My first experience with KDE 4 was with the 4.0 included in Kubuntu hardy heron with alternative desktop. I was not impressed, but in retrospect this was either because 4.0 just wasn't mature enough for regular use or the Kubuntu people did a bad job of configuring their KDE. I have since upgraded to Kubuntu intrepid ibex (8.10) with KDE 4.1 and I am quite pleased with it.

There are a few things that I think are sub-optimal. First of all is the missing KSysGuard "widget". In KDE 3.x I had this in my panel and relied on it a lot. It's a quick way to monitor system activity, and to watch the progress of builds and rendering operations. Are there any plans to redo this for KDE 4.x? I'm jonesing!

Secondly, I've been dissatisfied with the slideshow screensaver ever since hardy heron as it doesn't show every image, rather it shows every second image. On KDE 4.x I've switched to the media screensaver, and although this shows every image, it flashes a full white screen, then a full black one between each image, which is pretty unpleasant to look at (can this trigger seizures? ). Photography is my hobby and watching my slideshow screensaver is one of the joys of my computer. Any workarounds for the "every second image" problem?

One last issue is the scrambled images that appear whenever I first open a menu, sometimes a new window, or when I tell the system to shutdown. It looks like the space for the UI elements involved grab old content from the frame buffer before the new content image is generated. This gives an odd "this stuff is broken" feel to what is otherwise working OK.

To end on a positive note, generally I think that KDE 4.1 is great. It seems like a much more attractive and professional product than 3.x. Thanks for the great effort.

You can install either plasmoid-system-monitor or plasmoid-cpuload for a system monitoring plasmoid. (Just don't forget to run kbuildsycoca4 after you install them)
Hope it helps.

And the screensaver, well, you can always use digikam as slideshow, it's not a screensaver thought.

I just this evening installed KDE 4, and I must say I absolutely HATE it. It's terrible. What made the previous version so great - the flexibility - is GONE. It's virtually impossible for me to figure out. I can't get things to work properly after hours of working on it, when it would take only a few minutes of blundering around with 3.x... It's far, far too rigid.. AND it's constantly crashing, on the same computer, with the same resources that 3.x performed so well on. All in all, it's the New Coke of desktop environments.. Change everything that people like about your software. That's just smart thinking, that is...

devin wrote:I just this evening installed KDE 4, and I must say I absolutely HATE it. It's terrible. What made the previous version so great - the flexibility - is GONE. It's virtually impossible for me to figure out. I can't get things to work properly after hours of working on it, when it would take only a few minutes of blundering around with 3.x... It's far, far too rigid.. AND it's constantly crashing, on the same computer, with the same resources that 3.x performed so well on. All in all, it's the New Coke of desktop environments.. Change everything that people like about your software. That's just smart thinking, that is...

Would be a good thing to give examples, maybe your problem is more a distro problem then a kde4 problem. Examples we can reply to and try to solve.

My exposure to KDE4 was via installing kubuntu 8.10 after having enjoyed kubuntu versions 7.04 through 8.04.

• It was alien. More so than when I use gnome. It is akin to the experience when I use xfce. Nothing is as it seems it should be...
• Instantly, I evoke [meta]+[k] to pull up konsole and ... nothing. Hmmm, must be like with 8.04, where some init value for khotkeys didn't catch.
• Then I try alt+F1 to pull up the menu. Nope. Nothing.
• Then alt+f2. The run box appeared, however, it didn't work on my first boot up. Perhaps the updates fixed it as this subsequently became my primary method of running programs.
• Something did work: clicking on individual Firefox profile desktop shortcuts I have saved would behave as expected.
• But scrolling the mouse wheel on the desktop did nothing... (I like to open different FF profiles on separate desktops)
• Right clicking on the desktop didn't lead me to figure out how to enable desktop scrolling, as the menus are different from KDE3

Usability for me is instantly ruined. Then there was the shocker to learn that it was a choice to break (and not fix) khotkeys. As I have integrated khotkeys into my workflow, this is a show stopper for me.

