After two years, the relatively popular PCLinuxOS distribution has finally put out a new major release, imaginatively called PCLinuxOS 2009.1. PCLinuxOS is a release originally based on Mandrake (now Mandriva), but which has taken on a life of its own. The distribution has one selling point (for some, at least) few other popular distributions have: it eschews KDE4 (for now).
This new release comes with all the bits and pieces you expect from a modern Linux distribution: Linux kernel 2.6.26.8.tex3, KDE 3.5.10, OpenOffice.org 3.0, Firefox 3.0.7, Thunderbird 2.0.0.14, Ktorrent, Frostwire, Amarok, Flash, Java JRE, Compiz-Fusion 3D, and loads of other stuff. The pclos-gnome team has also put out its 2009.1 release, which is essentially the same except for the inclusion of GNOME 2.24.3.
It’s interesting to note the KDE version included: KDE 3.5.10. PCLinuxOS is a KDE-centric distribution, so why aren’t they focussing on the latest and greatest in KDE land? The team explains: “We decided to use KDE 3.5.10 as our default desktop as we could not achieve a similar functionality from KDE4.” The team does, however, promise to make KDE4 available in the repositories once they “stabalise it”.
If you prefer KDE 3.x over KDE4, PCLinuxOS is a good choice, as it’s probably one of the few more major distributions left out there still focussing on KDE 3.x. Download away!
I am glad it is not just me that cannot stand KDE4.
I have tried to like it, the version on Opensuse 11 is the best I have seen, but it still does not “feel” like a good desktop environment.
I tried the Ubuntu version, nope, back to Gnome, and on this laptop, I am using WinXP, as it is a dual boot with PC-BSD 7.1… with KDE4.1 that I cannot stand.
Sorry devs, but hte new KDE is just horrible.
I believe that OpenSUSE decided to keep KDE 4.1 for stability (whatever that means with 4.1) and to backport some stuff from 4.2 to it. You might want to try KDE 4.2 as it is a whole lot better than 4.1. I’m currently tracking it in Sid on my laptop and I am VERY satisfied with it. It is stable, some major problems with desktop plasmoids were fixed and it looks great (I’m using the Elegance Plasma theme with the default Oxygen icons), even for people without compositing-capable hardware.
Sure, it still looks and feels unfinished here and there but the rate that improvements are being delivered is unbelievable. My only complaint is with Amarok 2: Amarok 1.4’s UI was nearly perfect and they should have just tried to tune it a bit. The current 2.X alphas and betas look really bad but I am pretty sure that they are trying hard to make it look good as it changes every other week.
I have three main hold outs that prevents me from adopting 4.2 completely on my main desktop:
Localization: I will have to wait until Mandriva or someone else can deliver a good localization for Brazilian Portuguese before I can move my family to it.
k3b: Seriously, this is best burning app ever and it is sad that the early ports to Qt 4.X are not up to the snuff yet.
Konversation: Great IRC client, albeit a bit simpler and less powerful than X-Chat. I heard from one of the developers that the KDE 4 port wasn’t exactly a priority until sometime ago but they already have something on SVN (highly unstable though so it’s not for the faint of heart). I’ve been using Quassel in the mean time and I’m loving it. Unfortunately it does not support DCC transfers yet due to its unusual design, but it is on its TO-DO list.
Other than that, it is fine. There are some other Qt3 and/or KDE 3 software that I’m really fond of that may or may not make the cut like Valknut and Apollon but that can be somehow worked around. For most people, the functionality delivered is more than enough.
I don’t want to sound like a sales man but I truly believe that the improvements brought by KDE 4.2 should be enough to at least make you give it another chance. Who knows, you might like it! ^_^
Edited 2009-03-12 19:45 UTC
I for one am really liking KDE 4 starting with KDE 4.2. KDE 4.0-4.1 obviously wasn’t ready for use as your primary desktop environment.
I’d suggest trying KDE 4.2 if you haven’t. Its only going to get better from here.
Nope. You’re not the only one. Starting with 4.1, I really started liking KDE4’s desktop features, though a lot of the “peripheral” software was lacking. Starting with 4.2, most of the peripheral stuff is up to snuff too.
You didn’t try KDE 4.2.1. It is really good, almost as good as KDE 3.5.10
You also didn’t try KDE on the best KDE oriented distro which is Mandriva IMHO.
I’ve got Mandriva 2009.1 RC1 + KDE 4.2.1 and I’m telling you this is truly a happy marriage.
If you still want to use PC-BSD, their latest beta features KDE 4.2.1
FreeBSD 7.1 is excellent and I expect PC-BSD 7.1 to be a great release too.
