The KDE team has released KDE 3.5.5, a maintenance release. Main changes: “Version 0.12.3 of Kopete replaces 0.11.3 in KDE 3.5.5, it includes support for Adium themes, performance improvements and better support for the Yahoo! and Jabber protocols; support for sudo in kdesu; support for input shape from XShape1.1 in KWin (KDE window manager); lots of speed improvements and fixes in Konqueror’s HTML engine, KHTML; CUPS 1.2 support in KDEPrint; big improvements in the number of translated interface elements in Chinese Traditional, Farsi, Khmer, Low Saxon and Slovak translations.”
There is an annoying bug in the new version of kopete that sends blank lines before and after each jabber message. Not annoying to people who use kopete, but annoying to the people they chat with.
Out of curiosity, have you reported the bug? They could probably fix something that minor very quickly.
Actually it is not Kopete’s fault. It is libgaim bug that can’t parse correctly XHTML and puts
at the beginning and the end of the stream.
This can be solved if you turn off the Rich Text formatting in the dialog of the user you are chatting with.
So, no Kopete’s fault.
The next KDE to come out the door is 4?
It’s good to see speed improvements, even though it may only be konqueror.
I’m betting there will be one more maintenance release before KDE 4 comes out.
In fact, there may even be KDE 3.x maintenance releases *after* KDE 4 comes out. KDE 3.x is a stable platform that will be in use for years to come, and as long as there is both demand and people willing to put in the work, it will be maintained. This is open source; there’s no “end of life” date except the natural one of nobody caring anymore.
You bring up an interesting point. KDE 3.5.x is very stable. It will likely take time before 4.x reaches that level of maturity.
I wonder, did this sort of thing occur with KDE 2.x when 3.0 was released?
maybe a little, but not to a great extend – kde 3 mostly continued where 2.x left off… KDE 4 includes more new stuff, i think. but on the other hand, KDE has much more of an infrastructure to protect it’s quality these days, like automated testing and stuff like that. so maybe KDE 4 will be quite mature already.
“You bring up an interesting point. KDE 3.5.x is very stable. It will likely take time before 4.x reaches that level of maturity.
I wonder, did this sort of thing occur with KDE 2.x when 3.0 was released?”
Not so much. KDE 1 to 2 was a rough ride if my memory serves. It was a lot like the GNOME 1 to 2 transition. The only difference there was that it was contentious and painful, but with slightly less bitterness. (GNOME 2 was a real departure technology and UI wise, where KDE 2 seemed to be more of a technological departure. That’s probably the nub of the difference.)
After KDE 2, and a very long transition time for some KDE 1 apps, the KDE developers opted for far more of a ‘straight port’ for KDE 3. As a user it was a much less jarring transition for 2-3 than from 1-2.
KDE 4, IMHO, is shaping up to be somewhere between the 1-2 and 2-3 change. I expect the transition to be somewhere in the middle as well. A chance to let out some of that pent up creativity, and break BC.
But these are just my fuzzy recollections
If I recall what I read correctly, KDE 2 was more of a complete rewrite, while KDE 3 didn’t change as much. KDE 4 sounds like it’s a rewrite, though since apparently all those screenshots are fake (I haven’t tried the alpha version of KDE 4 (kodename “krash”)) it’s likely only a partial rewrite.
“Very stable”?
Of all the desktop programs I use, konqueror and kmail are the only ones that routinely crash.
On KDE 3.5.4.
well, then, something is wrong on your system, don’t you think? unless it’s a certain email or a certain website, then you should report it… if it’s just ‘it always crashes but it’s not my fault’ then it’d be weird, as milions are using those apps and they work for them…
Are you serious? Do you use KDE yourself?
I suspect you just don’t register it when it happens.
yes, i’m serious. and i don’t have any other DE at home than KDE, so yes, i use it. i do use windows, now and then, on the university, but it’s mostly trouble and irritation, so i don’t like that.
and yes, konqi does crash, approx. twice a week i think, depending on what i do. kontact crashes less, more like twice a month i guess.
not sure if IE crashes less than konqi – i’ve never been able to use it for what i use konqi for… with konqi, i often have opened between 5 and 15 pages, both local, ftp and websites, and often 2 or 3 of these (love the session management in KDE – after shutdown, i get all my pages back as they where). as more than 5 seperate IE windows is rather hard to manage (and is hard on the hardware as well) i don’t do this on windows… so i don’t really know if windows can handle it, but from my limited experience i think it can’t. it gets quickly bogged down if you use it seriously, eg with many open apps.
i don’t count some crashes here: sometimes i discover a site which reliably crashes konqi, so i report it. it takes some crashes to test this, of course, and they do increase the avarage a bit 😉
and 1 site i regularly visit did crash konqi, but it’s fixed now.
Yeah I’m guessing we will probably see more maintenanc releases. I’m hoping the keep KDE4 in the kooker until its ready lol.
KDE4 is going to be a major step, and I think it would do more harm than good to release it to son. QT4 makes for some amazing new functionality and form, and I hope that they make good use of the new tools.
I believe that as awhole, kde is a rather complete desktop, it is just in need of a serious visual and aesthetic makeover.
//It’s good to see speed improvements, even though it may only be konqueror.//
More significant speed improvements throughout KDE were made in pervious releases 3.5.3 and 3.5.4. See the changelogs.
