Submitted by The KDE Project today announced the immediate availability of KDE 3.5.4, a maintenance release. Significant enhancements include improved support for removable devices. Multiple holidays can now start on the same date in KOrganizer. Lots of fixes have been applied to Konqueror’s HTML engine, KHTML. The dialog for sending client-side SSL certificates is now more usable, the StartCom SSL certificate was added and KNetworkConf now supports Fedora Core 5 and handles WEP better.
Wow. Again an update for my favorite desktop.
smart update; smart upgrade
and go!
But honestly, KDE is going forwards high speed! And if you see what is in the pipeline for KDE4….
Where would I be without Amarok?
Aparently it’s a “Shocker” that you can change the language of the OS… KDE makes this so easy.
OS X supports at least 15 times the languages that are shown in that shot.
OS X supports 975 languages? Wow. That’s pretty impressive. I had no idea how much effort Apple put into translations.
Yeah OSX was translated in Klingon recently, making the 976th supported language.
anyone know where the first packages will be made?
They’ve already been uploaded…
They don’t work well for dapper AMD64. A couple of error at upgrade, solved with dpkg –force-all, but once KDE was reloaded kicker only showed the hour and nothing more. No menu, no icons, no taskbar. Desktop colors changed, some personalizations were affected (like wallpaper presentation images, kwin optional buttons disabled, konqueror layout changed too). I don’t know, it feels strange.
Your problems may be because of this:
“Important Note: these packages have a bug which stops kubuntu-default-settings from applying. We currently do not advise upgrading to them unless you are willing to work around this bug.”
From: http://kubuntu.org/announcements/kde-354.php
Just be aware that currently the kubuntu packages have a bug, and they advise against installing them.
http://kubuntu.org/announcements/kde-354.php
http://kubuntu.org/packages/kde-354/README
Hopefully they will figure out what’s the problem soon.
“Just be aware that currently the kubuntu packages have a bug, and they advise against installing them. ”
I should have read this before updating the packages. Damn. Anyway, it’s still KDE and works after some tweaking.
Some days I like KDE. It’s very fast (self-compiled on a recent toolchain) and everything looks nice.
On others day I don’t like KDE. All KDE programs are just not good enough for daily use. I always seem to find some small bugs that keep on irritating me.
Like konqueror crashing when downloading a file that has a meta refresh tag. Two download windows come up and… a nice “KRConqi crash dialog”.
Kaffeine requiring 10+% for playing an MP3? A lot compared to audacious…
May I give you tip: don’t use Kaffeine for MP3 playing. Use Amarok. It is *by far* the best audio player on Linux.
For video I use Codeine. A very, very basic KDE movie player (based on Xine) but without the Kaffeine ‘overhead’.
Kmplayer can be just as “basic” wrt to interface, but is far more feature-full.
Codeine is nice, but doesn’t really do much, which is its goal. Sometimes you want more from a player though.
smart install kmplayer
I’ll have a look. Personally I’m done with Kaffeine when they started doing more than just video, so that’s how I found Codeine. No experience with kmplayer however…
But to be honest: wouldn’t it be great if KDE had an video-only player that has an Amarok touch?
Very powerfull, but a nice and friendly ui.
For me, thats kmplayer…
ymmv though..
Agreed…Particularly for torrent junkies/heavy downloaders/rippers/etc
Those of us that have TONS of media on our computers besides music would greatly benefit from such an app…
When you’ve got All of ST:Voyager, TNG, TOS, Futurama, Invader Zim, Aquateen Hunger Force…And tons more…It would be nice to have everything cached, with metadata. Organize it, randomize it, whatever – give me the power and comfort I get with amarok but in a video player that’s designed for such things – and you’d have a mighty donation.
Then again, there’s not nearly as much demand for such an app as there was (and is) for a decent Linux MP3(Audio) player…so I won’t hold my breath…
Hey, we can dream!
Has AmaroK stopped crashing on a regular basis now?
Yep. The’ve put major effort in bugfixing in stead of just adding cool new features.
Amarok 1.4.x has never crashed on my system.
Hmmm, i’ve been using KDE as my primary desktop for over three years now. I find this window manager to be powerful, stable, and highly usable for day to day work.
KDE isn’t a Window Manager… that’d be KWin
Congrats to the KDE team for getting another release out!
Been some debates on IRC about whether it is ok for distro’s to already be releasing packages labeled 3.5.4 prior to this release. It does seem to take away some of the excitement of the release though…
Most KDE users have likely been using 3.5.4 for at least a few days now. Its very nice, some small very noticeable improvements (for instance konqueror speed improvements!)