You took the words right out of my mouth. KDE 4.0, 4.1, and 4.2 have all been crap with a lot of hoopla surrounding them. I’m not a huge 3.x fan, either. But I was a big KDE 1.x and 2.x fan and had hoped that KDE4 would redeem them. Guess not. 🙁
Hmm, what exactly did you like about 1.x and 2.x that have degraded in 3.x? Guess not.
I had thought that 3.x was a port of 2.x to qt3 and polishing of 2.x, with almost no redesign. From my 10-year experience with KDE, I still remember the hideous days with 2.x and arts and noatun. What a release for me when we had Juk and then amarok in KDE 3. KDE 4.2, for me, has already surpassed the functionality provided by 3.5 series. And I am thrilled about the possibility of the KDE4 technologies that has still not consolidated into programs at this stage. For example, when can we associate the plasma activities with virtual desktops? and, when can we see our calendars, todos, emails, contacts, whatever, on our desktop without opening each handling application?
I find it a little weird that people are so against KDE4 as i personally find it the best desktop environment I’ve used to date (including OS X’s Aqua and Vista’s Aero, BeOS, numerous other open source DEs and all of the other windows shell’s of old).
I love KDE4 – but i guess, it just boils down to preference
I think you actually may have hit upon the reason without realising it.
KDE4 probably IS the best current desktop environment. Also, it doesn’t include Mono. Therefore, it would be imperative (from one particular point of view) to create an impression that people were against it.
Can you say “astroturfing”?
So, people do not wish to use KDE 4 because they’re secretly Microsoft and/or Mono supporters? Conspiracy theory generator working overtime today, Lemur 2?
Let me lay your fears to rest, at least as regarding why I don’t use KDE 4. Ready? I can’t. I know this doesn’t apply to most people, but the reason I don’t use KDE 4 is because, well, there’s this small matter of needing to see the screen which I’m physically incapable of doing. See, with GNOME that’s not really a problem, but it is with KDE due to lack of at-spi interoperability with the QT toolkit–note that this is being worked on but it’s in such an early stage it’s not really useable. So, there. Kind of pokes a hole in your conspiracy theory doesn’t it? Or are you going to call me an evil KDE hater, or something else now? Come on, do your worst.
I’m not speculating about any one individual, of course. I just note that there is an extraordinary amount of vitriol spewed over the Internet forums in the direction of KDE4, and much of it is just plain wrong.
Misinformation. FUD. Call it what you will.
Generally it takes the form of “KDE4 is ugly …” which of course is sufficiently vague that one cannot rebut it. Some of it takes the form of “you could do this or that in KDE3 but you can’t in KDE4” … and generally you can show comments like that to be mistaken. The commonest one of these is “I can’t put (or arrange) icons on the desktop”. There are so many of these mistaken comments put forth about KDE4 that one has to wonder where they are coming from.
In your particular case, however … sorry, I can’t help. I really don’t know what “lack of at-spi interoperability” actually even means.
Didn’t say you could help my situation, actually some progress is being made in this area but as I said, it’s far from anything even close to useable yet–Dbus needs to be implemented in the at-spi framework, and that’s the real sticking point right now. Leaving aside, of course, that Trolltech (now Nokia) decided to implement their QT accessibility infrastructure in a method they knew full well wasn’t supported at the time and couldn’t be utilized, but that’s neither here nor there. . I do have to say, if it ever gets to a useable point, I’d certainly give KDE 4 a go. I don’t mind GNOME, but I’m always interested in something different, and I must admit I’m getting a bit bored with it. I wanted to point out, by example, that not everyone who doesn’t use KDE 4 is actually against it, or a troll/spreader of FUD, though there are times when I do get angry when a previously GTK+ program I could use moves to QT (VLC, I’m looking at you) rendering it completely unuseable for me. So in that regard, perhaps I can sometimes lash out against QT, more out of irritation than anything else. I don’t think I’ve ever lashed out against KDE 4, but who knows.
OK … I think I’ve found it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT-SPI
Nasty. I sincerely hope they fix that real soon now, that is a serious shortcoming.
I myself have a sort-of related bug report in Ubuntu launchpad right now. I need a mouse which does not move itself, so that I don’t have to move my shoulder to operate the computer. My solution to this is a Logitech Marble Mouse trackball.
Here is my bug:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xserver-xorg-input-evdev/+…
By who? The secret society of KDE 3 fanatics? I heard the congregate at night in the woods near Vancouver and chant secret hymns to cast deadly spells upon Aaron.
Includes something worse, a cashew.
Can you say “wild paranoia”?
Maybe you are right. You could have a point.
Jason Bourne:
raver31:
But, then again, maybe I actually do have a point. It is possible on the face of it.
Edited 2009-03-14 08:01 UTC
So, if you criticise KDE4… You’re astroturfing? For whom? With what goal? Since it’s you we’re talking about, it’s probably for Microsoft… Does that mean Linus is astroturfing for Microsoft?
