KDE Software Compilation 4.5 Released

Submitted by JRepin 2010-08-10 KDE 116 Comments

KDE today celebrates its semi-annual release event, releasing new versions of the Plasma Desktop and Netbook workspaces, the KDE Development Platform and a large number of applications available in their 4.5.0 versions. In this release, the KDE team focused on stability and completeness of the desktop experience.

It’s that time of year again – a new release of the desktop environment that has travelled a long road from its humble beginnings as a somewhat shaky 4.0, to today’s 4.5 release as an already fully grown and mature desktop environment. Improving the stability, usability, and performance of features introduced in earlier versions was the main goal for 4.5.

WebKit is slowly but surely becoming a full citizen of KDE land as a welcome alternative to khtml. “After years of work, the integration for WebKit has been come part of our libraries. WebKit now provides a integration with password storage and other features in Konqueror, the KDE web browser. Other applications can make use of WebKit to display content with the same level of integration as KHTML.”

A lot of work has been put in cleaning up the notification area, which looks a lot cleaner now thanks to monochromatic icons. Kwin can do tabbed windowing now, but since it relies heavily on toolkit support, it only works for Qt applications.

Lots of other stuff in there, so be sure to take a peek.

About The Author

Thom Holwerda

Follow me on Mastodon @[email protected]

116 Comments

2010-08-10 11:20 pm

Timmmm
They *still* haven’t fixed the layout ugliness. Check out this notification:

http://kde.org/announcements/4.5/screenshots/plasma-notification.pn…

It’s pretty good, but there are obvious flaws, such as the title being exactly the same font as the message, and the totally random placement of the tick.

Gnome still has a much cleaner look.

2010-08-10 11:26 pm

nunopinheiro
And that’s the reason we keep on working at it, and some times we do it better than any one else, some times we don’t and we need to keep at it, I’m sure we will never manage to get it perfect, I doubt such a thing is real.. Gnome is not perfect, Mac Osx is not perfect win7 sure is not perfect, the fun for us is to try to achieve it, in the hope that its as fun to you to use it

2010-08-11 1:45 am

tyrione
And that’s the reason we keep on working at it, and some times we do it better than any one else, some times we don’t and we need to keep at it, I’m sure we will never manage to get it perfect, I doubt such a thing is real.. Gnome is not perfect, Mac Osx is not perfect win7 sure is not perfect, the fun for us is to try to achieve it, in the hope that its as fun to you to use it

Stop comparing UI design with OS X and Windows.

It’s not there. Comparing against GNOME makes sense. The rest is just absurd.

2010-08-11 2:05 am

WereCatf
Stop comparing UI design with OS X and Windows.

It’s not there. Comparing against GNOME makes sense. The rest is just absurd.

Don’t be such a hell-bent fanboy. UI is UI, no matter the OS, and comparing one UI to another is perfectly valid if they are meant for similar usage situations.

While I love GNOME and Linux generally I’ve come to similarly love the way Win7 handles applications on the taskbar: all windows are grouped together and when you hover over the icon for the application it shows you them all neatly together as thumbnails, and you can hover over any of them and all other windows are hidden and that particular one brought forth. Sure, it could be brought to Linux too, I doubt it’d take much code to f.ex. add a Compiz plugin for such, but it’s still a good, reasonable UI feature that’s not yet present under Linux AFAIK.

2010-08-11 2:18 am

lemur2
I’ve come to similarly love the way Win7 handles applications on the taskbar: all windows are grouped together and when you hover over the icon for the application it shows you them all neatly together as thumbnails, and you can hover over any of them and all other windows are hidden and that particular one brought forth. Sure, it could be brought to Linux too, I doubt it’d take much code to f.ex. add a Compiz plugin for such, but it’s still a good, reasonable UI feature that’s not yet present under Linux AFAIK.

http://www.kdedevelopers.org/node/3864
2010-08-11 2:38 am

WereCatf

2010-08-11 4:05 am

lemur2
http://www.kdedevelopers.org/node/3864

That’s nowhere near the same thing.

Are you sure?

All of the components that you described for Windows 7, as I understood your description, are implemented in the KDE 4.5 desktop.

http://ourlan.homelinux.net/qdig/?Qwd=./KDE4_desktop&Qif=kde4-taskb…

One hovers the mouse over the taskbar group icon in order to see the thumbnails of the running applications in the group.

Edited 2010-08-11 04:07 UTC

2010-08-11 3:29 am

fridder
This may do it: http://kde-look.org/content/show.php/Smooth+Tasks?content=101586

2010-08-11 3:55 am

WereCatf
Ah, thanks. That’s more like what I meant, though does it work by hovering or does one have to click on the group to see the thumbnails?

Anyways, that’s one of those features I’ve grown quite fond of and would love to see it become default in GNOME. Too bad I don’t use KDE, otherwise I’d try that thing out.

2010-08-11 4:41 am

fridder
Yep it works on hover. It is actually the default on PCLinuxOS KDE version so you can try it via live CD if your hardware is supported.

Edited 2010-08-11 04:49 UTC

2010-08-11 12:43 pm

Zifre
Anyways, that’s one of those features I’ve grown quite fond of and would love to see it become default in GNOME. Too bad I don’t use KDE, otherwise I’d try that thing out.

GNOME has DockbarX, which IMHO, is much better than Smooth Tasks. It also supports pinning applications like in Windows 7, which, IIRC, Smooth Tasks does not support.

2010-08-11 8:19 am

panzi
Thanks for linking to my applet.

However, it does not emulate all of the functions of the taskbar of Windows 7. There are no launchers and no extended context menu. And applications can’t put widgets in the preview area. And I should really update the animation code (so it uses kinetic). Gah I’m so very much driven by whatever happens to interest me at the very moment. Currently I write (or have written) nonsense in JavaScript (optimizing brainf*** compiler and command line option parser) and don’t work on Smooth Tasks.

2010-08-11 5:32 am

adiwibowo
Grouping application windows together is one thing I turn off when using Win 7.

I don’t like grouping. That makes switching between windows needs more mouse movements, or clicks than necessary.

If Task Manager in Plasma-Desktop insists on grouping together and can’t be disabled then I will look for task manager replacement.

2010-08-11 8:33 am

mart
The default is to group only when the taskbar is full, however can be disabled completely

2010-08-11 12:25 pm

lemur2
Grouping application windows together is one thing I turn off when using Win 7.

I don’t like grouping. That makes switching between windows needs more mouse movements, or clicks than necessary.

If Task Manager in Plasma-Desktop insists on grouping together and can’t be disabled then I will look for task manager replacement.

Of course it can be turned off.

http://www.kdedevelopers.org/node/3864

As you can see from the “Task manager Settings” dialog box shown in the above link, in the “Grouping and Sorting” section there is a pull-down labelled “Grouping:”. There are three options that can be selected, the one shown is “Manually”, the default is “By Program Name”, and the other option is “Do Not Group”.

Configure it however you like.

Enjoy.

2010-08-11 6:07 am

yfph
[deleted]

Edited 2010-08-11 06:09 UTC

2010-08-11 10:12 am

tyrione
Grow up. Fanboy is for children. I’m over 40. KDE is not on the level of OS X, period.

Next I’m going to be told that Qt’s Embedded platform is ready to surpass Android, let alone iOS.

Perhaps you think KOffice is going to supplant InDesign, Quark, hell even Scribus for document processing, or Photoshop, Painter 11, Excel, Calc or Numbers, not to mention Pages or Keynote, etc.

What does Gimp, Inkscape and Scribus all have in common? They aren’t native KDE designed applications.

Some applications in KDE are excellent. Kate leaps to mind. Kile is another champion for traditional TeX/LaTeX publishing. Okular is solid and Digikam is fantastic.

What part of that list is not previously duplicated on OS X or Windows?

KDE is fixated on Plasma. 90% of it does absolutely nothing for productivity.

VLC is written in Qt for cross-platform. Amarok is an eye soar I avoid like the plague which is half baked and seems to have phonon sound issues in Debian KDE 4.4.5. Configuring phonon via sound just crashed it.

VLC plays like a dream.

