I tried the KDE4 alpha some time ago which i didn't find stable enough to work with (suprise, its an alpha), some weeks ago i finally upgraded to KDE4.1. Here is what i think about the new release:

Good:

1.) I experienced a great improvement in speed and stability compared to kde3.x. A lot of people complain (esp. on Kubuntu 8.10) about the performance of Kde4 or issues they have. Most of those issues obviously are related to the new release of X, which in deed is quite buggy.

2.) Some apps have improved greatly. Dolphin works very nice, the new execute (alt+f2) app is really awesome, the new way of integrating plugdevices is far better then before, too.

3.) The look and feel of kde4 is just awesome. Not comparable to 3.x or any other window manager available for linux.

4.) Plasma is fun. As soon as more apps will be available it will become even better.

5.) The amount of bugs i experienced personally is little, but there are some. Not hurray, not too bad either.

Bad:

1.) I feel an overall lack of configuration possibilities. In Kde3.x there were more options for the taskbar(s) and they were ore easy to configure.
I am absolutely clueless why Kcontrol vanished. The systemsettings app is MUCH less usability and the first entry in Kmenu i deleted on any installation so far.
Kcontrol supplied a well structured "all in one frame" configuration tool for kde and services while systemsettings takes a lot of clicks and backs and open little windows to get more then one thing done.
Don't like it at all and hope Kcontrol will return...

2.) Similar for Adept. The old style adept where one could browse through all packages and search by adding tags was an awesome tool. The new adeptmanager (sorry) is completely useless. Well for someone not familiar with his/her system it might be good to keep a lot of packets just out of sight and structure the rest into classes like multimedia, games, etc. But for someone who knows what he is doing this is a pain.
Why not keep both options?


Overall i like kde4 A LOT, no doubt. Great job!
Anyway, what i sense is an affort in making things easier for people not so experienced or migrating from windowa to find an environment where they find stuff, what is good. At the same time i think some configurationtools that were very userfriendly before, now are more complicated then before.
Rihgt now i prefer to write into text files rather then using the systemsettings.


cheers


fivefinger

fivefinger wrote:Bad:

1.) I feel an overall lack of configuration possibilities. In Kde3.x there were more options for the taskbar(s) and they were ore easy to configure.

Improved in kde 4.2 a lot.

I am absolutely clueless why Kcontrol vanished. The systemsettings app is MUCH less usability and the first entry in Kmenu i deleted on any installation so far.
Kcontrol supplied a well structured "all in one frame" configuration tool for kde and services while systemsettings takes a lot of clicks and backs and open little windows to get more then one thing done.
Don't like it at all and hope Kcontrol will return...

I don't think it will return, maybe if enough people want another Menu but i dont want to let anyone hope

2.) Similar for Adept. The old style adept where one could browse through all packages and search by adding tags was an awesome tool. The new adeptmanager (sorry) is completely useless. Well for someone not familiar with his/her system it might be good to keep a lot of packets just out of sight and structure the rest into classes like multimedia, games, etc. But for someone who knows what he is doing this is a pain.
Why not keep both options?

Agreed. Maybe try another Distro there are enough Packagemanagers out there

1.) I feel an overall lack of configuration possibilities. In Kde3.x there were more options for the taskbar(s) and they were ore easy to configure.
I am absolutely clueless why Kcontrol vanished. The systemsettings app is MUCH less usability and the first entry in Kmenu i deleted on any installation so far.
Kcontrol supplied a well structured "all in one frame" configuration tool for kde and services while systemsettings takes a lot of clicks and backs and open little windows to get more then one thing done.
Don't like it at all and hope Kcontrol will return...

Agree 100% on KControl. I briefly installed KDE 3.5 to see if I like KControl any more than System Settings, and it was just so much better! I never really used KDE 3, but I'm sure KControl must have helped to give KDE 3 its identity.

2.) Similar for Adept. The old style adept where one could browse through all packages and search by adding tags was an awesome tool. The new adeptmanager (sorry) is completely useless. Well for someone not familiar with his/her system it might be good to keep a lot of packets just out of sight and structure the rest into classes like multimedia, games, etc. But for someone who knows what he is doing this is a pain.
Why not keep both options?