Too bad I stopped Psychology after two years. You would’ve been fascinating.
Edited 2009-03-14 10:21 UTC
Not criticising … anything and everything can have genuine, valid critcism made against it. Nothing is ever perfect for everyone.
However, when one sees numerous “I hate KDE4” posts (very often from people who apparently don’t use Linux) without any rhyme or reason whatsoever given … or reasons given that are factually incorrect … repeated over and over without any real justification … one has to wonder about those sorts of posts. They don’t seem to be criticisms at all … just factless smears and nothing else.
Especially when in actual use KDE4 works just fine and is very quick and snappy, and ordinary non-expert people when shown it can’t pick it from Windows 7. Where are all the “I hate Windows 7” posts, one has to wonder?
What goal, you ask? Well … if something new has a number of people saying “its rubbish” … a lot of people who might otherwise have tried it presumably won’t bother. So in guessing at what the goal might be, we might start by wondering if there could be any party who could possibly have an interest in people not trying out KDE4?
Edited 2009-03-14 10:46 UTC
Replace “KDE4” with “Windows” and/or “Microsoft” and we pretty much got the gist of why few people here take you seriously.
Funny how you can identify this problem in others, but are completely oblivious to the fact you have the exact same problem. Fascinating. Like I said, too bad I quit psychology.
Edited 2009-03-14 10:57 UTC
He’s gotcha there, Lemur.
Oh come on, get real Thom.
I back up with references to external sites and quotes from other parties possibly better than any other poster on OSNews, even yourself.
Count links per post if you don’t believe me.
What is it with you Thom? Am I eating into your revenue or something?
Let’s get back to the original post.
“People who don’t use Linux” – you don’t use Windows. “Reasons that are factually incorrect” – you’ve had numerous of those. “Repeated over and over without any real justification” – well, that one’s pretty obvious.
Links per post? Is that somehow the new measurement of how right you are?
Seriously, this is pretty hilarious. This is like Stalin walking up to Mao and going all “Why did you kill all those people? Why? Killing is wrong, man! You make communism look bad! I would never kill so many people! Why are you doing this!”
I just love the denial in your post. Comedy gold.
Hah, quite the contrary. People pay good money to see monkeys in zoos, and they can get the same experience for free on OSNews. Do the math.
Edited 2009-03-15 09:15 UTC
OMG this was the funniest reading on OSNews I have seen in a long time! Your right, it is pure comedy gold ROFL.
Oh Lemur, really what color IS the sky in your world?
You are a loon, Thom.
Obligatory supporting link here:
http://www.osnews.com/thread?353216
I’m not that familiar with Jason. He’s been around a while but does not post much. But he does post about things other than KDE.
Raver31, I can vouch for. He’s been an OSNews reader for at least 3.5 years and regularly contributes a range of good comments on a variety of topics. Of course, I suppose that could all be just a ruse to support his fictional persona here on OSNews, when in fact he’s really a paid stooge for Microsoft. Or perhaps the Communist Mafia or something. Or maybe he’s just an operative of the Al-Qaeda.
But I admit that it is possible that you have a point. Using the word “possible” in its strictest sense of meaning a non-zero probability.
Edited 2009-03-14 21:12 UTC
The reason I don’t use KDE 4 is because it uses qt4, which doesn’t render fonts the same way as qt3 and gtk2, It doesn’t respect fontconfig at all, worse still it uses subpixel rendering and hinting on vertical stems which is idiotic and results in misshapen and badly kerned characters.
Going by your logic qt4 must have been created by Microsoft to make Linux look like a clown OS with worse typesetting than a typewriter in order to drive away people with taste.
The fact that they haven’t fixed Qt4’s rendering after 5 revisions stands as proof.
Qt 4.5 added some patches to use Freetype’s subpixel rendering if a subpixel rendering enabled Freetype build is present. Also, both the LCD filter and font hinting settings of Fontconfig are respected now.
Most of the time when we’re forced to give up our security blanket of knowledge and learn something new we “can’t stand it.” I have no doubt that once KDE 4.X reaches critical mass (e.g., all the major distros offer it exclusively and eschew KDE 3.5.X) and people become accustomed to it then all of a sudden, folks will think its the greatest thing since sliced bread. Open your mind…try new things. You’ll like it!
I respectfully disagree. Yes, it’s different, and that may be enough for a lot of people to not like it. But having spent quite a bit of time with it (because I have to support GNOME, KDE, and Enlightenment equally) I find KDE4.x to be a step back in GUI design and overall usability. For Linux, I still much prefer Gnome. YMMV.
It’s like the ribbon interface in Office 2007. We all know how people have grown to “love” that!
By the way, KDE4 is not terrible. To quote Mr. Barkley, “It’s turrble”.
