4.1

> configure that sucker

right click on it.

> to make it useable

i'll bet you'd prefer the simple launcher instead. go for it =)

> Dolphin

you probably aren't the target audience for dolphin. that's why we also have konqueror.

> Either leave the option in place or take the setting from the system
> date/time preferences where seconds are set but removeable. And the date - I
> want to see the numeric date, not the short format date. Even the handy
> little ability of being able to copy the date/time to the clipboard has been
> stripped out.

your operating under a very mistaken idea here that the clock was ported. it's not. nothing on the desktop was ported. it's a straight up re-write. consider that kicker is the result of 7 years of work. a good amount of that work was mine, so i'm pretty aware of what it took to get all those features in there. we'll get all the little creature comforts back (and faster if others contribute patches, which many are doing!) and provide a hell of a lot more than was ever realistically possible with kdesktop/kicker.

but yeah... if you can't manage for a while without being able to copy/paste the time from the clock then i suggest that kde 4.0 is too bleeding edge for your needs and check back later, perhaps in 4.1.

at that point you may wish to ask yourself if you'd rather have waited for the little things to finish out or if you'd rather have been stuck with the kicker/kdesktop concepts instead.

> KDE 4 is a lot faster than KDE 3.x

and to think that this is a first release. =)

by JRT (not verified)

> ... nothing on the desktop was ported. it's a straight up re-write. consider
> that kicker is the result of 7 years of work.

I am at a loss here to understand why 7 years of work were simply thrown out. Is there no consideration at all given to the reuse of code? That is supposed to be one of the advantages of an OO language.

> at that point you may wish to ask yourself if you'd rather have waited for
> the little things to finish out or if you'd rather have been stuck with the
> kicker/kdesktop concepts instead.

I can see nothing wrong with the kicker/desktop concept. IAC, what concerns a user is what he can do with what is presented to them and the current desktop and panel lack many of the features that are present in KDE3. Perhaps the developers don't understand this, pointing out instead how good the new code is -- this doesn't really matter to users!

Yes, I know that there were serious problems in the KDE code for Kicker and KDesktop, but it did what the user wanted and you only ran into the bugs when you tried to configure some of it. IIRC, AJS told me that he wasn't going to fix bugs that I had reported because he was going to write the new Plasma desktop. :-(

The only thing that I see new is the widgets -- a feature that I would use only for a clock and then only if there was a way to bring it to the top of the stack of X windows (like a panel in KDE3.4). With perfect hind site, perhaps it would have been better to implement the existing features first and then add new ones.

by James Hancock (not verified)

I really don't understand how the people can bring on the same arguments over and over again.

First. Aaron maintains/maintained the kicker code. So he should really know it better, if a rewrite was neccessary. He laid his arguments out very well in his blog, maybe you should read it!

Btw. have ever made a bug report concerning your problem with the kicker? If not, you should really think If you are in the position to criticize Aaron...

Second. Code will get messed up with time, no matter what language you use! Every programmer knows this. Sometimes you need to make clean cut, and use the new knowledge you made over time to start a new, clean and sustainable codebase.

Third and last. They are doing this in their free time. so please be thankful for what you got, even if it's not perfect. Be a little mor patient, you are not perfect either!

by JRT (not verified)

> I really don't understand how the people can bring on the same arguments over
> and over again.

That is just rhetoric, it means nothing. I was answering somebody else and I still have the same answere that I had a month ago, but he brought the subject up again. The fact that I, or someone else, may have said it before does not mean that it isn't valid.

> So he should really know it better, if a rewrite was neccessary.

I am still saying with hindsight that he may have made an error. Perhaps the job was simply bigger than he thought which is OK, but the finished code is late.

> Btw. have ever made a bug report concerning your problem with the kicker?

Didn't I say I did? http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=125894

Also a few more: 47627, 117868, 115468, and according to bug 132349 many more related bugs. Many of these have been marked as FIXED but the basic problem remains. So, I'm not sure if they have actually been fixed.

> Second. Code will get messed up with time, no matter what language you use!
> Every programmer knows this.

If you are saying that hacking results in poorly maintained code, I have to agree with you. However, well maintained code should be reusable. Anyone that understands the rational for OO language knows that in theory they are eaisler to maintain than procedural languages.

I find your "Third" comment irrelevant.

by Ben (not verified)

>I am at a loss here to understand why 7 years of work were simply thrown out. Is there no >consideration at all given to the reuse of code? That is supposed to be one of the advantages >of an OO language.