If you don't like the new version of Adept, give Arch KDEmod a try. Pacman, Arch's package manager, is extremely simple to use and Shaman, Pacman's GUI frontend, is even better than Synaptic.

There's a KDE 4 port of KControl somewhere--don't know how usable it is though, I think it was dropped around the 4.0-4.1 time frame and nobody else has shown any interest to pick it up again.

I recently had a look on the systemsettings code and tried to add an alternative tree-based view to the categorized list view and to display the control modules besides it. It should not be that hard, because an underlying model is used, but there has to be make some modifications. If I have the time I will have another look. If it works it can be send as an patch to the maintainers, but it cannot be ready before 4.2 b/c of soft feature freeze. But eventually it could become a stand alone application for kde-apps.org first. But I do not want to promise too much. Are there other developers who already tried to add the tree-view to systemsettings or is working on it? Perhaps we can work together then.

Cheers, m

Improved in kde 4.2 a lot.

Good to hear and cheers!

Agreed. Maybe try another Distro there are enough Packagemanagers out there

If you don't like the new version of Adept, give Arch KDEmod a try. Pacman, Arch's package manager, is extremely simple to use and Shaman, Pacman's GUI frontend, is even better than Synaptic.

You know, i'm fine with my distro and synaptics is as fine to me as aptitude is, but since KDE delivers a packagemanager and did deliver one that actually was quite good i think it's worth mentioning that the old one was much better to me. And to many other people too.

I recently had a look on the systemsettings code and tried to add an alternative tree-based view to the categorized list view and to display the control modules besides it. It should not be that hard, because an underlying model is used, but there has to be make some modifications. If I have the time I will have another look. If it works it can be send as an patch to the maintainers, but it cannot be ready before 4.2 b/c of soft feature freeze. But eventually it could become a stand alone application for kde-apps.org first. But I do not want to promise too much. Are there other developers who already tried to add the tree-view to systemsettings or is working on it? Perhaps we can work together then.

Cheers, m

would be so awesome. if my programming skills were just a little more than rudimentary id join right now...

fivefinger wrote:You know, i'm fine with my distro and synaptics is as fine to me as aptitude is, but since KDE delivers a packagemanager and did deliver one that actually was quite good i think it's worth mentioning that the old one was much better to me. And to many other people too.

Adept is not from KDE afaik.

PeperJohnny wrote:

fivefinger wrote:You know, i'm fine with my distro and synaptics is as fine to me as aptitude is, but since KDE delivers a packagemanager and did deliver one that actually was quite good i think it's worth mentioning that the old one was much better to me. And to many other people too.

Adept is not from KDE afaik.

uups. thought so...my bad then

"Speed" can mean many things. KDE has always been pretty slow to open applications. There's always that long moment when the icon is bouncing up and down. On my old P3 box, when using KDE4, moving and resizing plasmoids can be painful, sometimes physically, on account of the low speed.

On the other hand, I just installed KDE 4 in Intrepid to run as a dual boot with with my "illegal" Fluxbox/KDE3 intrepid system. I've set it up so that there are no plasmoids on the Desktop, and I'm very impressed with how certain applications run, especially streaming video. Very smooth and natural looking. That's the most important kind of "speed", no?

msoeken wrote:tree-based view

I'm surprised it hasn't been done yet. This kind of sidebar should shut all system settings haters up (me included ^.-). I say: go for it!

blackbelt_jones wrote:"Speed" can mean many things. KDE has always been pretty slow to open applications.

Would "applications" mean native KDE apps or otherwise? Ideally, it shouldn't matter but practically it will. Open a gtk-using app when you're not otherwise using the gtk-toolkit (as in: using KDE) will incur a speed-penality. As will opening a KDE/Qt app in Gnome.

Personally, I can't say either DE (gnome or KDE) is slower than the other when using apps that are using the "native" toolkit of respective DE. Sometimes KDE is slow in open a gtk/gnome application (in my case, Inkscape). But Gnome can be just as slow in opening a KDE/Qt app (i.e. Digikam).

Hans wrote:

msoeken wrote:tree-based view

I'm surprised it hasn't been done yet. This kind of sidebar should shut all system settings haters up (me included ^.-). I say: go for it!

I'd put it onto my todo list again. It is not as easy as it seems at the first glance, but IMHO it should not be too hard. I'll give it a try.