I am using KDE4 on Cooker for a few weeks, but too many things just don’t work very well.
Could I use KDE3 from PCL on Mandriva? Or how difficult is it to transfer my installation to PCL? Does it have the same number of packages as Mandriva?
Installing on Mandriva packages made for PCLinuxOS is a really bad idea. The same goes for packages made for Mandriva installed on PCLinuxOS.
I suggest you to try the Mandriva community KDE 3.5.10 package. It is not officially supported by Mandriva but is compiled for Mandriva and it is supposed to work. One place where you can find community packages is here http://mib.pianetalinux.org/miblight/repository-2/
Or you can wait for the community release of Mandriva One 2009.1 + KDE 3.5.10 which should occur about two months after the official release.
Thanks for your answer. Where did you see KDE3.5.10? I could not find it neither in http://mib.pianetalinux.org/2009.0/ nor http://mib.pianetalinux.org/2009.1/.
Why do you think there is going to be a Mandriva One KDE3 version for 2009.1? Was there one for 2009 that I missed?
It have more than mandriva, and they all works!
Installed today, great release, all is working well. Waiting for this release, i returned to time, when i was searching for my distribution, and i had on my harddrive ubuntu, suse, mandriva..All I have to say, i`m happy with my new PCLOS.
KDE 4.2 is crap TBH. Its default theming is ass ugly and the poorest things about is it can’t really be changed to something else because there are NO options available. Plasma is still somewhat cripled and the plasmoids are very unfinished/unpolished. If a plasmoid is not meant to be placed only into the dock, it will most likely not be usable there. Plasmoids that have a separate interface for docking are just ugly and count with fingers of one’s left hand.
KDE apps are also unconsistent in ways how they work. Some allow you to hide the menubar, some don’t. Some feature “universal” shortcuts the others don’t. (I.e. you don’t find a ‘close window’ shortcut under Kopete, only the ‘exit app’ one.)
Dolphin, KMail and KWin are probably the only things on earth that make me not want the switch back to GNOME. Among them is only Kate I consider as a usable KDE app in both KDE 3 and 4. And not even them seem ‘ready’ to me…
KWin lacks some very useful ‘effects’ (more like usability addons) found in Compiz-Fusion, but I dislike the physics engine of C-F very much. I’ve never liked KDE3, so that’s not an option.
On topic: I think the PCLOS devs made just the right choice considering (what I think is) their userbase. KDE4 is currently just a mess of half-made (an optimistic approximation) features someone thought as a new way of using the desktop.
You can chage plasma theme by right clicking on the desktop and you will have access to setings, they exist! You can even do 1 click download+install of plasma theme. Same for wallpaper and the dekstop itself. You can switch it back to classical icon based desktop from that dialog.
Plasma is the least visible part of KDE. There are icons, widget styles and window borders too. And yes, I’ve tried customizing my DE. Bespin for widgets and windows, and some Sculpture-lookalike theme for plasmoids.
My source for alternate themes is KDE-Look.org, which does not currently feature ~any themes par Plasma ones. There are really only Bespin and Sculpture for windows. No alternate full icon sets available to replace Oxygen. Well, they claim there are, but when I installed some using the built-in tool the icons didn’t work. Wrong icons appeared in wrong places or none were loaded. Luckily, for me, I’m least annoyed about Oxygen icons.
By the way, those built-in theme download tools in KDE (or the site they’re using) are broken. Part of the blame goes definitely to KDE-Look. They allow people to submit source-only releases, which of course are not installable straight from the KDE tools. Sadly, very few people are willing to spend a couple of minutes packaging their piece of software properly. On the other hand, the plasmoid theme downloader gives me just the 10-15 latest themes submitted, and I can’t even search for older ones.
————–
I didn’t say I don’t know how to customize my desktop. I said there is generally nothing to customize it with.
Edited 2009-03-13 18:07 UTC
Both plasma and the standard widgets allows theming. But if you try a Live CD like Kubuntu, probably you will not find any due to lack of disk space.
And like any desktop, free or not, if you don’t like the defaults, then go to the Internet and grab the stuff yourself.
And how many times, people have to say if you want the old look, you can have it. The only thing missing was the desktop icons and KDE 4.2 reintroduce that. OpenSUSE 11.1 back ported it btw, and is the only 4.1 distro with that.
I suppose it remains to be seen how well KDE4 works with PCLOS, but we’ll find out soon enough, since texstar has started packaging it.
http://www.pclinuxos.com/index.php?option=com_smf&Itemid=58&topic=5…
As for KDE 4.x – I’ve tried 4.0, 4.1, and 4.2. I see lot’s of potential, lot’s of interesting ideas, some good eye candy, and I’ve seen steady improvement/fixes.