[meta][k] = konsole
[meta][shift][k] = kate
[meta][ctrl][k] = kdevelop

[meta][w] = kwrite
[meta][shift][w] = oowriter

[meta][h] = the kcontrol app for hotkeys
... and there are about 30 text entry macros I have made in hotkeys for use in emails.

To provide more feedback:

• I don't get the plasma foot thing. What's it for? Adding one of 15 "widgets" to the desktop?
• I used the widget to add an analog clock to the desktop, but nothing happened. Apparently, I hit the button a few or twenty times... as when I next booted up, there were lots of them piled up in the top left corner of the desktop that I had to delete
• Why is the desktop now thrown into a window where I cannot move the icons around to actually read what the text is? Why bother with it then? Now it's just another folder.
• Oh, I got "lost" in the menu for a few minutes because I didn't actually launch an application. And I didn't notice the tiny "back" arrow...
• Once I did learn how to use it, it takes lots and lots of clicks to "find" something that should be in the menu.
• Clicking to shutdown was kind of funny the first time. I must have clicked it 5 or 8 times before I noticed that I was in a "loop" and needed to stop, read the GUI, and figure out how to shut down
• Choosing the classic menu was a step backwards for me but the only workable solution. I normally DO try to give new things a try to learn how to use my computer more effeciently

Overall, my opinion is that KDE4 is to KDE as Vista is to windoze eXPee.

And I'm quite mad that I am stuck with kubuntu 8.04 "hardy" to keep my favorite distro and desktop together. KDE4's usability issues are too great for me to move to it now ... but I guess it is good I have learned now, as we are about to re-vamp our production process and I would have integrated khotkeys into that, which would have been a mistake. Instead, we'll use generic php pages and touch screens and focus on creating an in-house web app rather than assume that linux would be "stable".

Yes, unfair to call linux unstable because kubuntu chose to switch from KDE3 to KDE4. Now I understand the outcry. KDE4 is really a different DE than KDE3.

I just registered to share my thoughts while waiting for apt-get install kubuntu-desktop on a 8.04 ubuntu install gets me back to where I started hours ago...

Thanks,
Chris[hr]
Since not liking KDE4 seems to get folks yelled at here, I'll also share what I did like about KDE4:

• The new & shiny look is nice
• Once I noticed the disappearing "title bar" on the sides of apps, I thought that was great
• The desktop effects that are standard in the kubuntu 8.10 install are neat, specifically the task switching
• KDE4 "felt" better and more stable. I cannot substantiate that but it is a feeling I observed even through my frustrations of the usability issues

I *do* look forward to the time when I can try KDE4 again but I believe that will be some time in the future.

Thanks,
Chris

@cacycleworks
Did you install KDE4 by installing kubuntu-kde4-desktop? What is your KDE version?

KDE 4.0.x is outdated and you should upgrade to KDE 4.2 beta or atleast KDE 4.1.x
KDE 4.2 beta has _many_ bugfixes. Keyboard shortcuts work, more stability.

Add this to your repository:

Code: Select all

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/kubuntu-experimental/ubuntu hardy main

And do:

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

There have been some "marketing" blunders with the project. KDE 4.0 was not a release in the usual sense of the word, and not meant for end users. But several elements in the community marketed it as such. This caused a great deal of frustration to both users and developers. KDE 4.1 was the initial release for end users. As the initial user release, it still suffers somewhat from x.0 syndrome. I think 4.2. will be the first release suitable for most users.

@cacycleworks: Instead of clicking the Add button in the widgets dialog, try dragging the widgets off onto your desktop instead. This is how I have seen virtually all the KDE 4 screen casts done, and also allows you to choose the initial position

@LinuxIsInnovation and @bcooksley :: I'll keep those in mind when I give KDE4 another try. Right now, I'm back to 8.04 to get KDE3. I'm pretty sure that KDE4 was the newest from the kubuntu repositories, as I did a number of updates (and noticed some improvements)

Thanks!
Chris

First things first, I know it probably doesn't make much of a difference what I think about KDE 4.X; nevertheless, I just had to vent some pressure after testing numerous live cd's and reading news and blogs about KDE development. Of course I would hope that some developers would care to implement some of the "missing things" I miss in KDE 3.5 but there seems to be so much hubris, "right man" syndrome and sense of "knowing it better" going around that I find it highly unlikely to happen..


