I have tried Gnome, XFCE and KDE so far - on various Linux distributions. In the end I settled for KDE and discovered Kate which is a nice text editor for development. Then KDE4 was released with Fedora 9, so I thought I would give it a go. I have spent a few hours with it and am utterly disappointed. For some reason Kate is no longer a base package, and everything has changed seemingly for the worse.

Just now I hovered the yellow thing to the right of the clock, right clicked it and selected "remove this panel". Great, now I have lost my entire bottom bar, when all I wanted to do was rid myself of this useless button that only appears to add another black bar with font alignment buttons that do nothing. I can't get rid of the thing at the top right of the desktop too - or at least if I can it isn't obvious.

I couldn't work out how to restore my (bottom bar/start menu/clock) everything, so I logged in as another user, deleted that user, and created another one. Luckily I only installed Fedora 9 on this machine this afternoon.

The new start menu is horrible, and the shortcuts in Administration/Settings/Utilities could be confused between each category. Administration even has a comment saying "System Settings that Effect all Users" - so why not put it in Settings? This may be a Fedora 9 setup though.

The desktop is strange too, I can't work out how to make it fit the entire size of the desktop instead of having that silly little box.

Thanks for the free software, but I am going to have to find another desktop to use. Does anyone feel KDE4 is an improvement over KDE3?

Kate is (at least upstream) part of the kdesdk Module, although large parts are shipped with kdelibs, and kwrite (which is in kdebase). Packaging in Fedora might be different. In any case, it should be trvial to install through the package manager.

Getting rid of the "yellow thing" on the panel: Just lock the desktop and it'll vanish. The "black bar" you're mentioning is used to configure the panel (size, layout, alignment, adding widgets to it), it's referred to as "panel controller". You can add the panel back by right-clicking on the desktop and choosing "Add panel..." (if you're using KDE 4.1, at least. If you're on 4.0, consider upgrading, it's worth it.)

The start menu can be change via right click on the button. You can set it to "Classic Menu" there. If you're in for some experimentation, you could have a look at Lancelot, which is another nice replacement for the default kickoff menu.
I also understand you have a problem with the size of the desktop. I can't really make sense of that, a screenshot would be useful.

Also, some of your issues seem to be related to Fedora, someone else can probably comment on that better.

lda wrote:The desktop is strange too, I can't work out how to make it fit the entire size of the desktop instead of having that silly little box.

Thanks for the free software, but I am going to have to find another desktop to use. Does anyone feel KDE4 is an improvement over KDE3?

Well, I don't know about Fedora since I don't really use it and don't know which version of KDE 4.x that's available through them.

However, for the sake of clarification..."silly little box". Does that refer to the yellow-ish gadget in the top-right corner? If so, you may be pleased to hear that you will be able to get rid of it in KDE 4.2.0 if not sooner. In Suse 11 (my distro of choice, and using KDE 4.1.2.), you can get rid of it as easily as:

1. Right-click on the desktop.
2. Choose "Desktop settings"
3. In the window that pops up, choose "Plain desktop" under "Desktop Activity/Type"
4. Click okay.

Granted, that is a backport from KDE 4.2.0, but as far as I can tell that will be a part of the general KDE desktop from 4.2.0 on in every distro. If you don't want to switch distro but want to stay with KDE you will get that option in just a few months.

As far as whether KDE 4 is an improvement over KDE 3, yes. In my opinion, there is no contest. KDE 4 is a vast improvement. It is faster, it is more flexible, and it feels a lot more coherent than the 3.x series ever did (and hey, I still have a big soft spot for KDE 3. It is, after all, the environment that convinced me that Linux is more than viable on the desktop). There's certainly room for improvement, but then again: there was in KDE 3.x as well. There are annoying bugs and what not in both, but whether KDE 4 is an improvement for you is a question only you can answer.

lda wrote:I have tried Gnome, XFCE and KDE so far - on various Linux distributions. In the end I settled for KDE and discovered Kate which is a nice text editor for development. Then KDE4 was released with Fedora 9, so I thought I would give it a go. I have spent a few hours with it and am utterly disappointed. For some reason Kate is no longer a base package, and everything has changed seemingly for the worse.