But frankly, KDE 4.x just isn’t ready yet, even with 4.2 (the best release so far). It just isn’t stable enough, consistent enough, it’s feature incomplete, still has trouble with things like re-paints, resizes, and changing screen resolutions, and just feels unfininshed).
By observing the rate of improvements/fixes from 4.0 to 4.2, I reckon KDE 4 might be ready for primetime by 4.5 or 4.6, or perhaps when it makes it into Debian stable. 😉
In the meantime, I give kudos to the KDE devs for their ambition, foresight, and willingness to take risks on their reputations. But until KDE 4 is ready for primetime, KDE 3.5, or Gnome, are quite good, thank you very much.
Which leads me to PCLinuxOS – Big kudos to the Texstar and the Ripper gang for going with KDE 3.5 as default (and adding their own gorgeous eye candy), and for making an all around outstanding desktop distribution.
I installed it last night, I have to say I’m quite impressed. I installed it on my laptop, which is not the most Linux-friendly machine around – ATI graphics, Broadcom wireless, 1280×800 resolution, etc. But PCLinuxOS packaged all the ATI and Broadcom drivers (both open source broadcom drivers, and NDISwrapper Windows drivers), properly detected and configured them, and ran everything flawlessly, even on the live CD.
I’ve been able to make those things work on this lappy with Ubuntu as well, and reasonably easily. But it took a little more tweaking. Also, with wireless, the config in PCLOS is much better than Ubuntu’s. I had no trouble getting it to understand and connect to both WEP and WPA incryption wireless routers/access points, whereas the Ubuntu config often did have trouble.
And PCLOS is all around really excellent – PCLOS Control Center (dervied from Mandriva Control Center, the best GUI config / Control Center in the Linux world, IMO), the theme is gorgeous, the fonts are smooth and perfect, it uses APT/Synaptic as a front end to RPM (a nice touch over stuff like YUM or urpmi or Yast), it’s very fast, and it’s simple to use.
I was starting to give up somewhat on Linux, because a lot of distros I’ve tried over the last year or so have left me a bit disappointed – buggy, something that worked before stopped working, required excessive tweaking to get some things to work, etc.
But I see PCLinuxOS living up to Linux’s very high desktop potential, because it appears that the PCLOS devs have put in extra time, attention, and care into making everything work seamlessly, packaging needed drivers/codecs/etc, paying attention to details, and putting out a very easy and polished distro, indeed.
I’m very impressed.
Edited 2009-03-12 22:25 UTC
I could not have said it better myself. I am a huge KDE fan, but no matter how hard I try to like KDE4 it just isn’t ready for my usage.
I have tried it on my main desktop (custom built), my laptop (HP Media Pavillion), and my PC hooked up to my TV (older Dell from work). In all those settings, the issues were the same. Re-paints, re-sizes and weird logoff visual issues are the most common. Yes, it is usable, yes it is pretty, but it just isn’t as solid as KDE3.
Not Yet.I seriously believe that it is the best design, and I will gladly switch to it once it reaches feature parity with & the stability of 3.5
It took PCLOS ages and ages to get this release out. The longest time. It is two years between drinks for PCLOS.
When they made their KDE3 vs KDE4 decision, it was valid. They were probably looking at KDE 4.0.1 or something.
Anyway, meanwhile, just for some perspective I thought I might mention … one of the other Linux distribution holdouts, Slackware, has just now made the big move to KDE4:
http://alien.slackbook.org/blog/massive-updates-in-slackware-curren…
And even GNOME stronghold Linux Mint as well:
http://www.linuxmint.com/blog/?p=655
Now all that remains is to convince Debian to move their KDE4 out of experimental and into testing (squeeze).
KDE 4.2.1 / Qt 4.5 in conjunction with Kubuntu Jaunty Alpha 5 absolutely rocks on my test machine right now. Very quick, amazingly stable for an Alpha release.
“It took PCLOS ages and ages to get this release out. The longest time. It is two years between drinks for PCLOS.”
And I hope it stays that way. I’m sick and tired of 6 months cycles.
Fair enough.
I just note that the timing of the effort to get this release of PCLOS was particularly bad with respect to the development cycle of KDE, which is their desktop. The future of the KDE desktop, KDE4, was not yet ready, but the version they chose to go with was already going into a sort of wind-down-maintenance-no-new-developement mode.
Still, they seem to have a plan to shift to the new technology. It just seems that PCLOS takes longer to do these things than most other projects. They must have only a very small team, perhaps just one person. MEPIS is a lot like this also. Good software, stable, well tested … but quite crusty by the time they release it. Not recommended for new hardware just purchased.
Bingo! We have a winner! Man do I ever agree with you. I mean, if it was a rolling release it would be one thing. But to have so much change and break in just one year? It’s crazy.
