The newest version of KDE Four Live, an openSUSE-based Live CD for testing KDE 4, was released three days ago, just nine days after the initial version that included Release Candidate 1 was released. KDE/openSUSE dev Stephan Binner announced the release on his blog, celebrating the strong public interest in the initial RC1-based Live CD - over 10000 downloads achieved in the first few days. Meanwhile, although mainstream reviews of RC1 are still scarce, Binner's blog announcement of the previous version contained this interesting tidbit: "It looks like whatever [version of KDE 4] will be released or presented at the event which was fixed by the sponsor to happen in January will be only used by very early adopters. Hopefully openSUSE 11.0 will be able to ship some KDE 4.1.x release or some very high KDE 4.0.x release (which saw some light features freeze lift)," he wrote. Readers are welcome to download the newest Live CD (Torrent) and test it for themselves. A Debian LiveCD is also available, but it still includes KDE4 Beta4 and not RC1.
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Member since:2007-06-13
This post isn't about KDE vs GNOME or whatever, I couldn't care less. But I felt I had to answer this particular section of your post...
> And unlike GNOME, the KDE developers do not give off an
> air that all users are stupid and should think the way
> they do.
It's not about stupid users. It's about users who have better things to do than learn about computers. It's about users who aren't familiar with all the techincal jargon programmers throw in their face. Etc etc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human-computer_interaction
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interaction_Design
Programmers usually design interfaces for their own kind, even if they are to be used by other kinds of people. In short, programming should be done by programmers, the interface should be designed by interaction designers.
GNOME and KDE _BOTH_ have their warts and for both DE:s, most of the interface is designed by programmers.
Edited 2007-12-03 06:43
Member since:2005-07-06
It's not about stupid users. It's about users who have better things to do than learn about computers. It's about users who aren't familiar with all the techincal jargon programmers throw in their face. Etc etc.
It's this mythical 'ordinary user' again. You know what? It's the easiest thing in the world to say 'We're not going to do something because it would confuse ordinary users'. Actually defining what that ordinary user is, what they want to do, what they will want to do, what system administrators will want to do to support them and balancing that against people who actually use your software regularly, file bug reports and who come up with feature ideas is the difficult part.
The problem is that in order to use a desktop computer you have to get to know a little bit of jargon. Hopefully not a lot, but a little. You also have to get used to a computer being able to organise anything in any way you want. This is what makes an awful lot of the spatial and 'real life' metaphors bogus from a practical point of view.
Member since:2006-01-19
Users who have better things to do than learn about computers are only one sort of users.
There are loads of users who have better things to do than adjust their way of thinking to the #@µ%&°ing human interface designed by the oh so good interface designers. The interface must be easily adjustable to as many ways of thinking as possible, THEN it is a good interface.
That is why GNOME is next to unusable for me, it cannot adjust to my way of thinking, KDE can.
And yes, good default settings help beginners. But letting beginners explore a huge settings dialog is still a lot less steep of a learning curve, than letting them search the internet for key/value pairs of some registry system.
In my opinion GNOME is good for the 50 or 60 or even 90% of people who can adapt their thinking to the interface, but it is horrible to the rest of us (I just say "save as" dialog).
Member since:2005-07-08
I use XP. And KDE3 when I need to get work done on a unix env.
I bet you think what you use today is OK. Obviously, you have no taste. What I meant by "a new generation DE" was "something beautiful and easier to use". Today's DEs are ugly.
At least it didn't look horrible. But of course it was buggy, and that's why I didn't use it.
Normally.
Are we talking about Gnome?
Vista is OK. Tho there's of room for improvement.
Edited 2007-12-03 06:45
Member since:
2006-05-14
Are you a gnome-troll?
There seems to be this absolutely ridiculous idea, which you are clearly advocating, that there's a revolution waiting to happen with DEs. What in the world is suppose to go into a "new generation DE"? Is it going to do you work for you? Move the mouse for you? Knows what you're thinking? Orders a pizza for you? Make you look cool?
Were you around for the first few versions of OS X? A lot of the UI was slow - and sometimes unbearable. It took a few iterations, but now everything is peachy keen.
It could be argued from a programming stand point that redeveloping the underlining technology is the first step to making something better.
It probably ended up like this because the KDE people knew what they had to do to get it to a usable state before going trying something new and different. And unlike GNOME, the KDE developers do not give off an air that all users are stupid and should think the way they do.
But hey, if you're for an entirely new desktop experience and are fond of strapping a fancy UI and all that jazz on top of a flimsy piece of technology - there's always Vista.
Edited 2007-12-03 06:12