Dunno about Fedora, but [s]Kubuntu includes Kate by default so which module is in is sorta irrelevant aside from which distros include it by default.[/s] Actually, it's not included by default but it's rather trivial to add, as previously mentioned.

Just now I hovered the yellow thing to the right of the clock, right clicked it and selected "remove this panel". Great, now I have lost my entire bottom bar, when all I wanted to do was rid myself of this useless button that only appears to add another black bar with font alignment buttons that do nothing. I can't get rid of the thing at the top right of the desktop too - or at least if I can it isn't obvious.

Right clicking and selecting "Lock Widgets" will make the Plasma config icon go away. Though, to KDE's credit, I don't think that icon looks anything like a panel itself. If it says it's going to remove the panel, it's probably going to remove the whole thing, not just the config button.

I couldn't work out how to restore my (bottom bar/start menu/clock) everything, so I logged in as another user, deleted that user, and created another one. Luckily I only installed Fedora 9 on this machine this afternoon.

You can add all the widgets in a normal panel to a new panel by adding them from the "Add Widgets" dialog, though I suppose it'd be nice to be able to add preconfigured panels...

The new start menu is horrible, and the shortcuts in Administration/Settings/Utilities could be confused between each category. Administration even has a comment saying "System Settings that Effect all Users" - so why not put it in Settings? This may be a Fedora 9 setup though.

You can switch to the Classic-Style menu through the right click menu if that's your cup of tea. Personally I use the Lancelot application launcher

The desktop is strange too, I can't work out how to make it fit the entire size of the desktop instead of having that silly little box.

In the development version of KDE 4.2 you can already set this widget as the entire Desktop.

Thanks for the free software, but I am going to have to find another desktop to use. Does anyone feel KDE4 is an improvement over KDE3?

In my opinion, yes, greatly so. There still are a few rough edges, but KDE4 is already an amazing piece of software that has potential to go places KDE3 never could have gone. Doing the above in style doesn't hurt either. [hr]

Kryten2X4B wrote:However, for the sake of clarification..."silly little box". Does that refer to the yellow-ish gadget in the top-right corner? If so, you may be pleased to hear that you will be able to get rid of it in KDE 4.2.0 if not sooner. In Suse 11 (my distro of choice, and using KDE 4.1.2.), you can get rid of it as easily as:

The silly little box in question is, I believe, the folderview widget.

JontheEchinda wrote:The silly little box in question is, I believe, the folderview widget.

In the words of Homer...Do'h. That makes a lot more sense than my suggestion...

Still, a word of of caution regarding the different desktop-containments...well, caution may be too strong a word but anyway.

As it is on my installation, the choice is between (not counting things that do not make sense to have as a desktop container. In my view anyway, such as the Superkaramba themes I get in the dialogue) "Default" (what has been available since KDE 4.0), "Plain Desktop" (default but without the plasma toolbox), and "Folder view" (the old KDE3, Windows, etc paradigm).

A step in the right direction choice-wise, but as of right-now you don't get a choice if you want the toolbox or not if you choose the folder-view as your desktop containment. Somehow I feel it would be good if there was just the choice between "Default desktop" and "Folder view" but with a checkbox whether you want the plasma widget or not (maybe phrased differently though, for a newbie it is not clear what the difference is). How it is implemented "behind the scenes" is not as important, but I feel the current implementation is not all that clear to end-users.

And no, I haven't filed a bug on this. Mostly because I myself rely on the packages provided by my distro (wouldn't know where to begin in compiling from /trunk) and those packages contain backports that I have no way of knowing how current and reliable they are. I haven't had any stability issues so far, but there are a couple of usability issues I would raise a red flag about if I only knew where in bugs.kde.org to file it.

lda wrote:Does anyone feel KDE4 is an improvement over KDE3?

Yup, I actually think KDE 4 is an improvement. At first, I thought I'd soon be a Gnome desktop user, but after four days with my new install of Mandriva 2009 and KDE, I'm hooked.

