I still fail to see the big picture here. Already KDE 4.2 beta has achieved near feature parity with KDE 3.5. With KDE 4.3 that parity will have been achieved. And of course, many new features and improvements have been added and continue to be added.

So, if you are sure you cannot move to KDE 4.2 in January because some really important feature is missing, you will need to wait some 6 extra months.

So, what is it you do not like? Why are you so sure that KDE 4 will never suit your tastes? To me it sounds like you just don't like change, but alas, it is part of life....

XiniX wrote:I still fail to see the big picture here. Already KDE 4.2 beta has achieved near feature parity with KDE 3.5. With KDE 4.3 that parity will have been achieved.

By now I am quite certain that this will not be the case, sadly. I know that KDE 4 has its fans, but I tried several of the latest KDE Live-CDs, and for me it was always a horrible experience. I don't want to expand on details in this thread now, maybe I will write about them some other time elsewhere, but I have already read others explaining in detail in this forum what they didn't like about KDE 4, I share many of their complaints. If you want to know what is wrong about KDE 4, you can read them up there.

So, what is it you do not like? Why are you so sure that KDE 4 will never suit your tastes? To me it sounds like you just don't like change, but alas, it is part of life....

The purpose of distributions is to serve their users, and forcing them into a change they do not want is not serving them. And the users can't be bullied into embracing KDE 4, either. I predict that many will switch over to GNOME or have already done so.

Microsoft was just as convinced about the superiority of Vista over XP, but most of their userbase didn't agree.

melkart wrote:I predict that many will switch over to GNOME or have already done so.

I predict many Gnome users will switch to KDE4 or have already done so....

I am sorry, but your complaining does not make sense. You refer to 'other posts' without being specific, and invite me to dig up founded complaints whereas I am not the one who claims to have issues with KDE4. Besides, many posts on KDE4 are just whining and do not take into account that many issues have been resolved in 4.2 or will be in 4.3.

KDE 4 is a huge step forward technically and aesthetically. The point of no return was reached years ago and there is no sense in maintaining a complete DE infrastructure just because people are reluctant to change.

Referring to Microsoft is completely irrelevant here. As far as I am concerned, many requests to implement KDE3 functionality in KDE4 have been honoured. And unless you get specific and prove otherwise, that is an undisputed fact. Besides, if you don't like it, use something else. With Linux you have the choice, with MS you don't.

XiniX wrote:I am sorry, but your complaining does not make sense. You refer to 'other posts' without being specific, and invite me to dig up founded complaints whereas I am not the one who claims to have issues with KDE4.

But it was you who asked me for the reasons. Why should I do the work of explaining in detail here what I don't like about KDE 4 - and there is really a lot - if you could just do some searching in this forum yourself?

KDE 4 is a huge step forward technically and aesthetically. The point of no return was reached years ago and there is no sense in maintaining a complete DE infrastructure just because people are reluctant to change.
...
Besides, if you don't like it, use something else. With Linux you have the choice, with MS you don't.

I will soon not have the choice anymore to use KDE 3. With Linux I don't have the choice to use my favorite Desktop Environment, because with Linux the needs and wishes of users are too often dismissed as irrelevant.

MS, on the other hand, is in the business for profit, therefore they have to listen to their customers to some degress, regardless if they agree with them or not. Hence MS extended their support for Windows XP until 2014, when support of any Linux distribution for KDE 3 will have stopped long ago. MS shows far more commitment to its userbase here than any Linux distribution.

I think a new distro will rise, which will only support KDE 3.

No matter. You can still install KDE 1 on your machine, and you will ever be able to install KDE 3 on your computer. You just have to compile them.
What Windows does with XP is, what you can do with KUbuntu LTS ... you sad that it would be out of date, but what is XP?

You asked why the distributions kill off KDE 3. The reason is the time to support it.
Yes, there are other DE which are still supported (XFCE, WM, Blackbox, ...) but there are really small. It's not as hard to support them. Also KDE 4 and KDE 3 have nearly the same userbase.
Look at Mandriva for example, the community created an XFCE Version of Mandriva 2009 but no KDE 3 Version?
At the distributions are diffrent Teams. One for KDE, one for GNOME, etc.. And the KDE Team can't support both Versions. This have to be done by the community or by no one.
But I think, you didn't want an answer. You are just annoyed from KDE 4 (because it's different?) and want to vent your anger.
That's just my opinion ...

Regards,
TeaAge

melkart wrote:I wonder if there is something about finished and feature-complete - that is to say: perfect - software, that the Linux community doesn't like? When a software is actively being worked on, everyone rushed to ship the latest versions, but as soon as a software is finished, it is immediately being dropped. At least that's the case with KDE 3.5.10, and there are probably other examples.