I am still disappointed in the whole KDE 4.X desktop development and how it has turned out to be. I still think it is mostly an epic fail and a downgrade from 3.X series in terms of functionality, intuitiveness and customizability. And above all, it is still unbearably unstable and slow; especially vs KDE 3.5. Then again the things I expected about 4.X were very modest, namely I hoped it would be faster, consume less memory and contain less bugs.
Unfortunately it turned out that exactly opposite is true - it is drastically slower, consumes more memory and is really quite buggy and unstable. And besides, I did not expect complete reboot and rewrite of the desktop enviroment anyway...


I'll start from the bottom, the desktop itself. I don't understand the function of the so called "cashew" - It is ugly, does not provide any particularly important functionality and it is not even possible to move it to a other place in the desktop (?!?) as far as I could see.
Sure, there is a plasmoid which enables hiding this thing, but why there is such a static feature in the desktop - KDE was -supposed- to be about customizability and user choice, right? It is not very convincing if some desktop feature is essential and supposedly cannot be disable or hidden from view - or if it is true there is something very wrong about this.
I admit I would like to see some of those meta-level or high-order ways of organizing documents and workspaces but as of now the desktop enviroment is so unstable and incomplete overall it is a completely redundant idea to even test this.


Panels are jerky and slow - difficult to resize and tweak accurately vs KDE 3.5. No configuration menu and all those IMHO important choices and tweaks I would like to have. Moving elements with mouse is erratic and does not work at all smoohly as it should and how it used to work. Furthermore panels are "inert" - it is difficult to add apps shortcuts and those hyped plasmoids/widgets are not in any perceivable way better vs 3.5 panel applets.


Start menu replacement Kickoff sure is a letdown - super simplified, it is slow to use and alternative - Lancelot, is not much better overall IMHO. Thankfully classic menu is still there.


Similar simplification and supposed "usability" has found its way to system settings as well.
Control center is faster to use, more intuitive and and above all there -all- those settings and tweaks which are missing in replacement. After all, it was possible to start just one module or whole control center - now the system settings, or should I say Control Panel, is just poor imitation or "focus group" pleasing and different features are divided with no good reason or logic between advanced and regular settings.


Next thing are the applications which I use and love in KDE. For some reason Konqueror is less usable and Dolphin has taken some of its roles. I don't understand this at all - does this mean Konqueror is destined to become some sort of second grade program. At least it seemed to have less settings and features vs. previous incarnations. Dolphin is just a file viewer (default view and settings are btw completely ridiculous) and ill suited to the generic file manipulator, viewer, browser Konqueror is.
IMHO I think that Konqueror is -the- best application KDE has to offer, but at the same time developers seem to have other ideas and objectives for it.
Then there is the trend of unnecessarily simplifying and removing options across the whole selection of applications. What is I like to do or indeed sometimes there is a genuine need to change some "advanced" settings in some programs - now these options are absent.
It really feels like using Gnome applications -> definitely not a good development.


There are the most important observations I made while testing KDE 4.0-4.2 and it definitely does not look pretty. There are many more little problems and omissions but i couldn't really take comprehensive notes while testing it - I just didn't enjoy using this thing at all. There are some relatively minor high points in this newer KDE, such as oKular as multiuse viewer and Marble seems interesting but, again, couple of applications do not save the day.


Supposedly future development (4.3) concentrates on Akonadi and other high level features, how about restoring some or all functionality of 3.5 or maybe some work to improve stability - IMHO it is ridiculous if DE crashes every ten minutes.


Thankfully Debian and it's developers were sane enough to stay at 3.5 default instead of IMHO broken KDE 4.X. I really hope that this situation continues for a while at least. Hopefully future versions fix some of these problems, after all what alternatives there are. Gnome sucks even more because it is so simplified and streamlined, XFCE is too basic as a DE and otherwise there are only miscellaneous window managers etc. they have no integration, consistent look or anything I want. And moving back to Windows ?!?! - well, sounds good to me (right).