Until KDE fixes file-locking issues which cause Plasma to lock up [file open/save, save-as] you won’t see it moving into unstable for months.
https://isohunt.com/download/70201317/pclinuxos+2009.1.torrent
I am glad the devs came out with this though it won’t work with my ATI Card. Klikit-Linux is using KDE 3.x too, which I am also using.
I never though I’d say this but I had thoughts about windows XP rather then KDE 4
Compared to other distros, yes it was a very long time between releases but to be honest this whole upgrading / re-installing every 6 months is a pain in the arse.
I’ve been a PCLOS user for a long time now and this is one reason I wouldn’t consider moving to other distros for that reason.
Tex and the Ripper gang were releasing updates to the core 2007 installation for a long time after release – some of the updates were quite substantial. I found this to be a far better release model – release an excellent, solid distro and update as required. I know some people will say that within Ubuntu, for example, one could update to the latest and greatest within synaptic, press and button and hey ho off we go – never (and I mean never) worked for me.
I have used a number of distros on and off – Ubuntu, Fedora, Suse, Elive, Knoppix, Mepis – PCLOS is, by a mile, the best for me.
Hardware detection: Perfect
Hardware configuration: Perfect
Speed: Excellent
Stability: Outstanding
Updating: Excellent
Artwork: Excellent
None of the other distrs come close, for me.
Note that these are for my situation. As sure as sh** is brown and sticky, there will be people who’s experience will not be as good as mine, but this is the same with all distros.
I have played with KDE4 on another machine and I do really like it – I love the look and feel and operation of many parts – but for the reasons above I wouldn’t move away from PCLOS just to use KDE4. I’d be losing more than I’d be gaining at this point in time.
Kudos to Tex and the Ripper gang. The best distro just got better.
the problem with their model is that they never updated the install cds, which is kind of neccessary. if i made a distro (and i would love to), i would have a fairly long major release cycle (at least a year), but update the install cds quarterly or such.
For those who are curious, the point of making yet another distro would be to make a community competitor to ubuntu. it really doesn’t HAVE a competitor that does everything it does (fedora and opensuse both lack a restricted driver manager, both are backed by corporations). Such a distro would have a long, but not stagnant release cycle (updating packages during the lifetime of the release like fedora), rigorous QA testing, attention to details, etc.
PCLinuxOS made the right decision. I personally hate all of the KDE 4.x series even KDE 4.2. It is sad to see such clever and very intelligent developers producing something so awkward to use. Here are some of my issues with KDE 4.x:
1. You cannot sort icons by or arrange them etc unless you create that transparent window (whatever they call it, folder view?) and arrange the icons in it. I wanted to make my desktop look like my Windows and creating another window on top of my desktop just to do that is ridiculous. It’s like creating a folder with Explorer and have it open all the time. Plain stupid!
2. That transparent window I mentioned above, if we already have it, we *should* be able to move it from any area when clicked. Pretty much like a skinned media player such as WinAmp. The whole area behaves like a title bar.
3. Why do I have to show a separate panel to perform simple operations such as re-arranging the icons? Do you (KDE devs) realize I had to *search* your forums in order for me to find out how to move an icon on the panel?? Why don’t you use common sense? Left click and slide?
4. Try resizing the taskbar. Resize its height until just over half of the screen and make it small again. The desktop gets covered with some big blank white/grey window covering everything. I think this is a bug.
5. You cannot make your apps look nice. You leave too much empty space, sometimes you don’t even group your toolbar icons, lack of separators etc. Your status bar in KDE develop looks ridiculous. Looks like a few widgets have been just thrown without any thought. There are no separators and the status bar is not beveled. It does not look attractive.
However I do like your gray theme.
I think you should get a professional designer. You have the power, you need better design.
Edited 2009-03-13 10:17 UTC
OSGuy,
Your issue number 1:
Yes, it is called folder view.
You can set it to be your desktop, just like in Windows or Gnome.
The folder view isn’t plain stupid like you think it is. You might not see the potential, but I do.
I can have several folder views on my desktop, each showing a project folder. This makes it very easy to boot my pc and have an instant overview of my projects.
No need anymore to browse to the needed folders.
And there are so many more features in folder view that can make your computer experiences much easier.
Your issue number 2:
You mean drag the folder view applet by clicking anywhere in the applet? That would be bad. How would you drag and drop files?
Your issue number 3:
Can you believe I would find it extremely frustrating that when I click somewhere on the screen and everything moves? I would like to be able to click on a button or icon, without moving it.
Your issue number 4:
Probably a bug, please report it.
Your issue number 5:
Report these problems to the application maintainers.
And about the professional designers: you will probably like to know that KDE does have several professional designers.
And OSGuy…
How something looks is entirely subjective.
I like to look at girls, but you might like boys more.
Such as?
It synergizes you integration expectations and leverages your knowledge capitalization. Everyone knows that!