In short Kicker and Kdesktop were reaching their limits, it was designed before compositing, when no one had thought of Desktop Widgets and possibly before panel applets, you can add this stuff to the existing code but sooner or later it becomes obvious (to the programmers) that your trying to attach stuff that the code wasn't designed to handel and it gets harder and harder to include new features.

Ultimately you have two choices, keep the 7 year old code and you have a highly functional mature Desktop/Panel setup but you pretty much can't make any major improvements, or start fresh designing from the ground up with 7 years worth of practice and the new codebase will be designed to handle all the new concepts that were just bolted on to the old codebase, and then you have the ability to include evey good new idea that emerges in the next however many years until it becomes obvious that Plasma's visual based desktop was never designed to handle wi-psi and spinal-cord ethernet control*, then the future KDE devs get a lot of insults for deciding to start fresh rather than continue trying to bolt more onto plasma.

I don't blame them for taking the long term view, in a few years no one will remember the problems KDE4 had in its 4.0 days, but we'll all be enjoying the improvement's added to plasma that couldn't have been done on Kicker/KDesktop.

* Given what happened to Kicker/KDesktop I imagine extra care has been given to makeing plasma can be updated for as long as possible before a replacement is needed (has it?) but I think I'm safe in saying it will be showing its age when Mind/Computer connections are replacing eyes and hands.

by ne... (not verified)

> in a few years no one will remember the problems KDE4 had in its 4.0 days
Five will get you three that will happen in about six months. Things are only going to get better from here on.

by Bobby (not verified)

"Yes, I know that there were serious problems in the KDE code for Kicker and KDesktop"

And that was one of the main reasons for a rewrite like Aaron has explained so many times. He said that cleaning up the old code was almost impossible and would only consume a lot of precious time that one could invest in starting from scratch (which would have to be done sooner or later anyway) and making KDE more future-proof. Another reason was QT4.
I am 100% sure that it was a good decision and that we will all benefit in the end. Look at OSX for example. It didn't start out perfectly but now it's shining :)

by Nick Shaforostoff (not verified)

BTW. another example is KBabel/KAider.

KBabel (ported to Qt4) is 50 000 lines of code, while KAider is 11000. (+2000 for xliff in the near future), and KAider outperforms KBabel in terms of features, performance, and every-day usability (still way to go for first impressions).

by Serpentus (not verified)

Please don't think that I feel mad and disapprove KDE developers work and everything, I know these things happen and that they put there best work to this and make this at their free time so all of us can enjoy. So yeah, I'll be patient cause I know they will get a great product, they have proven to be good at what they do.

Hope to see a better kde in the next update. I know this is the first 'stable' version and almost always with the first versions there are lots of problems.

I don't know, all in all this looks like a temporal reverse in kde, I think this should have been marked as Beta3. But oh well, with all the bugs people are going to open they are going to improve very fast and kick the butt of every Window manager out there because this looks very promising once the bugs are fixed!

Here are my problems (Maybe this happens because I still have kde3 installed??):

Fist of all, You need a MEGA PC to get things working fast (I have an AMD 64 2.2GHz, 1.5 GB RAM, and an ATI x1650 with 256MB maybe the ATI is the problem, cause the drivers suck BIG time). I can't listen to my music and navigate at the same time, IT IS SO SLOW!, I can just do one thing at a time, forget about multitasking! Hell, even the mouse moves with lots of jumps.

The biggest problem I see is that the kde configuration is to basic, I would of like something like previous versions. I would of like to see something similar to kcontrol (Maybe I can't find it, can someone tell me if there is one?)

The panel has a huge bug, It has disappear and can't get it back. So I'm currently unable to use KDE4, my experience lasted like 30 min. before this happened T_T. ii also looked around for an option to hide the panel automatically, but to my surprise, didn't find it anywhere, you can't even right click the panel, it feels like they chained down the configs.

The start menu, is horrible, to difficult to navigate and can't make it bigger. Would love to see an option to let it like it was in KDE 3.x

Can't sort the icons on my desktop by type, and there is also a Bug, if you put your mouse over an icon and then take it off, sometimes the "square" with options won't go away, and if you sort your icons with that "square" on, it gets all messy.

Konquest, the game, is a big NO! this game was great, now it isn't. I liked how the properties of the planets were shown at the left, AND there is also a bug, even if you select to play against a computer player, it plays like a human.

Get a crash when trying to open most of the apps.

Ok, that was my short experience before the panel disappeared. Maybe all this happens because I still have KDE 3?