Hoping and indeed willing to work for better KDE 4.4 of 4.5 with some sort of "legacy" mode or reimplemented features.
Or if this fails to materialize, some sort of fork of 3.5 -> port to Qt 4.0 however unlikely it may seem or possibly refactoring/forking of KDE 4.X and adding/removing greatest shortcomings.

Adharzi wrote:I'll start from the bottom, the desktop itself. I don't understand the function of the so called "cashew" - It is ugly, does not provide any particularly important functionality and it is not even possible to move it to a other place in the desktop (?!?) as far as I could see.
Sure, there is a plasmoid which enables hiding this thing, but why there is such a static feature in the desktop - KDE was -supposed- to be about customizability and user choice, right? It is not very convincing if some desktop feature is essential and supposedly cannot be disable or hidden from view - or if it is true there is something very wrong about this.
I admit I would like to see some of those meta-level or high-order ways of organizing documents and workspaces but as of now the desktop enviroment is so unstable and incomplete overall it is a completely redundant idea to even test this.

I also didn't know how to move the "Cashew", but it can be simply moved while your widgets are unlocked. And it is usable to some extent even though I do agree that it's more or less useless. As there are other widgets that do similar things and are less
intrusive.

Adharzi wrote:Panels are jerky and slow - difficult to resize and tweak accurately vs KDE 3.5. No configuration menu and all those IMHO important choices and tweaks I would like to have. Moving elements with mouse is erratic and does not work at all smoohly as it should and how it used to work. Furthermore panels are "inert" - it is difficult to add apps shortcuts and those hyped plasmoids/widgets are not in any perceivable way better vs 3.5 panel applets.

There is a "configuration menu" you unlock widgets then click on widget on panel (it,s the same as on desktop) and you'll get menu and can use more settings for just that...
I don't think there is any thing from KDE3.5 panel settings that wouldn't be in KDE4.2. If you can think of any please report.
the only "difficult" thing is to set a height of a panel, everything else is more or less simple.

Adharzi wrote:Next thing are the applications which I use and love in KDE. For some reason Konqueror is less usable and Dolphin has taken some of its roles. I don't understand this at all - does this mean Konqueror is destined to become some sort of second grade program. At least it seemed to have less settings and features vs. previous incarnations. Dolphin is just a file viewer (default view and settings are btw completely ridiculous) and ill suited to the generic file manipulator, viewer, browser Konqueror is.
IMHO I think that Konqueror is -the- best application KDE has to offer, but at the same time developers seem to have other ideas and objectives for it.
Then there is the trend of unnecessarily simplifying and removing options across the whole selection of applications. What is I like to do or indeed sometimes there is a genuine need to change some "advanced" settings in some programs - now these options are absent.
It really feels like using Gnome applications -> definitely not a good development.

I'm afraid that Konquerors future is set to be primarily a Web Browser and then a file browser. But I'm not sure.

I moved to kde 4.1.3 from gnome 2.24 and I found it very pleasant. I just love the default eye-candy plasmoids view, but also I found very useful plasmoids, such as the folder view. I think that changing icons in my desktop in a click every time I switch and start doing something else, it is a very useful feature.
I also used kde 3.x versions and I found that fully of features and maybe too aggressive. The changes from the old series to the newer for me are just fine.

Thanks to all KDE developers.

:thumbs_up:

itbhp wrote:I moved to kde 4.1.3 from gnome 2.24 and I found it very pleasant. I just love the default eye-candy plasmoids view, but also I found very useful plasmoids, such as the folder view. I think that changing icons in my desktop in a click every time I switch and start doing something else, it is a very useful feature.
I also used kde 3.x versions and I found that fully of features and maybe too aggressive. The changes from the old series to the newer for me are just fine.

Thanks to all KDE developers.