Yeah, that was just what I was thinking:
Is it me or is Konqueror just faster?
Overall I think performance is great in KDE 3.5.x. Starting KOffice is just fun to watch 😉
I just found another speed improvement: hardware detection.
I just plugged in my camera and almost instantly a popup appeared.
It stopped crashing quite some time ago for me.
The most important thing to do is to use the xine engine instead of the arts engine.
And never use Gstreamer backend, it will crash so often. Xine is great !
Codeine is indeed nice for simple video playing.
Kaffeine has some problems and the UI is a bit crowded, but the DVB-T support is just great.
I plugged in the DVB-T tuner, chose DVB-T in kaffeine, scanned for channels, and voilá! It worked instantly. Rarely had such plug n’ play experience, on whatever OS.
I personally refuse to use any version of Kaffeine newer than 0.4.3. I have the sources to that version and recompile when needed. It was so much simpler and pleasing then.
http://img64.imageshack.us/my.php?image=kaffeine7gu.png
The toggle fullscreen hotkey used to be simply ‘f’. Last I checked in newer versions it is ctrl-shift-f. Playlist could formerly be toggle off. Now it is either a separate window or a tab. Not to mention the explosion of toolbar clutter.
I love KDE, and I love configurability, but in the overcomplication of Kaffeine I can see and understand the usual Gnome advocate’s complaints.
IMO there are no good (GUI wise) videoplayers under Linux, and I think I’ve tried them all, the old kaffeine came close but not quite.
For the lack of a good interface, I switch between mplayer and it’s GTK frontend gmplayer.
That’s because you’ve never used MythTV GUI and its video extension (which uses MPlayer BTW).
You also never use a video player like someone that just want to play a video : with simplicity.
MPlayer and MythTV support LIRC and OSD for example.
I wonder what you want more in the GUI when you play a video.
I have a huge collection of fansubs and MythTV/MPlayer are clearly the best to manage them, and the only player that can read all of these files is MPlayer.
BTW, my wife, who uses a KDE desktop and is computer illiterate, uses KMplayer without any problem … that’s when she’s not on the MythTV box (she is absolutely crazy about this thing and its usefulness, way more than me).
Edited 2006-08-03 10:29
No that’s because I’m piggy about that software I use.
I’ve tried gmplayer, kmplayer, kplayer, totem, xmedia, vlc, xine-ui, kaffeine, codeine and a couple more, none were to my likeing, all had different annoyences.
gmplayer is the least annoying, but still very annoying.
VLC can’t seek properly with it’s searchbar, it just jumps to some random position in the direktion of the mouse.
Kaffeine, enforces the use of it’s playlist, I don’t want to use a playlist when watching videos.
All I want from a videoplayer, is:
– fullscreen on “f”,
– pause on space,
– NO playlist (it may have a playlist but must only use it if I want it to, otherwise only single file),
– GUI-controls in the same windows as the video, like VLC
– change image ratio without restarting playback,
– desent handling of multible audiotracks (I watch to much anime).
– Handle DVD-menues.
kmplayer seems pretty close to what you’re looking for. I think it may be possible to remap the buttons (though I’m not 100% sure).
In other news, I’m happy to see that the “OSNews Reply” bug has been fixed with the new Konqueror. Yay!
Edited 2006-08-03 22:01
The toggle fullscreen hotkey used to be simply ‘f’. Last I checked in newer versions it is ctrl-shift-f.
I agree with you there. Kaffiene would be a nice player, but the cryptic keys to get fullscreen are a pain in the arse.
If that’s the only gripe you have with Kaffeine, you should know those shortcuts can be changed easily from the menu. Also, double clicking on the video will get you fullscreen.
I know this will trip-off a lot of people’s triggers, but the default looks of KDE is one of the things that always kept me away from it. Though it sure has some things I miss in Gnome. E.g. I always liked how you could command all (most?) KDE applications through the DCOP system, using the “dcop” binary.
So, back to the looks, do they finally have a nice simple theme as is “Mist” for GTK / GNOME ? (search for “mist” on kde-look.org produces backgrounds only).
EDIT: added URL of screenshot of Mist theme in action:
http://www.freebsd.org/old/gnome/images/ss211-1.png
Edited 2006-08-02 20:33
“I know this will trip-off a lot of people’s triggers, but the default looks of KDE is one of the things that always kept me away from it.”
I also don’t like de default look. Particularly the kicker size and background. That’s why I customize it. I’m sure you can do the same.
I know I can customize. That’s why I asked, if there is _my_ “perfect” theme already available. I don’t exactly have the skills to re-create a theme from scratch.
you can have a look at http://www.kde-look.org/, if your perfect theme exists, it will be there.