One reason to switch development gears is the unavoidable fact that Qt3 is no longer being supported. Qt4 is a significant improvement over Qt3. But the biggest reason is simply that developers like coding new features more than they like fixing bugs. In the commercial world developers fix bugs because they get paid, but in the Open Source world they only fix bugs because a hard-nosed release manager put a feature freeze on the tree.

There's also the problem of many KDE developers looking down in disdain on KDE3. Many times when I've requested a KDE3 feature I've been told that it's obsolete, that I shouldn't be using my "grandpa's desktop", etc.

TeaAge wrote:But I think, you didn't want an answer. You are just annoyed from KDE 4 (because it's different?) and want to vent your anger.

Yes, my OP was partially a rant, as I admitted upfront.

Brandybuck wrote:One reason to switch development gears is the unavoidable fact that Qt3 is no longer being supported.

Sorry, I didn't know this. I just searched Trolltech's website, and found an article stating they would stop supporting Qt3 already in 2007, only 2 years after Qt 4 was released. I am surprised, I didn't expect that from a commercial company.

I take it that distributions want to get rid of Qt3 rather sooner than later, too? That would make it easier to understand why they were so eager to drop KDE 3.

And it would also explain that the KDE team had no choice but to start KDE 4. I hope that Qt4 will live longer than Qt3, so that KDE 4 has plenty of time to get better before it dies, too.

melkart wrote:MS, on the other hand, is in the business for profit, therefore they have to listen to their customers to some degress, regardless if they agree with them or not. Hence MS extended their support for Windows XP until 2014,

Which is actually pretty much "provide only security updates to XP". Which, if you think about it, is not all that different to the status of KDE3. Neither will get any significant updates anymore, apart from what is deemed critical (what is deemed critical is, of course, debatable). XP is what it is, and KDE3 is what is is. For better and worse in both cases. The bottom line is: neither of them will get a serious overhaul neither in general UI, third-party-support or what not. Both essentially works, which is the greatest enemy of both Microsoft and KDE. Both entities are essentially competing against itself.

Besides, no matter what Microsoft says: it is soon (if it isn't already) not relevant what they think about it that matters. It is what the OEM's think. While XP in itself has received an official "life-extender" from MS, the OEM's and third-party companies think otherwise. For example, it is getting increasingly harder to find good or even decent drivers for new hardware that takes XP into account. I wouldn't be surprised to find that concept to be extended to pure software (say updates to banking software) in the near future either.

In a way, that is similar to what Linux users are facing. In short, if you stick with XP: be prepared to do your homework to make things work for you.

melkart wrote:Sorry, I didn't know this. I just searched Trolltech's website, and found an article stating they would stop supporting Qt3 already in 2007, only 2 years after Qt 4 was released. I am surprised, I didn't expect that from a commercial company.

Trolltech actually supported Qt3 up to June 2008. You can even pay for a continued support contract. But no new features, only critical bug fixes.

I find it suprising as well that these mainstream distros are actually dropping KDE 3.5. I am a huge KDE fan (running KDE 4.2 from "as-close-as-I-can-get-to-trunk" right now, thanks to the awesome openSUSE KDE team!), but I think the KDE 3.5 is a beautiful piece of work for it's time, and I think that it should at least be available.

Personally I feel good about openSUSE's decision in this regard. KDE 3.5 will no longer be included with openSUSE (starting at 11.2), but will be available in a seperate community run repository (i.e, the paid staff won't be putting much time in it). However, the KDE team will still assist the community with maintaining the 3.5 packages for new openSUSE releases (which shouldn't be too much work). So openSUSE users will always (as far as we know) have an stable well-"SUSE-fied" KDE 3.5 to enjoy, though you'll have to settle for either KDE 4 or GNOME or some alt wm for initial installs.

On the other hand, now that SUSE-STUDIO is nearing completion, it would only be a 10 minute affair to create a KDE 3.5 liveCD (installable) based on openSUSE...

I might just do that!

This is just my opinion. But don't you think that you are being a little naive on the fact that you tried a few KDE-4.x.x livecd's are even installed it. You don't like it because X is not there or Y crashed doing something. It is still in early development road. There will be crazy bugs floating around what not. Wait til 4.2 is fully released on wait til 4.3.0 comes out. From one of the KDE's developers. I don't know exactly how accurate it is. KDE-4 will be around for atleast a couple of years. Those bugs and missing features we have right now are going to be gone. OR maybe because you've grown so used to KDE-3.5 that you don't want to change because you'll have to learn something else.

Realise that there is a longer group of users out there including me that like bleeding edge and new stuff when they are released. I don't want old libraries, software on my pc unless I *require* it. I'm waiting for KDE-4 to drop qt3support from being needed. It's the way the development world is. Distros support there OS by years. Some software stop support after a couple of months of a new version coming out unless they are propertary software with a huge base like M$. This is the way of the computer world. Every 6 months something in your computer (hardware) is obsolete. You can use the same dilly ol' hardware but you won't receive support, lack of drivers for new OS's and what not.