Dare I have to ask about Audio/Video in OS X? No. It just works. Safari 5.x and WebKit Nightly smoke. WebKit2 is nearly ready. HTML5 compliance is nearing completion. Opera is way off. Chrome and Safari, not to mention Epiphany [great little browser] are way ahead.

There are lots of solid parts in Gnome and KDE. Gnome for consistency [albeit more subdued] is not a rip apart and start over ala KDE 4.x. If they are smart, GNOME 3 can avoid KDE’s claims that seem to persist–claims beyond it’s capabilities.

Blender 2.5 is humming along. It’s not a KDE application.

I’m not interested in the Social Desktop Environment for Linux.

I’m interested in the highly productive, multi-tasking Desktop Environment for Linux for development and applied Engineering. Finite Element Analysis, OpenCL/OpenGL, etc. KDE is not interested in these areas.

2010-08-11 10:42 am

No it isnt
The “it just works” myth in OS X is just that, a myth. I frequent a couple of non-tech sites that also have a huge contingent of Mac users, and I can assure you that they have tons of problems with getting streaming video to work (unless it uses Flash, of course, in which case it simply sucks). Video streamed upside-down or just not being shown at all.

And iTunes is a resource hog and probably the only half-decent music player for OS X. If you dislike it, well, tough luck. It’s all there is.

Edit: of course, when Mac users don’t get things to work, it’s the world’s fault (proprietary Microsoft solutions that OS X only half-assedly supports), and when it doesn’t work with Linux, it’s the fault of Linux. Of course everything “just works” when everything that doesn’t is the fault of someone else.

Edited 2010-08-11 10:45 UTC

2010-08-11 12:07 pm

nunopinheiro
Well all I said was that we like every one else, we don’t get it perfect, as you said we get it better than others in some areas, and worse in other areas.

I can tell you that we lack a bit in designers, we need more, and we need to coordinate them, one off my personal goals in the oxygen adventure was to create a much more friendly environment, for designers and cooperation between all elements in the creation of this desktop.

are we as good as macosx? duno, maybe not (personally I’m not a fan).

But should we give up? should we not compare what we do worse and better? I don’t think so.

Many of the things we created on KDE and Gnome are now visible in mac and windows, and this is a good thing it provides a better experience to all of us.

Plus and most importantly, its a lot of fun to do, and in the end its the key factor here, we do it because we love it. and nothing cant take that away from us. Have fun.

2010-08-11 12:38 pm

Fettarme H-Milch
Gosh, if you hate KDE applications so much, why do you even take part in discussions? Just go away and let KDE SC users alone and let us enjoy the software we like, you close-minded jerk.

2010-08-11 8:02 pm

WereCatf
Fanboy is for children. I’m over 40.

Fanboy has nothing to do with age, it’s about attitude. You know, the inability of hearing critics of a subject one holds deeply important to oneself and the belief that there can’t be anything better than what one uses oneself.

KDE is not on the level of OS X, period.

First of all, that’s subjective. Secondly, I haven’t used KDE4 much but given how horrible I find OS X I consider almost anything better than it. That’s an opinion though and in no way a general truth.

What I do claim as a general truth though is that one should be able to discuss not only the strengths of one’s preferred OS/DE, but to also be able to admit its deficiencies.

2010-08-12 6:44 am

lemur2
What does Gimp, Inkscape and Scribus all have in common? They aren’t native KDE designed applications.

And also, none of them are part of an integrated desktop software collection.

2010-08-12 3:39 pm

Stephen!
KDE is not on the level of OS X, period.

But then again, KDE4 has only been around for a few years, whereas Apple has been refining OS X for the last nine years or so.

2010-08-12 12:04 pm

mgl.branco
Stop comparing UI design with OS X and Windows.

IMHO, Speaking about usability, Windows is a horrible mess. Yes, we are there.

2010-08-10 11:31 pm

Richard Dale
Gnome still has a much cleaner look.

I suppose the question to ask these days is ‘Which Gnome?’

2010-08-11 12:28 am

cmost
Gnome still has a much cleaner look.

Please lets not let this discussion degenerate into yet another KDE vs. Gnome (or Xfce, or LXDE, what have you) debate. I, personally, think KDE 4.5 looks fantastic; in fact, I switched back to KDE after using Gnome for a few years when KDE finally stabilized at 4.3. KDE keeps getting better. While individual opinions on the beauty or ugliness of ANY desktop will always differ, thanks to the open source of these desktops and the plethora of choices we users have of desktops in general, we can have it exactly our way.

2010-08-11 1:19 am

siride
Use a different theme.

2010-08-11 2:00 am

lemur2
Gnome still has a much cleaner look.

That is debatable, but so too is the point that I would make in reply, that being that the KDE SC (which is more than just the desktop software itself) is a far more functional and powerful desktop software collection than is GNOME.

http://kde.org/applications/system/

http://kde.org/applications/education/

http://kde.org/applications/graphics/

http://kde.org/applications/internet/

http://kde.org/applications/multimedia/

http://kde.org/applications/utilities/

http://kde.org/applications/office/

http://kde.org/applications/development/

Even better is the fact that one can install the entire software collection, in all its power, without any dependency on Mono at all.

Your mileage may vary.

2010-08-11 8:06 am

panzi
What I hate on the notifications is their jerkiness, that they can overflow the screen height and that they hide even when you hover them because you want to click them. It happens often that I want to click a notification and I’m fast enough to actually hover them but not fast enough to click the button before they hide so I click whatever window is under the notification. Annoying! IMHO they should not move in/out but just fade in/out! I don’t know if that got better in 4.5, though.

2010-08-11 8:36 am

mart
in 4.5 it works in a completely different way.

what you see is just a little preview that will never ever fill the screen and when the mouse goes over it, it stops the auto hide countdown

2010-08-11 12:46 pm

Fettarme H-Milch
They *still* haven’t fixed the layout ugliness. Check out this notification (…)

Gnome still has a much cleaner look.

Luckily notifications of Plasma and GNOME are all based on the same FreeDesktop.org standard. Don’t like one notification system? Just use another. You can even use gnome-notification-deamon under Plasma if you prefer that one. The Gwenview author also wrote an alternative Growl-inspired notification system called Colibri: http://kde-apps.org/content/show.php/Colibri?content=117147

2010-08-12 12:09 pm

mgl.branco
Gnome still has a much cleaner look.

…but less functionality. And this is not a criticism. Gnome focus on delivering a clean UI and KDE on functionality. Obviously, providing many options makes the DE to look much clutter.

2010-08-12 3:32 pm

Luminair
that is called programmer art

2010-08-10 11:32 pm

mtzmtulivu
Webkit is not part of KDE SC libraries. KDE SC uses Webkit from QT and it is integrated into KDE SC through kdewebkit(kde bindings for qtwebkit).

KDE SC 4.0 was released more than two years ago. Its time to stop making references to it when criticising any aspect of KDE SC 4.5 and any other future releases.

2010-08-11 12:03 am

Kalessin
Unfortunately, while the way that they released KDE 4 ultimately resulted in a very solid DE, it also seems to have created a serious stigma for the project. I would love it if folks would just look at KDE 4 for what it is, but as with many things, it takes tons of good publicity to overcome even a small amount of bad publicity, and KDE 4.0 created more than just a small amount of bad publicity, regardless of whether it was actually good for the project from a technology standpoint to release it that they way that they did.

In any case, I think that KDE 4 has been quite solid and that it has been for a while (I’ve used it since 4.0), and I can’t wait for my distro (Arch) to get 4.5 in the stable repository so that I can install.

2010-08-11 1:57 am

WereCatf
Unfortunately, while the way that they released KDE 4 ultimately resulted in a very solid DE, it also seems to have created a serious stigma for the project. I would love it if folks would just look at KDE 4 for what it is, but as with many things, it takes tons of good publicity to overcome even a small amount of bad publicity, and KDE 4.0 created more than just a small amount of bad publicity, regardless of whether it was actually good for the project from a technology standpoint to release it that they way that they did.

As any good PR-person would know, first impressions are everything. KDE4.0 was the one to give the first impressions of KDE4 to many people and that’ll be almost impossible to get over until KDE5.