As I said already:
(search for “mist” on kde-look.org produces backgrounds only).
Going through all of them and look at the pictures is a bit futile
“(search for “mist” on kde-look.org produces backgrounds only).
Going through all of them and look at the pictures is a bit futile
”
I don’t think there is a “mist” theme then. But it could be some simple theme with other name, though searching one that fits you is mostly personal. I like most the Polyester widget theme with the Plastic windows theme and Kubuntu colors. Personal taste.
I know it’s personal taste. I was just curious, if anyone is aware of a theme close to Mist. Nothing more, nothing less.
I should take a screenshot of mine. I’m using Vista menu decorations, green colorscheme and I’ve got the desktop set up to look like XFCE4. (And yes, there is a reason I don’t just use XFCE 4)…
The style looks like dotnet (http://www.kde-look.org/content/preview.php?preview=1&id=42131&file…)
For icons, I think gnomemix is a good solution:
http://www.kde-look.org/content/preview.php?preview=1&id=27788&file…
Look at the screenshot at gnomemix and you will see it’s not hard to get a look like the one from your gnone.
Good luck!
Thanks.
“Though it sure has some things I miss in Gnome. E.g. I always liked how you could command all (most?) KDE applications through the DCOP system, using the “dcop” binary.”
KDE is deprecating DCOP in favor of DBUS, the freedesktop.org standard IPC message bus. I do see your point, though. KDE apps, in general, have much better integration with DCOP than GNOME applications have with DBUS. This is mostly because Qt rocks some serious balls, and this is coming from a GNOME user… for now at least.
I know about the DCOP / DBUS change. Wonder if the integration will stay the same.
You’ll have to wait for KDE4 to see some of dbus change. But i wonder what you’re hoping. From a user perspective, it will not change anything I guess.
If KDE apps will still be as remote-controllable via DBUS as they are now via DCOP and the “dcop” binary.
Not sure I like Mist, but then each to their own
looking forward to 4
Use kmplayer then, it looks quite similar. I would love an amarok for video, with database and all. Perhaps music video still for amarok, but movies and the like, definitaly for kaffeine. But codeine at the moment since kaffeine does too much and not enough.
You avoided KDE because the default style wasn’t your favorite? So what if no distro chose a style you preferred, you wouldn’t use any of them? 🙂
I’d put it a bit differently… It’s not the default style only, it’s that none of the styles that ship with KDE in Debian (my distro of choice suits me). And I never managed to cope with these non-appealing styles long enough to appreciate KDE and invest more time in finding something one can look at. Going back to GNOME (or XFCE, which I also used for some time) was always easier.
KDE has some appealing technologies and features, but if I have to look at an ugly thing all day long…
Wow, after 38 comments, no troll Gnome vs. KDE. Incredible.
However, going through all the comments feels a bit monotonic. Not a single critic on the powerfull KDE from a Gnome fan. Oh my god! I just realize that I like trolls.
NOoooo, kill me!
“I personally refuse to use any version of Kaffeine newer than 0.4.3. It was so much simpler and pleasing then. The toggle fullscreen hotkey used to be…”
http://accentsolution.com/kde/kaffeine.png
That’s the latest version – 8.1. I would argue it actually looks simpler than the 4.x version you presented… But that is not the real point…
That is the real point:
http://www.kde.org/screenshots/kde350shots.php
and scroll down to Kaffaine screenshot.
What you want is a low key Window decoration like Kstep, a color scheme like Redmond, and a set of icons like this:
http://www.kde-look.org/content/show.php?content=38045
or this:
http://www.kde-look.org/content/show.php?content=27788
Thanks for your efforts. Icons are not so important, I have no icons on the desktop anyway. They would be hidden under open windows and hence no use.
The “Gnome-Mix” theme is similar to ClearLooks. What I like about “Mist” (and “Gnome-Mix” does NOT have it) is, that it is flat. That it does not try to simulate a 3D structure with shading where a simple line is sufficient.
If KDE apps will still be as remote-controllable via DBUS as they are now via DCOP and the “dcop” binary.
At least as good as with DCOP, very likely allowing a greater range of controll options since D-Bus can address individual objects inside the destination application more precisely than DCOP could.
The only question from my point of view is if it will mean an increased complexity when using the commandline client
Is it possible to define some area on the desktop so when you arrange automaticcaly icons they would stay in those areas ?
KDE 3.5.3 did not work with the new version of cups. In KDE 3.5.4, the bug has been fixed. Very nice !
Thank you KDE team
Kaboodle still cannot stream embedded videos (or any videos for that matter), and streaming files still crash Noatun.