Even if what I'm going to type next sounds ironic, It isn't, it's the truth, [cause I know it is really hard to write a program, If I knew how to program better (just know basic C and Assembly, not even C++ T_T) I would help this great community. Unfortunately I only can fill up bug reports T_T and seems like I'm only complaining about things.]

Keep up the great work!!! Keep kicking butts like you've always done! =D
Serpentus

by Hans (not verified)

>> The biggest problem I see is that the kde configuration is to basic,

This has been explained many times. KDE is now following Gnome's footsteps and is 'dumbing down' the system.

Sorry, couldn't resist. Serious answer: This is the 0.0 version as you said. There are still porting to do, and there are also new stuff like Plasma. The Kicker you saw in 3.5.x had been developed several years, give Plasma some time to mature and you'll get your options.

>> I would of like to see something similar to kcontrol (Maybe I can't find it, can someone tell me if there is one?)

System Settings

>> The panel has a huge bug, It has disappear and can't get it back. So I'm currently unable to use KDE4, my experience lasted like 30 min. before this happened T_T. ii also looked around for an option to hide the panel automatically, but to my surprise, didn't find it anywhere, you can't even right click the panel, it feels like they chained down the configs.

Delete the config file (somewhere in ~/.kde4 I guess) and you'll get it back.
There's no gui to configure it at the moment.

>> Would love to see an option to let it like it was in KDE 3.x

There is. Dunno if it's still in playground though - see if you have it (in the add widgets dialog)

>> Can't sort the icons on my desktop by type

I think you have to wait for later releases for this feature (and Qt 4.4)

>> Get a crash when trying to open most of the apps.

Not very useful. If you can get a backtrace, post on bugs.kde.org.

>> Maybe all this happens because I still have KDE 3?

Nope, don't think so.

>> Unfortunately I only can fill up bug reports T_T and seems like I'm only complaining about things.

Same to me, but we all try hard to contribute, don't we? =)

And don't worry about the complaining part, the developers are smart enough to see the difference between constructive criticism and pure trolling - otherwise we wouldn't be here today and celebrating. Cheers to you all!

by JRT (not verified)

(so far at least).

Least there be any misunderstanding, I wanted to say that the developers have done great work (in most cases -- nothing is 100%) on KDE4. Major (and much needed) work has been done on the multimedia and hardware interfaces, and the libraries have been updated to make use of new features of Qt4. Some work has been done on Konqueror, but some of it needs considerably more (you can't do everything at once and we shouldn't try). Dolphin has become a mature application. Etc.

It is unfortunate that KDEPim didn't make it into the release. But you will get no argument with me that software shouldn't be release till it is ready (as Linus says). And, we seem to be missing a multimedia application -- Kaffeine is fine but not Qt4 and not shipped with KDE4.

My only complaint is that this release was called 4.0.0. If it had been called the public Beta instead, I would have no problem except for the unfinished desktop; we need to acknowledge that the Plasma project is late -- something that isn't a new problem in the software industry. So, I suggest that those that complain should consider it at that before them complain.

I will continue to complain about things that don't work -- I do so because I want them fixed. But, please don't just complain: there are bugs to be reported and I hope that everyone will take the time to report them -- and please keep track of your bug after you report it.

I do have to say that I wonder why applications are thrown away and replaced with new ones. This seems to be a waste of a lot of code.

by whatever noticed (not verified)

Kaffeine has never been released with KDE, so no reason to expect it to get shipped with kde 4.0

by whatever noticed (not verified)

Also, kplayer's 0.7 release, which came out today, is build on kde4.
So you do have a multimediaplayer for kde4.

by JRT (not verified)

I missed that -- well you did say that it was today -- so I will give it a try though I do hope that Kaffeine is ported to Qt4 soon.

by JRT (not verified)

And people accuse me of being a nitpicker (which I like to call attention to detail).

The major point is that KDE4 does not include a multimedia player. I understand that there is a dragon lurking somewhere, but haven't seen it yet.

Will a multimedia player be added to KDE4.x?

by Morty (not verified)

>The major point is that KDE4 does not include a multimedia player.

There is one statement a nitpicker can do much with. Actually the state of multimedia in this regard has not changed much from KDE 3.x.

You still get Kscd and Juk, which is a very good music manager/player. Compared to KDE 3.x, you are missing Noatun and Kaboodle.