From technology standpoint it was perhaps a more efficient way of doing things than releasing “KDE4.0 Developer Release” first was it really that much more efficient? Wouldn’t such a Developer Release have sufficed? It would atleast have reduced the number of complaints and not created such an overwhelming bad impression. I mean, I do understand why they did it the way they did, I just don’t really believe it was worth it.

2010-08-11 2:12 am

lemur2
Unfortunately, while the way that they released KDE 4 ultimately resulted in a very solid DE, it also seems to have created a serious stigma for the project. I would love it if folks would just look at KDE 4 for what it is, but as with many things, it takes tons of good publicity to overcome even a small amount of bad publicity, and KDE 4.0 created more than just a small amount of bad publicity, regardless of whether it was actually good for the project from a technology standpoint to release it that they way that they did.

As any good PR-person would know, first impressions are everything. KDE4.0 was the one to give the first impressions of KDE4 to many people and that’ll be almost impossible to get over until KDE5.

From technology standpoint it was perhaps a more efficient way of doing things than releasing “KDE4.0 Developer Release” first was it really that much more efficient? Wouldn’t such a Developer Release have sufficed? It would atleast have reduced the number of complaints and not created such an overwhelming bad impression. I mean, I do understand why they did it the way they did, I just don’t really believe it was worth it.

I have a distinct impression that the “overwhelming bad impression” you speak of was actually just a beat up. It is driven by corporate PR agendas, and not by actual people.

Think about it for a moment … KDE 4.0 was released a couple of years ago, for no cost, and the developers said it was a development version, and they solicited user feedback with it. Getting user feedback necessarily means getting users to try it. The earlier you get user feedback incorporated into the design, the better the eventual result is.

Well, user feedback they got, and now KDE SC 4.5 is arguably the best desktop available today, bar none.

Meanwhile, what about a near-contemporary desktop system released some years ago, which cost users real money:

http://ourlan.homelinux.net/qdig/?Qwd=./KDE4_desktop&Qif=91992_vist…

Today, where is the same level of media-driven disarrangement of that?

Today, any mention of KDE 4.0 is a smear campaign, pure and simple, driven by a PR agenda. Pay no attention to it, it is ancient history. Just enjoy the best-of-breed KDE SC 4.5, and laugh at those who want to keep you away from trying it.

Edited 2010-08-11 02:32 UTC

2010-08-11 6:40 am

UltraZelda64
Think about it for a moment … KDE 4.0 was released a couple of years ago, for no cost, and the developers said it was a development version, and they solicited user feedback with it. Getting user feedback necessarily means getting users to try it. The earlier you get user feedback incorporated into the design, the better the eventual result is.

It seemed to me more like KDE 4.0 was supposed to be the “next big thing,” but as its release drew closer and it became obvious they couldn’t get it anywhere near ready by 4.0, they backtracked and tried to claim that 4.0 will really be primarily for testing and not of release quality. Then they started saying that there’s a difference between “KDE 4” and “KDE 4.0,” and that it should be “ready” for general use around 4.2 or 4.3. I think it’s safe to say that by 4.3, it really was just about ready, but still… the beginnings of “KDE 4” were a nightmare; slow, buggy, featureless software with very bad communication from the KDE guys.

Well, user feedback they got, and now KDE SC 4.5 is arguably the best desktop available today, bar none.

It’s damn good today, I agree, but I still run into frequent graphical glitches involving the pop-up tooltips on the taskbar and the pop-up Device Notifier applet. And I strongly disagree with considering it “arguably the best” desktop environment today. That’s too subjective, and if you’d try it on a machine with under 512MB of RAM, you’d quickly find that most of the alternatives (and even KDE 3) would run circles around it. I’m not completely impressed with its performance.

I like how they “stole” the Aero Snap concept from Windows 7 though; that’s one thing Microsoft actually got right for once, it works great, and it just makes sense. It’s one of those things that makes you think, “why didn’t they think of this before?” And I’m glad to see such a feature being added to a free desktop in such a relatively short amount of time. Aero Shake is useful too, but it looks like KDE hasn’t added similar functionality yet (running KDE 4.4 in openSUSE 11.3).

2010-08-12 12:29 pm

mgl.branco
It seemed to me more like KDE 4.0 was supposed to be the “next big thing,”

No. Developers design a _concept_ that could actually be the next big thing and they openly shared their ideas with the community and put themselves on action. Media took those concepts as facts, as real progress, and promised the audience the next big thing. Then a few on the media overacted. They even used mockups from kde-look branistorm section as what would be expected to look like

KDE communicated their ideas poorly, ok, but media misread and overreacted.

Then they started saying that there’s a difference between “KDE 4” and “KDE 4.0,” and that it should be “ready” for general use around 4.2 or 4.3.

Read devs blogs again and start reading two years before 4.0 was released. It should come clear that KDE4 was used to identify the new series and not a specific release.

2010-08-11 8:35 am

Thom Holwerda
Today, any mention of KDE 4.0 is a smear campaign, pure and simple, driven by a PR agenda. Pay no attention to it, it is ancient history. Just enjoy the best-of-breed KDE SC 4.5, and laugh at those who want to keep you away from trying it.

and your constant negativity over past Windows releases is not a smear campaign, why, exactly?

Get over yourself. KDE 4.0 was a big mess, and wholly mismanaged in every possible way – from developers to communicators, they all messed up. In any self-respecting organisation it would’ve led to some serious soul-searching and re-evaluating of roles, responsibilities, and so on. Instead, the KDE guys just blamed everyone else – and people like you continue to do so, to this very day.

KDE4 has gotten a lot better, obviously, but that does not negate the fact that 4.0 was a turd. Just as people still talk about Windows Vista as being a mess (see any Windows 7 review, or any talk of Windows for that matter), we still talk about KDE 4.0.

2010-08-11 8:53 am

Richard Dale

Today, any mention of KDE 4.0 is a smear campaign, pure and simple, driven by a PR agenda. Pay no attention to it, it is ancient history. Just enjoy the best-of-breed KDE SC 4.5, and laugh at those who want to keep you away from trying it.

and your constant negativity over past Windows releases is not a smear campaign, why, exactly?

Get over yourself. KDE 4.0 was a big mess, and wholly mismanaged in every possible way – from developers to communicators, they all messed up. In any self-respecting organisation it would’ve led to some serious soul-searching and re-evaluating of roles, responsibilities, and so on. Instead, the KDE guys just blamed everyone else – and people like you continue to do so, to this very day.

KDE4 has gotten a lot better, obviously, but that does not negate the fact that 4.0 was a turd. Just as people still talk about Windows Vista as being a mess (see any Windows 7 review, or any talk of Windows for that matter), we still talk about KDE 4.0.

I’m sorry this is just plain wrong. In terms of development, KDE 4.0 was a big success – we don’t have anything to apologize or soul search about. You can tell if a development project has failed quite easily. There would have been recriminations on the public KDE mailings lists, code would have been rewritten, and the feature list reduced. That didn’t happen with KDE 4.x, and you know why? Because it wasn’t a failure like you say it was.

In terms of communication, yes we have clearly failed to communicate as well as we could have with people like yourself. I personally thought there were a lot of informative and interesting articles on KDE Dot News such as Troy Unrau’s Pillars of KDE series. We did say quite clearly that KDE 4.0 was a developer/early adopter release. It takes two to communicate, and if the receiving party isn’t listening, then there is really a lot the sender can do.

It wouldn’t have been possible for KDE to ‘get a lot better’ as you say it has, if it had been a failure because in development terms it just wouldn’t have been possible to build something as large and complex as KDE 4.5 on top of a foundation which supposedly had ‘failed’.

2010-08-11 12:34 pm

lemur2
KDE4 has gotten a lot better, obviously, but that does not negate the fact that 4.0 was a turd. Just as people still talk about Windows Vista as being a mess (see any Windows 7 review, or any talk of Windows for that matter), we still talk about KDE 4.0.

This would be fair enough if it weren’t for the fact that users were supposed to pay for Vista.

For the KDE developers to release an underdone KDE 4.0 for users to try is an entirely different thing to Microsoft foisting underdone Vista onto users … ONLY because Microsoft were asking said users for money. When Vista came out it was the only thing you could buy in stores … until users screamed “foul” and made vendors offer a “downgrade” to XP that wasn’t actually “down”.