You wouldn’t happen to be in marketing would you?
You can in fact do all this with KDE 4.2.
Right-click on the desktop area, then select “Appearance Settings”. This opens a dialog which sets the appearance/behaviour of the whole desktop. To make your KDE 4.2 desktop look and behave like Windows, set the “Desktop Activity Type” setting in this dialog box via the pull-down box to “Folder View” rather than its default setting of “Desktop”.
Now your whole desktop area will be a folder view of your ~/Desktop folder. This is now just the same behaviour as it is with Windows, KDE3 or GNOME. You can now manually place icons anywhere you like on the desktop area.
To arrange icons on your desktop area, right-click on your desktop again, and now select “Folder View Settings”. Select the “Display” tab in the “Desktop Activity Settings” dialog box. You can now set the icon size, text settings and icon arrangement of icons on your Windows-like desktop.
I don’t understand your other issues, although they seem to be centered on trying to make the Folder View widget behave like the KDE3 or the Windows desktop. It isn’t a KDE3 or a Windows desktop, it is a separate Plasma widget, with its own defined functionality.
Perhaps using the same name (named after the function which is to view a folder’s contents) for two different things (namely the Folder View widget and the Folder View desktop activity) is confusing. What would you suggest instead?
Edited 2009-03-13 12:28 UTC
The difference between a folder view widget on the desktop activity, and the folder view activity, is I hope illustrated by the two screen-shots in this gallery:
http://ourlan.homelinux.net/img/?Qwd=./images&Qiv=name&Qis=M
I think having icons on the desktop is stupid.
Seriously? It took me about 30 seconds to figure that one out. Granted it’s not obvious to figure out but not rocket science either.
Lesson: don’t do that.
No shit Sherlock.
I think they look nice, much nicer than GNOME/GTK apps.
I’ll admit I’m not an authority on what “looks nice” but neither are you.
Uh, what do you think the Windows desktop *is*?? It’s just a folder, that’s always visible. And you can have the exact same thing in KDE 4.2 (right-click desktop, Appearance settings, set type to Folder View, set which folder to show). Voila! You now have the exact same thing as you do in Windows.
Manipulating plasmoids is a pain. It would be nice if you could re-size the plasmoid-window-thingy like other windows (ie drag any side/corner). Sizing and placing multiple folderviews is a royal pain!
I prefer this, as it prevents accidental moves when clicking.
Doesn’t happen here, with KDE 4.2.1 on Debian Lenny, and KDE 4.2.1 on FreeBSD 7.1.
Sounds like a complaint against a specific app, and not against the DE. What was the point again?
Personally, I really like KDE 4.2. There are a few niggles with Plasma, but overall, I really like the updates since KDE 3.
Ok, I have to take back some of the stuff I said above.
I had to download a whole ISO (the latest Mandriva). I was hoping I will prove other readers wrong but unfortunately (and fortunately), I could not back my first point up. I spoke before I researched, I spoke too soon so I do apologize to the community.
I could not back my first point up because (as one of the readers) have explained, when you select “Appearance Settings” and then from “Desktop Activity Type”, “Folder View”, the desktop icons behave just like in KDE 3 (and Windows). Even the popup menu changes the way I’d expect it to be. So I really do like the menu this way.
I restored this setting to “Desktop – Default” and only then my issues mentioned in point 1 were supported. I did not know about this setting and I feel like an idiot and again I do apologize.
However, I have to stress that “default” config matters. In my own opinion Folder View should have been the default configuration for the new KDE because that’s what people are used to.
Point number 2, I cannot take this back but I have a suggestion how to make it better. Give the user the following option: “Hold Down Ctrl” and while the Ctrl button is held, let us move the window regardless where we click.
Point number 3: I did not really search the KDE forums. I saw the answer by accident but still, we should not show a separate panel to do move icons. This operation should be dynamic. Left click and drag. The icon should start dragging once the mouse pointer has been moved about half a centimetre away from the icon. This will prevent accidental moves.
Point 4. I could not replicate this with the latest Mandriva. All other distros I tried in the past had this problem even the ones with KDE 4.2.
Point 5. I cannot take this back except for the bit about the “KDE designers”.
Having said all that, again I do apologize for speaking before research. Having the desktop set up this way, I would rate KDE 4 out of 5.
Edited 2009-03-14 03:41 UTC
I used PCLinuxOS for a couple of years. Nice Distro but they were not able to keep up with the industry. Now I am using Linux Mint. Once PCLinuxOS updates to the latest version of KDE I may give it a spin again.
I cannot stand KDE 4 series.
Linus didn’t stand for KDE 4 series.
PCLinuxOS also cannot stand KDE 4.
How long until the whole world comes to common sense that these developers must have been on a orgy to decide to take this project where it went!
