The KDE team has released the first beta of KDE 4.2, slated for release coming January. Quite a lot of new features have been added, as well as lots of bug fixes and performance improvements. This release also makes a lot of strides to feature parity with KDE 3.x, by adding those small little features that KDE 3.x users are barely aware of, but which were missed in KDE 4.0/4.1, such as taskbar grouping, multiple rows in the taskbar, panel auto-hiding, a traditional icon desktop through 'full-screen' foderview, and so on.
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Member since:2005-11-10
I think he's just referring to the boondoggle with regards to releasing the 4.0 release with a stable release tag/number instead of beta release tag/number.
There are still many who are not happy with the KDE community decision to release beta software with a stable release tag, which the early releases of OS X still receive criticism for.
I don't think anyone really doubted that the KDE4 series would turn out alright, many just don't like having naming conventions violated. I'll admit I am one of the critics of their decision and I think that they made a mistake by not releasing with Developer Release tags instead and that this release should be the KDE 4.0 release but I guess that is water under the bridge now. KDE 4.2 is going to be the first release to really show the KDE 4 series potential. I think most everyone agreed about that last year even. KDE 4.3 will probably be the first release capable of Enterprise class stability, although many will probably wait until the KDE 4 series is completely stable which won't happen until late 2010 (4.5)/early 2011 (4.6).
KDE 3.5.x still seems to work well for most people.
Member since:2008-04-04
I guess I can be considered of being somewhat critical, but I was critical about it because some things did not work as adviced, and it would have been more upfront to LESSEN the hype about KDE4 done by some KDE developers.
The problems and bugs get lower and lower by each release but it still feels not 100% ready. Don't get me wrong, I prefer the KDE approach any time over Gnome, but I think aside from the pointless comparison to other projects the KDE team should have be more self-critical.
Being self-critical is a good thing.
Member since:
2006-12-20
Well you'll doubtless be pleased to learn that KDE 4.2 does come with power management facilities. I have just installed the beta, and the capabilities seem pretty complete to me, which is all good news for me and my laptop!
You sound like you're a bit concerned about the future of KDE, so I'd recommend taking a look at the beta - it's very compelling stuff!