The KDE developers, OTOH, kept releasing versions of KDE 3.x alongside KDE 4.0. KDE distributions such as MEPIS and PCLinuxOS have only now just started releasing the KDE 4.x series as their default desktop.

A little perspective, please, Thom.

Edited 2010-08-11 12:38 UTC

2010-08-11 1:33 pm

Thom Holwerda
This would be fair enough if it weren’t for the fact that users were supposed to pay for Vista.

Nonsense argument. Open source is supposedly the superior development model that produces the best software – except when it doesn’t, and then it’s suddenly all puppy-eyes and ‘we’re so poor’.

This is no excuse, and it never has been. A very clear case of the attribution theory – attributing successes to oneself, but failures to others. Be a man, and take responsibility for the mistakes made during the 4.0 process. You’ll learn from it.

2010-08-11 1:46 pm

lemur2

This would be fair enough if it weren’t for the fact that users were supposed to pay for Vista.

Nonsense argument. Open source is supposedly the superior development model that produces the best software – except when it doesn’t, and then it’s suddenly all puppy-eyes and ‘we’re so poor’.

This is no excuse, and it never has been. A very clear case of the attribution theory – attributing successes to oneself, but failures to others. Be a man, and take responsibility for the mistakes made during the 4.0 process. You’ll learn from it.

This is utter nonsense Thom. There is a world of difference in offering a supposedly “finished” commercial product for sale to consumers and an open source project (not even a distribution, but a project mind you) offering a .0 version for soliciting user feedback.

There were some distributions who made a mistake in releasing KDE 4.0 when they should have stuck with KDE 3.x (like MEPIS. PCLinxOS and Slackware did). That is NOT a mistake by the KDE developers or the development process. If anyone, distributions should learn from it.

BTW, why are you scathing about KDE 4.0 but totally ignoring your own site’s review of GNOME 2.0, which was essentially the same situation?

Once again, I would ask for at least the tiniest bit of objectivity from you Thom. Oh, and a little less rudeness wouldn’t go astray, either.

Edited 2010-08-11 13:48 UTC

2010-08-11 3:05 pm

Thom Holwerda
This is utter nonsense Thom. There is a world of difference in offering a supposedly “finished” commercial product for sale to consumers and an open source project (not even a distribution, but a project mind you) offering a .0 version for soliciting user feedback.

.0 is a finished product. That’s what it denotes. The fact that GNOME made the same mistake with 2.0 is none of my concern, nor is it any of KDE’s. Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but I’m from before version numbers became a sleazy marketing tool to trick users into trying out and/or buying unstable, untested, and broken software.

2010-08-11 4:13 pm

mtzmtulivu
you are entitled to your opinion thom and we already know it ..you are now appearing to be trolling more than anything else.

4.0 was released more than two years ago and i am sure you have already expressed your views more than enough and you are heared. Wait until 5.0 is released and see if your opinions were heared and you can start making comments again when that release also fail to adhere to your “old fashioned” ideas.

2010-08-11 6:24 pm

m_abs
.0 is a finished product.

No, .0 usually mean “new, incomplete and a high probability of errors”.

2010-08-11 6:42 pm

Hiev
I thougth it ment “first version ready for public release”.

But times change.

Edited 2010-08-11 18:42 UTC

2010-08-12 4:25 pm

sorpigal
.0 is a finished product. That’s what it denotes.

And that’s where you’re wrong.

The significance of 4.0 is “the next version after 3.9” aka, none at all. The major version number bump corresponds to a major infrastructure change, the .0 just means “first release” and is not intended to imply, does not imply and should not be mistaken for meaning “finished product.”

Only in a sick world does the .0 version promise completeness or stability, much less “finished”ness, a quality that is essentially unmeasurable (unless your name is Knuth). Rationally , when I radically change the underlying infrastructure and break everything I bump a major version number. Therefore, releases after KDE changed the infrastructure in 3.x are 4.x. There are two options: Don’t assign any official version numbers to a release, release with some kind of version number, or don’t release.

If you don’t assign any official version number then all you get is confusion. Some kind of identifier is required for coordination

If you release with any kind of version number you are obliged to call the first release “4.0” — or you do some backwards shennanigans like “3.99-4.0prerelease” which is just stupid nonsense done to avoid the “sacred .0” release.

If you don’t release at all you get nowhere! You are *supposed* to release early and often, especially before it’s ready for prime time.

The only problem here is illogical, irrational users (this means you) who think for some reason that a “.0 release” is somehow special. It. Is. Not. The only special thing about it is that some portion of it is likely to be poorly tested.

2010-08-12 4:49 pm

Thom Holwerda
The only problem here is illogical, irrational users (this means you) who think for some reason that a “.0 release” is somehow special. It. Is. Not. The only special thing about it is that some portion of it is likely to be poorly tested.

Software that is poorly tested is called alpha or beta – not .0.

2010-08-12 6:01 pm

Yagami
ok , they tested it alot but they left the bugs -> ok for .0.

or they are slaves to you and must ask for your authorization on their version schemes.

or they should just version like kde 2008 , there , fixed

or they could call it kde XP / LEOPARD / little dragon’s sister. problem fixed.

or … you could accept that you do not develop on opensource and are wrong and accept that its common practice and happens to all major opensource projects.

your stubborness to accept this is amazing, because all projects suffer from this .0 problem.

AND EVEN , god , if linux kernel can come up with such a weird version scheme or even/odd numbers representing stable or unstable … must the kde developers all come to your house and ask you please to let them version kde 4.0 like they want ?

2010-08-12 7:59 pm

Beket_
ok , they tested it alot but they left the bugs -> ok for .0.

or they are slaves to you and must ask for your authorization on their version schemes.

[…]

Dude, having bugs and all is fine for a major release. Even for the first subsequent releases of the 4.x series. This isn’t what we argue about.

The most irritating is that there are certain kde developers and users who want to convince world that kde 4.0 was a great release. And that are we making things up, just because we are haters. Well, we aren’t.

2010-08-12 11:56 pm

Yagami
no no no

in terms of development, kde 4.0 was a great release.

in terms of features and usuability wise, not even close.

it was a great release, for its intended purpose.

never , ever , ever was it intended to be a full, ready, desktop replacement.

my problem is people saying that every .0 release is the stable full finished product. and in that sense … i ask … in what world ? not this one !

2010-08-13 12:46 am

smitty
The most irritating is that there are certain kde developers and users who want to convince world that kde 4.0 was a great release. And that are we making things up, just because we are haters. Well, we aren’t.

No one thinks that 4.0 was a great release for users, or that it was very usable or should have been used by people.

The argument is that 4.0 was never supposed to be any of those things, so by looking at what it was supposed to do (kick start 4.x development, allow for all the cool stuff that is happening now) it was a success.

I don’t think this is a very hard concept to grasp, but some people seem to have this overwhelming need to hear the developers prostrate themselves and beg forgiveness.

2010-08-13 10:56 am

sorpigal
The most irritating is that there are certain kde developers and users who want to convince world that kde 4.0 was a great release. And that are we making things up, just because we are haters. Well, we aren’t.

That’s not what we’re discussing here. I’m not trying to say 4.0 was a quality release, because it wasn’t. KDE4 didn’t become remotely stable enough until 4.3, and I still won’t use it as my primary environment (though I am going to give the new release another try; I am a sucker for new software).

What Thom has been saying is “If it’s not finished, don’t apply the magic, sacred .0 version number” — which radically misses the point of a version number, ascribing to it some kind of significance that it does not and should not have.

2010-08-13 10:53 am

sorpigal
Beta and alpha are meaningless in an open source project. These are “pre-release” labels, but there is no such thing as “pre-release” when your source code is public.

In my view there is only one sensible way to name releases: Give them a number. Is “4.0-beta” different from “4.0”? If it’s “the release before 4.0” why didn’t you call 4.0 4.1 and 4.0-beta 4.0? Numbers increment, text labels do not.