Kaboodle is a sad loss, since it was perfect for it's intendant use case to simply play a file when asked. At the moment there is nothing to replace it, but I think Phonon will make such an application simple to create. Adapting Dragon Player for the use case could also be a possibility, as it's predecessor Codeine functionality wise was Kaboodles brother for video files.

It must be Noatuns absence that is the lack of multimedia player you refer to. As a music manager/player Noatuns handling of playlists was different from Juk, and it plugin infrastructure was rather flexible and unique. But it's essentially duplication in the music player applications. But Noatun was also able to play some videos, the only application in KDE 3 able to do so(Kaboodle also did at some point I think). A little odd complaint, since in the later releases of KDE 3 it had increasing problems with playing videos. Mostly related to distributions set ups. And most distributions even stopped installing it as default, choosing other applications as default music players.

>Will a multimedia player be added to KDE4.x?

As said, you already have Juk. Dragon Player(Codeine) is ported to KDE 4, and should have a stable release soon. The developer has also given indications he want it included in kdemultimedia, making it an official part of KDE.

Besides 3rd party KDE applications like Amarok, KPlayer, KMPlayer and Kaffeine are all in the process of being ported to KDE 4 and they will have releases in due time.

Please provide an official howto or something for kde4 users with nvidia cards - there should be a lot of them around. I read things like "do this" and "tweak that" to make accellerated effects smoother, but for me it just doesn't work.

I have the latest driver and a Geforce6600GT, and i read to this point:

- add "export KWIN_NVIDIA_HACK=1" to /etc/profile

- add
Option "AddARGBVisuals" "True"
Option "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "True"
Option "DynamicTwinView" "false"
Option "RenderAccel" "true"
Option "AllowGLXWithComposite" "true"
...to xorg.conf in section "Screen" and/or "Device"

- add / don't add
Section "Extensions"
Option "RENDER" "true"
Option "DAMAGE" "true"
Option "Composite" "Enable"
EndSection
...to xorg.conf

Without effects, all is smooth. With effects the Desktop Grid is smooth, but minimizing/maximizing, scaling in, moving and rotating of widgets and the overall impression is choppy.

Searching google and testing becomes really frustrating when you get no results, so pleease...

Yes, i strongly support that... i have a gf7800gs and i don't know what to do anymore.

Hi there!
I have a GeForce Go 7200. For me kwin composite works very well - everything runs smooth and I had no crashes so far.
I'm using Debian unstable with the KDE4.0 packages from experimental.
Nvidia driver version: 169.07-1

My device section from xorg.conf:

Section "Device"
Identifier "GeForce Go 7200"
Driver "nvidia"
BusID "PCI:5:0:0"

Option "NoLogo" "1"
Option "RenderAccel" "1"
Option "AllowGLXWithComposite" "1"
Option "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "1"
EndSection

no other config files edited!

A HowTo for users with nVidia cads is most urgent. I have used a few tips here including yours for my xorg.conf file and KDE 4.0 is now as smooth as silk. I have 't been using KDE 3.5x since the release of 4.0.
The only problem that I am now having is with Firefox.

Concerning your xorg.conf file, openSuse Users should use the value "true" instead of "1" if they want to try your settings.

... smooth as silk with OpenGL-Effects enabled, especially minimizing and dragging around applets?

If so, please say what you did ;)

Marcel Partap wrote: "put 'export KWIN_NVIDIA_HACK=1' in your /etc/profile or so if you have an nvidia card, it does make a huge difference!)"

I tried that plus adjusted the xorg.conf file to that of Sepp (only using "true" instead of "1" on openSuse) and the effects are now really smooth. I am only having problems with Firefox, that the Plasma Panel flickers when I am writing like now.

Aaawww... i'm going nuts over this! I installed a clean new ubuntu, then KDE 4.0 with kdm-kde4, then the latest nvidia driver for the GF6600GT, configured xorg.conf and /etc/profiles...

and it's still totally jerky :-( Especially that others say it's totally smooth with them makes my head explode... i tried about everything, and minimizing or dragging things around is at best 5fps.

It's a shame, i just updated to this card to be able to enjoy kde4 with OpenGL, knowing it wouldn't be that optimised yet. I can play FarCry under linux, but it isn't good enough for kwin4??

ok, problem solved.

KDE4 's now running on top of compiz and emerald with a theme i copied from the kwin4-decoration. Looks nice and doesn't eat up my system.

I liked the look'n'feel of the more integrated kwin4 effects better, but not like that. If the kwin guys which i pointed to this thread will do some kind of comprehensive howto for nvidia cards, i'll be happy to test and bug report.