As always, kubuntu is among the first to include new kde releases – http://kubuntu.org/announcements/kde-355.php
That Jonathan Riddell is my freakin idol!
[edit]_all_ of the kubuntu team too,of course[/edit]
Edited 2006-10-11 16:41
It was in Debian Sid about a week before its official announcement, as always. But I suppose that KDE from kubuntu is more or less the same as KDE from Sid
(Disclaimer: Gnome user)
“Version 0.12.3 of Kopete replaces 0.11.3 in KDE 3.5.5, it includes support for Adium themes”
That sounds awesome. I’ve never cared for Kopete, but that feature by itself might be enough to get me using it. IMHO, Adium is easily the best IM program out for any platform, and it’s themes are a big reason why.
Nice job, KDE team!
the linux distributions become faster and faster. A Linux distribution with Kernel 2.6.19, Xorg 7.1 and KDE 3.5.5 is much faster as Vista, and looks much better, too, I guess.
Well, I think that’s for sure. But we’ll have to wait for KDE 4.0 or 4.1 before linux has most of the features Vista has (and more), for 1/2 the resources 😉
I guess you knew KDE 4 will use your (3d) hardware a lot better (like Vista) and most likely use 20% or 30% less memory compared to the previous version (very UNlike Vista)…
Xorg 7.2 is planned for release next month. I wonder what improvements it has in store for us.
It looks like Linux is still the only platform were the modular 7.x version is supported. BSD, Solaris, and OS X (with X11) still use the monolithic 6.x series.
Why is this?
A friend of mine investigated a problem something like this with a Python-based Jabber client he’d helped write. He discovered it was a result of Kopete sending status messages (I suspect it was “User is now typing” messages) which weren’t correctly handled by his client – which instead output blank lines.
Will 3.5.5 be included by default in Kubuntu Edgy Eft… or has the freeze already taken place?
well, there is a feature freeze, but this is mostly a bugfix version, so i think it has a chance.
As the Kubuntu.org site mentions it is being uploaded to the Edgy repos, when is Edgy coming out actually (not that its current state stops me from using it
)?
“…Big improvements in the number of translated interface elements in Chinese Traditional, Farsi, Khmer, Low Saxon and Slovak translations.”
I love how open-source projects place emphasis on internationalization. I’ve played around a lot with OS X’s language support and KDE’s, and KDE is definitely better, especially in the number of translations available for their software.
Wikipedia’s success is a testament to that. It implements certain open-source ideas: open format (i.e., anybody can add or change entries) and emphasis on being able to be used by a wide audience (i.e., entries are available in multiple languages).
Wikipedia’s success is a testament to that. It implements certain open-source ideas: open format (i.e., anybody can add or change entries) and emphasis on being able to be used by a wide audience (i.e., entries are available in multiple languages).
More importantly though, is the “Low Saxon” translation what I think/hope it is (i,e, filled only with the sorts of four-letter words your mother doesn’t like you using?)
I’ve been quite disappointed with these successive KDE 3.5 minor “dot” releases. They just seem to introduce new, annoying bugs.
For instance, 3.5.3, or .4 (not sure which), introduced a bug where the KDE screensaver wouldn’t work anymore.
That’s just ridiculous. Something that has worked fine for eons, and shouldn’t be broken, get’s broken by minor, near useless, “dot” releases.
Please KDE devs, don’t put stuff out just for the sake of putting stuff out.
Frankly, the 3.5 version should be in feature freeze at this point, with only bug fix releases.
But maybe these are bug fix releases, which inadvertantly introduce new bugs, due to so much stuff in KDE being integrated (DCOP, Kparts, apps like Konqueror, Kontact, Kate all of which combine other apps).
That’s one of the reason’s that I like to avoid Windows – it’s all so integrated and interdependent that updates often break things.
Not to start the infamous flame war or anything, but that’s an area where Gnome and especially Xfce enjoy suppiority – they’re not as integrated because they follow more closely the traditional Unix philosophy of small, simple, modular programs that do one or few things very well, and easily interact with other programs.
My experience with the various DE’s has reflected this. Generally, Gnome and especially Xfce have been much less buggy for me than KDE.
My point? Perhaps KDE 4 should shoot for more modularity and less integration and interdependency. This would make the project more managable and less buggy.
I am afraid I can’t follow you here.
Modularity is one of KDE’s strengths, isn’t it?
Applications hand data transfer over to a different program, which in turn just does transfer for a single protocol.
Or instead of again and again implementing text editing widgets loading a text editor module.
Both in-process and out-of-process modules can be replaced without the applications caring about, because they jsut depend on interfaces, not on implementations.
Sounds to me like your DISTRIBUTION keeps adding bugs. For me, using vanilla sources with minor patches (no software, just installation dirs), KDE keeps getting more and more solid.
Kubuntu seems to have one of the least stable KDEs around, unfortunately. If that’s what you’re using…
Could be distro specific – I experienced the problem with Mepis, which is Ubuntu based.
However, the problem was reported on the KDE website.
BTW – I’m using Slack based Zenwalk and Slax right now, and loving them.
I’m sick of various distros being bloated, buggy, or just plain fragile. I’m getting this with both RPM based and Debian based distros, to varying degrees.
Which is why I’m really appreciating the Slackware mentality – keep things very stable, efficient, and simple. Then Zenwalk and Slax add some other niceties on top of that extremely solid, stable, efficient base, and you have something that is really really good.