Your problem is that you think open source projects are products. You want “4.0” to mean “Product is ready”, when all it means is “something big changed.” I’ll say this again, and clearly: There. Is. Nothing. Special. About. 4.0. When you make a major change you bump the major version number. This does not and never has and never will say anything about stability or correctness!

2010-08-11 5:42 pm

Fettarme H-Milch
Nonsense argument. Open source is supposedly the superior development model

Open source is no development model. It’s a licensing scheme.

A development model is successful if it attracts more developers. That’s what a development model is for.

If you’re accusing others to have nonsense arguments, you should get the facts straight yourself or else you look rather clueless.

Edited 2010-08-11 17:44 UTC

2010-08-13 5:19 pm

AdrianoML
I think he meant that Vista was still a Beta, development version produt, and Microsoft still released it to the public.

Meanwhile, KDE 4.0 was a development version, only intended for DEVELOPERS and people who wanted to test it, hence what a beta product should be.

2010-08-15 2:18 pm

superstoned
Now you’re talking bullshit. As member from the marketing team at that time, and as writer of a large proportion of the release announcement, I have said sorry. I’ve admitted the promo team made a mistake there, and you can find that ‘sorry’ sprinkled all over the web.

The mistake we did was not mention in the actual release announcement that this was very much a real ‘FOSS’ release following the ‘release early, release often’ paradigm and thus wasn’t stable or feature complete.

We did mention that in the beta’s, RC’s, blogs and everywhere else – just not in the final announcement.

Otherwise, the reasons why we released 4.0 when we did can be found in my blog, and I still have to find anyone who has a decent rebuttal to my arguments other than ‘but but… it wasn’t stable!’. If you have arguments I didn’t rebut in my blog, say so.

Otherwise, stop the backward arguments.

2010-08-11 12:50 pm

Beket_

Today, any mention of KDE 4.0 is a smear campaign, pure and simple, driven by a PR agenda. Pay no attention to it, it is ancient history. Just enjoy the best-of-breed KDE SC 4.5, and laugh at those who want to keep you away from trying it.

and your constant negativity over past Windows releases is not a smear campaign, why, exactly?

Get over yourself. KDE 4.0 was a big mess, and wholly mismanaged in every possible way – from developers to communicators, they all messed up. In any self-respecting organisation it would’ve led to some serious soul-searching and re-evaluating of roles, responsibilities, and so on. Instead, the KDE guys just blamed everyone else – and people like you continue to do so, to this very day.

Thom, this is going nowhere. When kde devs say that:

“KDE 4.0 didn’t fail, and it was actually very successful”,

“KDE 4.0 has been one of the most successful innovations in the last 30 years” or that,

“KDE 4.0 was a big success – we don’t have anything to apologize or soul search about”

I no longer wonder why, after 2 years, it still has so many problems.

2010-08-11 1:09 pm

Richard Dale

[q]Today, any mention of KDE 4.0 is a smear campaign, pure and simple, driven by a PR agenda. Pay no attention to it, it is ancient history. Just enjoy the best-of-breed KDE SC 4.5, and laugh at those who want to keep you away from trying it.

and your constant negativity over past Windows releases is not a smear campaign, why, exactly?

Get over yourself. KDE 4.0 was a big mess, and wholly mismanaged in every possible way – from developers to communicators, they all messed up. In any self-respecting organisation it would’ve led to some serious soul-searching and re-evaluating of roles, responsibilities, and so on. Instead, the KDE guys just blamed everyone else – and people like you continue to do so, to this very day.

Thom, this is going nowhere. When kde devs say that:

“KDE 4.0 didn’t fail, and it was actually very successful”,

“KDE 4.0 has been one of the most successful innovations in the last 30 years” or that,

“KDE 4.0 was a big success – we don’t have anything to apologize or soul search about”

I no longer wonder why, after 2 years, it still has so many problems. [/q]

I stand by the statements from me above that you are quoting.

What major problems does KDE 4.5 have? Does it have more problems than you would expect for a similarly ambitious Free Software Project? I don’t think it does.

I don’t call something like a settings option on a task bar, or the position of a tick in a notification panel to be a major problem.

2010-08-11 4:20 pm

emilsedgh
WHAT THE FUCK?

You expect some **__volunteers__** who ‘said’ their program was not ready for users come and ‘apologize’ because users were too stubborn not to use it?

2010-08-11 4:16 pm

emilsedgh
Hi

Well, from the KDE developers point of view, releasing 4.0 in that time was the only option to keep the project running.

while many components, like plasma were so immature and unstable at the time, many applications were good enough.

And they were developed mostly by volunteers.

And KDE *has* to keep volunteers satisfied.

Imagine writing a KFoo application and it doesnt get released in ~1-2 years. You’ll simply lose your motivation.

Now, the blaming parts. The people to blame are distro’s. Mainly Kubuntu and Fedora.

Developers mentioned that its not for users. Distro’s were too excited to jump on the hype around ‘KDE4’.

Kubuntu was among the most popular kde distro’s. With releasing their kde4 version, they hurt themselves and kde so badly.

But, still, the ‘hate’ around kde was always there. Many people hate kde without even using it. The ‘version 4 sucks’ is another excuse.

2010-08-12 12:36 pm

mgl.branco
Get over yourself. KDE 4.0 was a big mess, and wholly mismanaged in every possible way – from developers to communicators, they all messed up. In any self-respecting organisation it would’ve led to some serious soul-searching and re-evaluating of roles, responsibilities, and so on. Instead, the KDE guys just blamed everyone else – and people like you continue to do so, to this very day.

I don’t know the in and outs of the community, but I believe they took many changes after they analysed the kde 4.0 thing. I mean,promo team, renaming thing…

KDE4 has gotten a lot better, obviously, but that does not negate the fact that 4.0 was a turd. Just as people still talk about Windows Vista as being a mess (see any Windows 7 review, or any talk of Windows for that matter), we still talk about KDE 4.0.

OK. And with don’t all get over this, as you say, and forget about KDE 4.0 an Vista and judge KDE an Win based on their actual releases Win7 and 4.5?. If you so many many criticisms are no longer valid.

2010-08-12 3:36 pm

Luminair
all true

2010-08-11 9:06 am

mart
I have a distinct impression that the “overwhelming bad impression” you speak of was actually just a beat up. It is driven by corporate PR agendas, and not by actual people.

It was an hard decision but turned out to be the right one. Why the right one if there are still people that are talking about how bad the release was?

Because the number of our developers literally skyrocketed since then. It sparkled an interest i did never seen before by potential contributors.

Now, I understand users want a real finished product, but unfortunately is not how opensource can work or ever worked: release early, release often. WE don’t have closed betas or millions of investment. The only big resource we have is crowdsourcing, get as much people as possible to try it and get as much people as possible to *get involved*.

There were some things that were screw up for sure, one was the communication with distributions that made it the /default/ KDE installation too early, and overall we didn’t communicate enough that was for developers. KDE 4.0 developer edition? perhaps could have worked, i don’t know.

But a release *had* to be done, and for our developer community turned out that was really, really healty.

2010-08-11 1:00 pm

Aragorn992
It was an hard decision but turned out to be the right one. Why the right one if there are still people that are talking about how bad the release was?

Because the number of our developers literally skyrocketed since then. It sparkled an interest i did never seen before by potential contributors.

Now, I understand users want a real finished product, but unfortunately is not how opensource can work or ever worked: release early, release often. WE don’t have closed betas or millions of investment. The only big resource we have is crowdsourcing, get as much people as possible to try it and get as much people as possible to *get involved*.

There were some things that were screw up for sure, one was the communication with distributions that made it the /default/ KDE installation too early, and overall we didn’t communicate enough that was for developers. KDE 4.0 developer edition? perhaps could have worked, i don’t know.

But a release *had* to be done, and for our developer community turned out that was really, really healty.

It’s not the release itself. It’s the fact it was labelled as “4.0”. Simply calling it “4.0 beta” (and that’s being generous given the amount of serious bugs) would have solved all of these problems.

Labelling it as “4.0 beta” would also not prevent the release early, release often strategy. It is still released!

What you’re implying is it is ok to decieve people by saying its a “4.0” release with no beta, etc in order to get more exposure and therefore developers. That’s questionable.