:thumbs_up:

You should really try KDE 4.2. If you liked 4.1.x you will love 4.2

Adharzi wrote:I'll start from the bottom, the desktop itself. I don't understand the function of the so called "cashew" - It is ugly, does not provide any particularly important functionality and it is not even possible to move it to a other place in the desktop (?!?) as far as I could see.
Sure, there is a plasmoid which enables hiding this thing, but why there is such a static feature in the desktop - KDE was -supposed- to be about customizability and user choice, right? It is not very convincing if some desktop feature is essential and supposedly cannot be disable or hidden from view - or if it is true there is something very wrong about this.

I agree that the cashew is not the prettiest thing in the universe. But as you say, you can install the plasmoid in about 5 seconds and get rid of it. Big deal.

Adharzi wrote:Panels are jerky and slow - difficult to resize and tweak accurately vs KDE 3.5. No configuration menu and all those IMHO important choices and tweaks I would like to have. Moving elements with mouse is erratic and does not work at all smoohly as it should and how it used to work.

I find it quite easy to resize the panel. But even if it was 'erratic,' how often do you actually do this per day?

Adharzi wrote:those hyped plasmoids/widgets are not in any perceivable way better vs 3.5 panel applets.

Plasma is not, in fact, a desktop shell, but a set of technologies and APIs that will make _much_ more possible than you could ever imagine KDE3 could do. The set of plasmoids that is provided so far is there to deliver the basics, the most needed applets. Your posting, too, implies that it would be a great achievement if the new possibilities wrt. workspaces, virtual desktops, etc. were realized already. So, what is great about the 4.2 applets? Well, they are rather pretty and functional (as opposed to 4.0 or 4.1). I would say they are better than those of 3.5. But that does not really matter. The point is plasma, the underlying infrastructure, has matured and will bring exciting new interface options.

Adharzi wrote:Start menu replacement Kickoff sure is a letdown - super simplified, it is slow to use and alternative - Lancelot, is not much better overall IMHO. Thankfully classic menu is still there.

You think you are "let down" by people who don't owe you anything simply because they chose the 'wrong' standard? I.e. because you need to click a few times to get your preferred app launcher?

Adharzi wrote:Control center is faster to use, more intuitive and and above all there -all- those settings and tweaks which are missing in replacement. After all, it was possible to start just one module or whole control center - now the system settings, or should I say Control Panel, is just poor imitation or "focus group" pleasing and different features are divided with no good reason or logic between advanced and regular settings.

That seems like a logical fallacy to me. You were used to it, that's why you think it was more 'intuitive.' But the main point you make here is wrong anyway. You can start all modules on their own, by running kcmshell4 . There is even a plasmoid out there that runs them from the panel.

Adharzi wrote:Next thing are the applications which I use and love in KDE. For some reason Konqueror is less usable and Dolphin has taken some of its roles. I don't understand this at all - does this mean Konqueror is destined to become some sort of second grade program. At least it seemed to have less settings and features vs. previous incarnations. Dolphin is just a file viewer (default view and settings are btw completely ridiculous) and ill suited to the generic file manipulator, viewer, browser Konqueror is.

Dolphin is indeed the main place where file browser development happens these days, but it is a kpart and runs equally well in Konqueror. Ironing out of some issues with dolphin kpart in Konqui and renewed development of a few now missing features has really started during the 4.2 cycle and is ongoing. There are KDE devs who prefer Konqueror as a file browser and thus is will always be there.

Adharzi wrote:IMHO it is ridiculous if DE crashes every ten minutes.

Hmm... that sounds really bad. Where did you get the packages from? Or did you compile them yourself? I think someone probably screwed up. I am using it since it was tagged, running it around the clock on my laptop (some suspending in between, though) and I haven't had a single crash so far. In any case, if you encounter bugs, report them. That's how it gets better.

Basically, you rant about a few 'wrong' standard settings, make a few false claims (since you don't know better) and then conclude that years of work on the foundations (about you seem to not know much, either) to something truly great are basically an "epic fail" because... well... I really didn't get it. Because you cannot resize the panel using your keyboard? Seriously?

I just hope that not many developers read this ****. I would be highly offended.