I don't think it's true that " the distros killed KDE3 early." Most distros are still offering it, and it's still very much alive. I only know of one distro that has truly stopped releasing KDE3, and that's Kubuntu, who will continue to support it in Hardy Heron for at least two years. Opensuse is still releasing KDE3, but only as a nondefault option. On the other hand, there are other distros, some of them smaller, that aren't really interested in KDE4 at all. I had a discussion on the Vector Linux forum. Vector is an excellent little distro based on Slackware. These guys aren't much interested in KDE4. They're not up in arms about it, they just talk about it like it's something that's happening in someone else's world.

Different distros have responded differently, for different reason.

For me, this whole process has been a lot more emotionally harrowing than it really ought to be. And for others too, clearly, this just hits us where we live, and for me, it really brings out the crazy. We're Linux users because we want to have control over our system, and when we feel like we're losing control, it's a big deal, even if what we're really faced with is nothing more intrusive than the possiblility of a couple of extra clicks from time to time at worst... and at best, the best destop GUI ever! To anyone who has been reading my posts, there's no point in attempting to conceal the fact that this whole process has occasionally turned me into a whiny six year old boy... or maybe a resentful, annoying old lady. Sorry about that.

Bottom line is, it'll work out. If something is important to you, it's probably important to other people, and that means it will be almost certainly be provided for, because that's the way it will will work.

In many ways, KDE 4.2 is moving in the direction of providing a more traditional KDE desktop. My pet peeve, the lack of a filter bar in Konqueror has already been addressed in some versions, but that matters less because... well... I've actually started using Dolphin for file management. Never thought I'd ever say that, but now it seems crazy to me that I resisted Dolphin, out of a misplaced loyalty to Konqueror, as if Dolphin isn't simply a reimagining of Konqueror without the web browser. The truth is, I'm a hard-headed piece of work, and if I could only find some quasi-rational basis for continuting to resist Dolphin, I would. But there isn't. One thing that I've been pointing to is the fact that Konqueror has its own application menus, which is especially helpful for working outside of KDE. Well, all you need to do is link dolphin to the same url (programs:/), and shazaam, you've got application menus in Dolphin! I gotta give it up.

There's one thing that Konqueror can do that Dolphin can't do, and that's link files and applications to html. I used to love to edit a page of html links that would control everything. It was fun, and it made Konqueror unique, but fooling around with KDE4 has made me more aware of Konqueror/Dolphin's special ability to insert icons for linking to applications (with or without URL arguments) or locations anywhere in the file system, and this is even better. This is the basis of folderview, why it's so valuble. You can create directory after directory of Launchers, and you can adjust the desktop to different tasks. This is the part of KDE4 that is way past eye candy. I think it's fairly unique. I don't think Nautilus can do this, for example. In Gnome, you can put your launchers on the desktop, or that panel, and that's all ya got. At least, I think that's how it is... and if I'm wrong, someone please tell me so I can stop saying that.

blackbelt_jones wrote:I only know of one distro that has truly stopped releasing KDE3, and that's Kubuntu, who will continue to support it in Hardy Heron for at least two years.

Support for Kubuntu 8.04 will end in October this year, as was already mentioned in this thread. Mandriva and Fedora already had their latest release without KDE3. OpenSuSE will have their next release without KDE3. About RHEL and Slackware I am not sure.

From the major Linux distributions, Debian is the only one I know, that will have another release coming with KDE3. And they will drop KDE3 for the release after lenny, too.

I had a discussion on the Vector Linux forum. Vector is an excellent little distro based on Slackware. These guys aren't much interested in KDE4. They're not up in arms about it, they just talk about it like it's something that's happening in someone else's world.

But I don't know if they will be able to maintain KDE3 on their own once Slackware drops it, even if they would like to.

Bottom line is, it'll work out. If something is important to you, it's probably important to other people, and that means it will be almost certainly be provided for, because that's the way it will will work.

I don't know. There is always a shortage of capable volunteers wanting to take care of things. This isn't the first time that a very popular piece of free software gets abandoned without an equal replacement being available. The XMMS media player is another example. XMMS was fast and lightweight, based around the file concept instead of managing a database with tags, and could play about every kind of file it was thrown at.

Now, just as with KDE3, there were lots of people around, who insulted or derided people for not wanting to let go of XMMS, claiming that the new/other media players were better and could do everything XMMS could do. They were just as wrong.

It seems to me that we have to get used to losing our favorite pieces of free software, not long after developers lost interest in them.

melkart wrote:OpenSuSE will have their next release without KDE3.

No, openSUSE will have their next release without KDE3 on the DVD. KDE3, all of it, will still be available from buildservice and will still be updated.

TheBlackCat wrote:No, openSUSE will have their next release without KDE3 on the DVD. KDE3, all of it, will still be available from buildservice and will still be updated.

Thank you. I don't know what the buildservice is exactly, but it sounds good.