Edited 2010-08-11 13:01 UTC

2010-08-11 1:10 pm

lemur2
What you’re implying is it is ok to decieve people by saying its a “4.0” release with no beta, etc in order to get more exposure and therefore developers. That’s questionable.

It could perhaps be construed as questionable if it was commercial software that one was expected to pay for.

For open source software, developed as it is in conjunction with users, under the “release early, release often” principle, a barely usable .0 release is par for the course. This is the way that open source is done.

http://mobile.osnews.com/printer.php?news_id=1280

I usually start my reviews with the positive points of a product and then continue with whatever I found as ‘bad’. In this case, I just can’t hide my dissapointment about the new version of Gnome. As a user, I expected more, and I want more. The new version removes the flexibility found on Gnome 1.x and it does not introduce anything really new or spectacularly interesting in its UI design. Gnome 2 fails to impress. It is not intuitive. It feels limited and not done yet.

At the time of GNOME 2.0 release, everyone was recommending to stick with GNOME 1.x and only install GNOME 2.0 if one wished to experiment. After a few releases, GNOME 2.x became preferable.

PS: Entirely similar comments would have applied to KDE 3.0.

PPS: While some KDE distributions leapt in way too early with KDE 4.0, a number of more realistic KDE distributions, such as PCLinuxOS, MEPIS and Slackware, stuck with KDE 3.x for quite a while, and have only recently shipped with KDE 4.x (with x being at least 3 or 4) as the default desktop.

Edited 2010-08-11 13:18 UTC

2010-08-12 9:46 am

Aragorn992

What you’re implying is it is ok to decieve people by saying its a “4.0” release with no beta, etc in order to get more exposure and therefore developers. That’s questionable.

It could perhaps be construed as questionable if it was commercial software that one was expected to pay for.#

Absolutely, it applies to commercial software as well!

For open source software, developed as it is in conjunction with users, under the “release early, release often” principle, a barely usable .0 release is par for the course. This is the way that open source is done.

Nope. All software, open or closed, should follow the accepted/standardised method of using a beta or alpha keyword for software still involved in intensive testing.

Doing so does nothing to preclude development in conjunction with users. It simply informs the user of what they are about to use. Not doing so is deception, plain and simple.

2010-08-15 9:38 pm

superstoned
What, you dictate how software should be labeled? MS has named their software things like “2000” and “Vista”, you should complain and tell them to call it a proper number in the form of X.Y…

Oh and while you’re at it, tell the wine ppl they should’ve released ages ago. And tell the gnomes to call their 2.29 release 2.30 ‘beta’ as they don’t comply with the proper numbering either. Same for the kernel, by the way. They call beta’s “RC” while it’s completely unstable! Horrible!

Nobody follows the exact same rules, so stop complaining about that. KDE told everyone it was meant for developers to start building on, and users to test and check out where they were. Some things were ready (like most of the edu apps, games, some utils). Other things were not (like Plasma). Again, sorry we didn’t write that properly in the release announcement. I’m to blame there, as one of the peeps who wrote it. We did write it in the beta’s, blogs and everywhere else – so the distro’s have no excuse for shipping it to unsuspecting users. Blame them. And get over it, finally.

2010-08-11 9:42 am

tyrione
You’re on crack if you think KDE 4.5 [I’m typing on 4.4.5] is the best Desktop environment, bar none.

Not even close.

2010-08-11 12:48 pm

Fettarme H-Milch
Stop insulting other people just because they don’t share your vision of “the perfect desktop”.

Nobody here is hindering you to use a Mac or whatever you like best.

Just use it and shut up.

2010-08-11 12:48 pm

lemur2
You’re on crack if you think KDE 4.5 [I’m typing on 4.4.5] is the best Desktop environment, bar none.

Not even close.

http://www.osnews.com/permalink?436155

Name any desktop software collection (a single, integrated collection) that gets close to that functionality.

Not one. Not even close.

http://www.osnews.com/permalink?436160

Is KDE still bloatware? I mean 3.5GB for a complete office suite, information manager suite file manager, large library of games, mathematical tools, internet suite, toys, sophisticated admin utilities, education utilities, media players, encoders, editors, viewers and a development platform is absolutely absurd! I mean, Windows 7 manages to pack in nearly a sixth of those things in only 12GB!

Spot on. Precisely so.

Minor nitpick … you think Windows 7 achieves a whole, entire sixth of the KDE Software Collection? Really? That much, hey? This is my “I doubt it” face.

2010-08-11 1:06 pm

Aragorn992

You’re on crack if you think KDE 4.5 [I’m typing on 4.4.5] is the best Desktop environment, bar none.

Not even close.

…

Name any desktop software collection (a single, integrated collection) that gets close to that functionality.

Not one. Not even close.

…

Since when did:

best = most functionality?

Edited 2010-08-11 13:08 UTC

2010-08-11 1:29 pm

lemur2

[q]You’re on crack if you think KDE 4.5 [I’m typing on 4.4.5] is the best Desktop environment, bar none.

Not even close.

…

Name any desktop software collection (a single, integrated collection) that gets close to that functionality.

Not one. Not even close.

…

Since when did:

best = most functionality? [/q]

You have a point.

KDE SC 4.5 desktop, running on Linux, is not only more far more functional than any other single desktop collection … it is also unencumbered with extraneous trojan-horse technologies such as Mono, it is more secure, easier to use, it is faster, more responsive, more adaptable and extensible, better designed, more elegant and better looking than anything else available today.

It is about the same price and uses about the same storage space as GNOME, but is far cheaper than OSX or Windows 7, and uses far less storage than Windows 7 (I don’t know how much storage OSX uses).

Do you have any other criteria upon which this should be measured?

2010-08-11 12:56 pm

Zifre
You’re on crack if you think KDE 4.5 [I’m typing on 4.4.5] is the best Desktop environment, bar none.

And you’re on crack if you think that your opinion is fact because you say it is. It’s quite obviously a preference. Some people like KDE. Some people like Windows. And some people like Mac OS X.

Being a jerk is not the best way to encourage people to use your preferred desktop…

2010-08-11 9:49 pm

diegoviola
You’re on crack if you think KDE 4.5 [I’m typing on 4.4.5] is the best Desktop environment, bar none.

Not even close.

You are the biggest douche I know in OSNews.

2010-08-11 10:43 pm

Richard Dale

You’re on crack if you think KDE 4.5 [I’m typing on 4.4.5] is the best Desktop environment, bar none.

Not even close.

You are the biggest douche I know in OSNews.

Congratulations! You have just claimed the prize for being the biggest douche in OSNews, by calling someone else the biggest douch in OSNews.

2010-08-13 2:54 am

pns.sri

[q]You’re on crack if you think KDE 4.5 [I’m typing on 4.4.5] is the best Desktop environment, bar none.

Not even close.

You are the biggest douche I know in OSNews.

Congratulations! You have just claimed the prize for being the biggest douche in OSNews, by calling someone else the biggest douch in OSNews. [/q]

Wow… Sorry, I am little weak at recursion. I am one of the people who didn’t get the ending of inception. so what is the endpoint?

2010-08-11 10:53 am

No it isnt
As I repeatedly point out in every discussion of the infamous KDE 4.0: OS X 10.0 was a bug-ridden, bloated failure and barely beta quality as well. Somehow, Apple was immediately forgiven, even though the first half-decent upgrade of OS X (10.2) cost money.

2010-08-12 12:39 pm

mgl.branco
As I repeatedly point out in every discussion of the infamous KDE 4.0: OS X 10.0 was a bug-ridden, bloated failure and barely beta quality as well. Somehow, Apple was immediately forgiven, even though the first half-decent upgrade of OS X (10.2) cost money.

You are absolutely right. KDE devs are volunteers (some are paid, of course) that do their best and release for free.

2010-08-11 7:33 pm

Fettarme H-Milch
Webkit is not part of KDE SC libraries.

The the official stance is that the KDE Platform also includes Qt which in turn also includes QtWebKit.

The WebKit KPart (which is required for WebKit in Konqueror) is however not part of the SC, but a separate Extragear module. It was decided to mention it anyway in the announcement to raise its awareness.