Fascinating
Good thing some of us can form our own opinions and don’t need Linus to tell us what to think.
Good for them.
If that’s what happened I wish more software developers went to orgy’s since it produces such good results.
Honestly, the only orgies I’ve noticed in the KDE4 community over the last year or so have been ones of self-congratulations and denial. And yeah, there’ve been plenty of those.
Edited 2009-03-13 18:24 UTC
That’s definitely part of the problem, but I’d like to add another one, something I just christened as the Horizon Syndrome: the promise that the next version will finally be good enough for everyone!
As much as I praised KDE 4.2 for the massive stride forwards it made when compared to KDE 4.1, it’s still far from a stable and polished environment. It’s very rough around the edges, and if I add up all the problems people are having with it, it’s hard to not see the cold hard truth: despite all the promises, KDE 4.2 also isn’t the release that replaces KDE 3. Maybe KDE 4.3 will be it?
I personally tried to like KDE 4.2, and forced myself to use it full time, but it didn’t take long until I started pulling my own hair out (and I’m already balding) because of everything just not feeling right. I see the enormous amount of potential, but I can’t actually touch it. There’s a lot of cool and alternative ideas, but those ideas are mostly put to work to re-create old paradigms badly, instead of creating new paradigms well. Themes are flaky, Plasma is insanely cool but feels out of place with all the non-Plasma items, creating this schizophrenic experience that just irks me somehow.
When it comes to Linux, I’m not a particular fan of GNOME 2.x and KDE 3.x, and since GNOME is pretty much dead when it comes to actual innovative development, I had high hopes for KDE4.
But hey, maybe KDE 4.3 will be like Frankenfruity.
Yeah, that’s pretty good. My analogy is “The Great Pumpkin”, each 4.x release being another Halloween night.
I, too, had some hope for KDE4. But once every six months, it seems, the faithful all gather to watch the Great Pumpkin fail to rise out of the pumpkin patch.
Edited 2009-03-13 20:47 UTC
That sounds like a rather extraordinary belief.
Just out of curiosity, what exactly would it take for one of the future KDE4 versions to become the Great Pumpkin that you are apparently expecting?
Or maybe it’s just not for you? I dont like Fiona Apple but you dont see me whining about how much she suck all the time.
This is what they said:
“We decided to use kde3-5-10 as our default desktop as we could not achieve a similar functionality from kde4.”
It doesn’t mean they can’t stand KDE4, they just don’t seem to feel that it’s ready for them yet.
I am running this laptop on Mandriva 2009.1, with KDE4.2.1, it still does not feel right.
I feel like it is about to cirl up and die, it is a little slugish, and it looks very garish.
It is nothing to do with learning new things as one poster said, in fact, if I was like that, I would not be using Linux in the first place, I would still be using Windows lol.
I am sitting here testing a desktop environment at 23:15 on a Friday night, in fact a Friday night when my wages are in my bank account…. How sad is that ?
I should be down the pub supping beer and perving women.
It has been the 2nd time that the OS does horrible things to my BIOS and the ability to read my HD: result = I lost everything on my (test)pc. OK, it’s only a P2 with a SATA HD and 2 GB RAM, and I must accept failures on a test pc, but it shouldn’t. No other OS has ever resulted in twice doing this.
There is nothing more degrading for my mind than having to restart in Win in order to reformat my MB/bios. But I got there. WinXP is running fine, so is Lenny 5, the most remarkable OS this year, I think. Because the old lady has been rejuvenated. She is quick and to the point, running Wine as it should.
Uhm… That doesn’t make sense. How can an operating syste mess up your BIOS, and how can Windows XP “reformat” it? and how can your BIOS fcuk up your hard drives?
I think what you mean is that something went wrong with the boot loader installation, which is nothing to get too worried about. The whole MBR system is something invented before the first coming of Jesus, and for some arbitrary and inexplicable reason, we’re still using it today. It’s very breakable.
it’s only a P2 with a SATA HD and 2 GB RAM
Pentium 2 with S-ATA?
Win in order to reformat my MB/bios
I am sorry, but you don’t know what you are saying. Motherboard cannot be formatted, and if something screwed up your BIOS you wouldn’t be able to fix it in any other way than buying a whole new motherboard.
Yes, I could go with the term “remarkable”. It won’t even install on the Intel G43 motherboard I bought 9 months ago, because the kernel is too old. Not even the SATA controller is supported. And Lenny was released just last month. I would call that “remarkable”. And that is pretty typical of my experience with Debian over the years.
On another topic, although the OP is likely attributing his woes to the wrong cause, a screwed up boot loader, or anything that prevents the machine from making it at least into single user mode, is pretty egregious. Especially for an OS that bills itself as being good for newbies.
Edited 2009-03-14 17:10 UTC