"KDE 4 is seen by many to be the next big step on the free software desktop, while others think releasing 4.0 in its current condition was misleading and a mistake.

While those of us who have actually tried to use it on a daily basis, for doing real work, have simply found it to be unusable in its current form.

While those of us who have actually tried to use it on a daily basis, for doing real work, have simply found it to be unusable in its current form.

Personally, I get very uneasy when I hear developers talking like this. I realize Gnome is the default DE in Fedora, but what I hear is developers not cherishing their users, that the latest in blingtastic innovation is all that matters. That's never good news, imho, and appeals to only a narrow segment of the Linux userbase. It takes two to tango.

Really, it's not that bad.

It doesn't crash.

It doesn't flake out.

It doesn't eat your children.

"Really, it's not that bad.

"It doesn't eat your children.

I know, I know! It's obviously a problem with my configuration. On this machine and that. And on this distro and that.

And if the kids only showed up *after* your KDE4 installation... have you checked that they are signed with the proper keys? ;-)

hmmm...

Yes it does. Even 3.5.x does. I still see way too much of even the 3.5 crash dialog. Konqueror is a particularly egregious offender.

"It doesn't flake out.

OpenSUSE is my main distro. I download every KDE4 update, almost daily. I am far from impressed, especially by the lack of features, but also by bugs.

luckily, afaik no distro will ship with 4.0.0 by default, let alone as only choice. Some might ship 4.0.2 as default, but offer 3.5.x as option as well.

I know, I know! It's obviously a problem with my configuration. On this machine and that. And on this distro and that.

And if the kids only showed up *after* your KDE4 installation... have you checked that they are signed with the proper keys? ;-)

I know, I know!

Quite. You've made my point for me. I don't see anything in that interview along the lines of "We've listened carefully to our users, we've studied what they use and how they use it, and ... ". In fact, if you'd said the interview was with two Debian devs, and substituted "Firefox" for KDE 3.5 and "IceWeasel" for KDE 4.0, it would have said pretty well the same thing.

That idea was always crock. Very few people have the education and natural aptitude to be good at engineering, coding, etc. And very few have the skills to distinguish between a genuine bug and a user misconfiguration. It's not a good idea - in fact very naive - to ask those who aren't coders to start hacking on Plasma, Open Office or whatever. It won't be a happy experience for them or for the eventual quality of the program. For better or worse, Linux has moved on from those days.

" hmmm...

- Can not set keyboard macros for apps from the menus. This is very important to my workflow since I am extremely keyboard centric.

- Given a 1024x768 screen the current panel takes up way too much space.

The use of xrandr to add/remove screens does not work correctly.

The plasma desktop and panel crash (less often in 4.0.1) Usually this is due to me trying xrandr, though it does happen occasionally in other situations (I have not figured out a pattern yet)

Once the desktop plasmoid crashes it is a bit of a challenge to use KDE.

Konqueror crashes occasionally when used as a browser (though this is not really unique to KDE4)

System Settings for display not functioning correctly.

System Settings in general are incomplete

please for the love of all that is holy give us an option to turn off the cashew in the top right corner (where I would normally put the hidden panel if I could move it... or hide it... or resize it... you get the idea)

Honestly I have far less problems with 4.0.1 and if that had been released as 4.0 I probably would not have complained.

I can actually see how some might be able to use 4.0.1 as a daily desktop. Given its current limitations it is not usable as a main desktop for me though.

It's not a good idea - in fact very naive - to ask those who aren't coders to start hacking on Plasma, Open Office or whatever.

Nowadays it sadly seems to be about a sense of entitlement with users, and what the distros should be doing to "earn" their business. No reciprocity required. That's a shame.