2010-08-11 3:05 am

xenobrain
Have they fixed that bug that’s been around since KDE 3 that only I care about but is so crippling it renders the entire DE completely, utterly useless?

KDE 4.0 was the biggest mistake ever! It was such a buggy mess there’s no possible way they got any further whatsoever in the last two years!

Is KDE still bloatware? I mean 3.5GB for a complete office suite, information manager suite file manager, large library of games, mathematical tools, internet suite, toys, sophisticated admin utilities, education utilities, media players, encoders, editors, viewers and a development platform is absolutely absurd! I mean, Windows 7 manages to pack in nearly a sixth of those things in only 12GB!

I’m going back to Windows, Linux clearly isn’t ready for the desktop!!

Edited 2010-08-11 03:13 UTC

2010-08-11 3:28 am

mtzmtulivu
why are you asking us? it is out, distros will start having it in their repositories and you will have the opportunity to check it out yourself.

the online world will be a lot better if people will try to tone down on unnecessary negativity

2010-08-11 3:42 am

tubatodd
Um….read it again. They were being sarcastic.

2010-08-11 6:00 am

Yagami
hehe yes but the sad thing is that those are the normal complaints on kde here on osnews

very spot on sarcastic humor by the topic starter congrats

2010-08-11 4:25 am

bnolsen
i put together an audio recording appliance recently. I put xfce4 on but had a few problems on the appliance side. I decided to try kde, it had been a few years. My first reaction: too much stuff, too many crap effects. It took a bit turning all of it off (maybe have a big button somewhere that goes minimalist?).

I’m pretty unfond of the task bar menu’s semi copy of win7…they both have the same problem that its too easy to get lost in those menus. The old style task menu may be dated but it is extremely clear what you are doing. I’d prefer something more web browserish with clear back and fore arrows if its for the sake of something new…

Also I don’t like the extra stuff popping up my face, including the indexing (wtf?) and this other thing that scrolls a bunch of inane messages and some checkmarks in it.

2010-08-11 4:36 am

lemur2
I’m pretty unfond of the task bar menu’s semi copy of win7…they both have the same problem that its too easy to get lost in those menus. The old style task menu may be dated but it is extremely clear what you are doing. I’d prefer something more web browserish with clear back and fore arrows if its for the sake of something new…

The Kickoff menu has a “classic mode”. Unlock the taskbar widgets, then right-click on the menu button. There is a toggle witch alternately says “Switch to Classic mode” or “Switch to Kickoff menu style”.

There is also the alternative menu widget, called Lancelot menu, which can be configured nicely IMO.

One can have Lancelot either with categories:

http://lancelot.fomentgroup.org/images/screenshots/lancelot1.7-air….

or without:

http://lancelot.fomentgroup.org/images/screenshots/lancelot-main-wi…

Lancelot will allow you to have a separate panel button for each menu category (or any subset thereof).

Finally, there is also a “Quick launch” widget which allows separate icons for any set of individual applications on the menus.

http://kde.org/announcements/4.5/plasma.php

“better drag and drop in the Quick Launch widget, which now allows favorite applications to be arranged in multiple columns and rows”

Also I don’t like the extra stuff popping up my face, including the indexing (wtf?) and this other thing that scrolls a bunch of inane messages and some checkmarks in it.

If you don’t like them, turn them off. A right-click on the icon, once again, allows you to do just that very easily.

Edited 2010-08-11 04:53 UTC

2010-08-11 5:16 am

lemur2
If they are so inclined, Kubuntu 10.04 users can try out KDE SC 4.5 via the Kubuntu backports PPA.

https://launchpad.net/~kubuntu-ppa/+archive/backports

Packages are available for both Kubuntu 10.04 (Lucid) and Maverick (which will eventually become 10.10).

2010-08-11 10:00 am

Thom Holwerda
If they are so inclined, Kubuntu 10.04 users can try out KDE SC 4.5 via the Kubuntu backports PPA.

https://launchpad.net/~kubuntu-ppa/+archive/backports

Packages are available for both Kubuntu 10.04 (Lucid) and Maverick (which will eventually become 10.10).

Not right now, as the Kubtunu backports archive is broken at the moment, both for x86 and x86-64. They’re working on it. Just installed Kubuntu, you see.

2010-08-11 12:56 pm

Fettarme H-Milch
Not right now, as the Kubtunu backports archive is broken at the moment

As most KDE SC users know, Kubuntu itself is broken. It’s one of the reasons why KDE has a bad reputation among some people.

People who want to check SC 4.5 out, should get the semi-official openSUSE-based version: http://home.kde.org/~kdelive/

2010-08-11 1:38 pm

lemur2
As most KDE SC users know, Kubuntu itself is broken.

That is perhaps a little harsh. My Kubuntu 10.04 installation is working very nicely indeed. It performs just as well as Arch Linux did on the same hardware, and I can use KMS with the open source radeon Xorg driver with Kubuntu 10.04 were I couldn’t with Arch. Even MEPIS and PCLinuxOS were both less functional (especially with respect to graphics) on my same hardware than is Kubuntu 10.04.

It is hard therefore to see how one could objectively call it “broken”.

2010-08-11 2:42 pm

Fettarme H-Milch
The Kubuntu team acknowledged severe problems themselves in their Project Timelord announcement.

I’ve seen a quality improvement in 10.04 compared to older releases myself, but so far it looks to me more likely that the improvements result from their switch to the more stable Debian Testing instead of Debian Unstable as Ubuntu core OS base.

2010-08-12 3:00 am

Soulbender
As most KDE SC users know

You are confusing yourself and a small (but incredibly vocal. Apparently they have nothing better to do with their lives) minority with “most”.

You know, you really need to get some professional help for you’re irrational (K)Ubuntu hatred.

2010-08-12 9:51 am

Fettarme H-Milch
I don’t hate Kubuntu. In fact I really respect the work done by Aurlien Gateau and Jonathan Riddel (who work for Canonical).

But human beings can only do so much. How are two people supposed to do the same amount of QA work as ~20 at SUSE/Novell+OpenSLX?

Have you ever read the full Timelord announcement PDF released by the Kubuntu team? They openly state that Kubuntu as severe problems.

How is comparing the size of the work force (2 vs 20) and basically repeating what the Kubuntu team says about itself “irrational hatred”?

That’s like saying someone has “irrational hatred” against KHTML, just because he’s stating the obvious that a handful of part-time hobbyist contributors can’t keep up with a large team of full-time employed WebKit developers and that in turn WebKit produces better rendering and KHTML is broken with many AJAX web sites.

As Thom wrote, Kubuntu has problems getting the backports repo up and running. That wouldn’t happen if the work force was big enough to constantly maintain it. But as the work force is rather small, occasional breakage happens here and there.

The KDE team didn’t choose openSUSE and openSUSE’s infrastructure (namely Build Service) to produce the KDE’s official Netbook Reference Platform out of “irrational hatred” against other distributors, but because that’s (today at least) the best platform for KDE software.

2010-08-11 6:10 am

evert
I’m baffled that it takes so much effort to get webkit in KDE, because webkit is kind of a child (fork) of KHTML. But I did not study the code, so I must assume that apple really changed a lot.

2010-08-11 8:31 am

Tuxie
IIRC it’s a concious decision to keep KHTML instead of switching to Webkit. I’m not sure why, it’s probably a control (or pride?) thing. They regularly import code from Webkit into KHTML though.

Update: Maybe I should read TF announcement before commenting… It seems that they ARE integrating Webkit now.

Edited 2010-08-11 08:34 UTC

2010-08-11 12:31 pm

lemur2
IIRC it’s a concious decision to keep KHTML instead of switching to Webkit. I’m not sure why, it’s probably a control (or pride?) thing. They regularly import code from Webkit into KHTML though.

Update: Maybe I should read TF announcement before commenting… It seems that they ARE integrating Webkit now.

Yes. Apparently the default renderer for Konqueror is still KHTML, but Webkit may now be chosen instead.

The word is that Kubuntu are considering making rekonq the default browser for Maverick, and this decision may have prompted the Konqueror authors to now allow this choice.

2010-08-15 10:54 pm

Fettarme H-Milch
The word is that Kubuntu are considering making rekonq the default browser for Maverick, and this decision may have prompted the Konqueror authors to now allow this choice.

The WebKit KPart is developed by different people than Konqueror (maybe there is a slight overlap but not much).

If I’m not completely mistaken, Kubuntu ships the WebKit KPart for quite some time but not enabled by default because in the past it lacked support for password saving etc.

It’s indeed very likely that Kubuntu 10.10 will ship with Rekonq if the Rekonq authors manage to get 1.0 finished on time (=release in September).

If for whatever unforeseen reasons Rekonq 1.0 is not released by then, Konqueror+WebKit is the backup plan.

2010-08-11 12:58 pm

Fettarme H-Milch
KHTML is being kept, because it’s part of kdelibs4 which KDE guaranties full binary compatibility for.

2010-08-11 8:45 am

mart
webkit can be used in konqueror quite easily instead of khtml

or check rekonq that is a webkit based browser with a pretty and minimal ui

2010-08-11 9:40 am

tyrione
I’m baffled that it takes so much effort to get webkit in KDE, because webkit is kind of a child (fork) of KHTML. But I did not study the code, so I must assume that apple really changed a lot.

You’re baffled? They had to wait for Qt to have their port of WebKit solid and ready to be KDE’ified.

2010-08-11 11:51 am

Carewolf
Integration is hard. If people would just realized that, so many projection mistakes could be avoided.

Both programmers and non-programmers have a strong tendency to underestimate the work that goes into integration. And they don’t just underestimate with a factor of 2 or 4 like is common for development projects in general. No, integration is typically underestimated by a factor of 10 if not a 100.

Add to that, that integration is incredibly dull work, and due to it being underestimated doesn’t earn you any credit and in fact, doing this work is more likely to get you flamed at, bitched at, yelled at, and in the private sector: fired.

2010-08-11 1:45 pm

_xmv
If we’re going to flame, please implement a slashdot-like comment display

you already have the ranking, it shouldn’t be hard. I only want to see rank 4+ comments *by default* (= yes i want everyone to see 4+ only by default)

and I want to see what it has been highest voted for (funny, insighful, etc)

2010-08-11 3:29 pm

Hiev
Sadly, this release confirms what I said before, KDE is unstable, incomplete alpha material, sorry but is true. The damage is done and I don’t think they can recover. Maybe they should be thinking in KDE 5 already.

Edited 2010-08-11 15:31 UTC

2010-08-11 4:31 pm

mtzmtulivu
you have to go through “4” to reach “5”, dont you?

if you want KDE SC5 to be up to your personal approval, then do your part in making KDE SC4 the best it can be because KDE SC5 will build on KDE SC 4.

Edited 2010-08-11 16:31 UTC

2010-08-12 12:44 pm

mgl.branco
and which kind of problems are you having?

2010-08-11 7:04 pm

Yagami
when i read all this stupidity about 4.0 or .0 comments, and specificly about .0 being a finished product …

i just grinn

i never ever ever saw an open source release with .0 being a finished product.

who are these people ? really , who are you ? are you window users ? macosx users ? really , who are you ?

talk about gnome 2.0 , about upcoming gnome 3.0, talk about kde 1,2,3 or 4.

god damn it, talk about the kernel 2.4.0 … even until kernel 2.4.10 , there was a oom killer that made linux 2.4.0..9 practicly unusable for people with low RAM.

talk about mozilla and its milestones and 1.0 release.

talk about xorg.

talk about god damn gcc 4.5.0 or other .0 releases.

even distributions are well known for the .0 release being buggy. ( fedora, opensuse , mandriva )

where have you people been ? really , i dunno. you live in a diferent reality. you made your mind that .0 is a finished product when every developer in the world says otherwise.

either you have no clue how software works/is made or you are stu*** fu** fanboys with an agenda (which , by the rate that in every kde news there are the same trolls, always and ever … never letting go ( see , i dont use gnome nor windows , so i wont go trashtalking gnome or windows usuability ))

this used to really get on my nerves… but now , i just grinn and know that the world is full of stupid comments.

people who complain about kde 4.0 , cannot use linux kernel, gnu linux environment gcc, cannot use xorg, cannot use linux distributions , cannot use gnome and cannot use mozilla firefox. if you do , you are being hipocritical ( very very cynic )

2010-08-12 11:17 pm

mat69
While I mostly agree I still think that .0 releases don’t have to be bad (for the user) per se.

And here I look at an example you listed that I actually use: gcc 4.5.0

It works very nice here and those rare cases that could trigger bad bugs did not appear here, simply because they are rare cases. Yeah, in fact you could point to the speed-degration of firefox, granted, but that is just one project amongst many.

So you can’t compare that with KDE 4.0 since that was borked. Yeah not the “programs” were the problem, but mostly Plasma — what actually is a DE, while the rest are just apps you could also run with any other DE — was as it was not ready. I guess most people would not have cared if a program they rarely/never use was crashing pretty often, but here it was the window into the KDE world that was unfinished, namely what people interact with to start programs, their desktop. Matters became even worse with features being used at places that showed bugs in drivers, Qt etc. so it all came together and KDE received the blame for everything.

Nowadays I think that the communction was pretty bad. On the one had you had so many blog posts talking of a “revolution”, new ways etc. etc. and on the other hand the warnings weren’t as harsh. You can read the 4.0 release anouncement if you don’t beleive me, even the distros that would ship with 4.0 the next few months were listed.

In any case I think that it is stupid that 4.0 comes up with every KDE article, same is true for issues that have been fixed long ago. It is demotivating to read the same crap over and over again and I believe Gnome, Kernel, Microsoft … every dev (would)feels the same.

We are mostly moving foward not backwards, so you should also look mostly into that direction and sometimes look back to reflect where you have come from.

If you always look back your live is other already.

Disclosure: I am working on KGet for > 1 years (on small parts of KDE for ~2 years) but am not playing a vital role in KDE itself.

Edited 2010-08-12 23:33 UTC

2010-08-12 11:58 pm

Yagami
just stopped reading with full atention after you mentioning gcc 4.5

since i use gentoo and i have to compile every package, no .. sorry , but no , gcc 4.5.0 is not a good release.

🙂

2010-08-13 11:34 am

sorpigal
The real problem, I think, is that distributions rushed to ship KDE4.

Distro packaging can make things worse but it rarely makes things better and while there is always some prestige in being the first to ship a new major version, in the end the negative reaction to the quality of KDe4.0 was inevitable and should have precluded shipping it.

Instead, if KDE4.0 had never shipped with any (major) distribution and distros has started including 4.x only at the 4.2 stage the result would have been a reduction in bug reporting and testing, but not a huge one, and a huge reduction in bitterness, disappointment and flame wars.

2010-08-15 10:46 pm

Fettarme H-Milch
Of the big distributions only Fedora ditched KDE 3.5 in favor of 4.0.

Kubuntu released an unsupported tech preview (IIRC that was the reason Kubuntu was not LTS back then), openSUSE had it on the DVD but stated 4.0’s instability in the DE selection screen, and Mandriva and Debian stayed with KDE 3.5 for at least another year.

It’s like with the Plasma Tablet article also posted here on OSNews: Plasma Tablet is still clearly marked as experimental but currently most commentators bitch how bad it is.

2010-08-12 3:23 am

smitty
we can stop talking about KDE 4.0?

Seriously, no one mentions Gnome 2.0 or Mac 10.0 when they release new versions. So how long before the same is true for KDE?

4 years? 5 years? Ever?

2010-08-12 6:41 am

Elv13
It’s the eternal KDE vs. Gnome war. As the license problem is gone, as Gnome now act like KDE when it come to add features and as Gnome currently tend reinvent the wheel, they have to find an other bashing point. A 2.5 years old release that in fact was composed of kdelibs, kdegraphics, kdegames, kdeedu and nothing else is an easy target.

2010-08-12 3:43 pm

Luminair
and to make matters worse the ios vs android war makes the KDE vs. Gnome warriors look like a bunch of wieners

2010-08-12 12:48 pm

mgl.branco
4 years? 5 years? Ever?

at a 99% confidence interval, ever