Mandriva has done a wonderful implementation of the new KDE desktop. It looks wonderful and the performance is much better. There are a few features that are missing (like a "save session" option and hot keys seems to be broken), but these drawbacks are minor to me. I can wait until 4.2 for these things - unless Mandriva provides their own fixes in the mean time.

It took me a couple days to get my new KDE 4 legs, but now that I'm comfortable with it, I would not want to go back.

Another thing that is bugging me is that when I log off and back in later on, certain things have moved. On my second login it had moved everything on the panel to the right and put the running programs taskbar bit of the left. Also when I lock the panel it doesn't remember it is locked when I log off and log on again. The third time my folder view box, which I hate, has disappeared. Great so the desktop is just a big image, and no way of making the folder view take the whole space up... I can resize it but its very crudely done as resizing moves all corners at once - and still has ugly borders.

Seems then that most of the options I want to use aren't in my version, or any stable releases come to think of it. I'm not one for compiling unstable source code, I like to make the computer work for me - not the other way round. I don't mind setting up my servers by compiling the *AMP stack from stable source code, I just don't see the point trying to with a desktop as there are so many more applications, and I would end up in dependency hell.

Kryten2X4B wrote:KDE 4 is a vast improvement. It is faster, it is more flexible, and it feels a lot more coherent than the 3.x series ever did.

Coherent? I just feel completely lost. I've never used a desktop that puts things in a folder view box instead of just using the entire desktop.

It isn't faster on machines like laptops. I have two. One has a Celeron 1.5Ghz with 1GB of ram, and the other has a Celeron 1.4Ghz with 512mb of ram - KDE3 was significantly faster than KDE4 on both, and I had to remove KDE4 from my lower spec laptop as it was using 99% memory and virtual memory constantly and was too slow to use.

sebas wrote:Kate is (at least upstream) part of the kdesdk Module, although large parts are shipped with kdelibs, and kwrite (which is in kdebase). Packaging in Fedora might be different. In any case, it should be trvial to install through the package manager.

Got that package installed last night after a bit of googling.

sebas wrote:Getting rid of the "yellow thing" on the panel: Just lock the desktop and it'll vanish. The "black bar" you're mentioning is used to configure the panel (size, layout, alignment, adding widgets to it), it's referred to as "panel controller". You can add the panel back by right-clicking on the desktop and choosing "Add panel..." (if you're using KDE 4.1, at least. If you're on 4.0, consider upgrading, it's worth it.)

Locking the bar did get rid of it. What confused me is that I right clicked it, and clicked remove panel because it was the only option. I didn't realise the whole thing was a panel, and the things on it were widgets - it didn't give an option to remove widget as it isn't a widget. I didn't understand the difference then.

To make it clearer would I be fair in saying that if you right click on something, and hover the remove options, it should highlight what will be removed either by surrounding it with a red border or something to indicate what will happen if the user clicks remove. I was being slow and cautious and something like that would of prevented me from deleting the whole panel, but as it was I was stabbing at buttons blind hoping it would do what I wanted.

I managed to add the panel back, but it just added a black bar at the top of the screen, I couldn't figure out how to move it to the bottom so gave up and re-created my user.

sebas wrote:The start menu can be change via right click on the button. You can set it to "Classic Menu" there. If you're in for some experimentation, you could have a look at Lancelot, which is another nice replacement for the default kickoff menu.

I have changed it back to classic view, so much better than the default. How is it quicker/easier/simpler to have to make 4+ clicks instead of 1? One thing I did like though was typing the program's name to search/run it, it was about the only way I could launch the programs I wanted as they are scattered all over about 20 different slides of the menu. Unless you know which particular slide the shortcut is likely to be on, then it's as flawed as the latest ms office gui. I don't think I have the option for Lancelot but I will look it up.

JontheEchinda wrote:In the development version of KDE 4.2 you can already set this widget as the entire Desktop.

It took until x.2 to reinstate a feature present in every previous major version of KDE, found on nigh on every single desktop ever developed and actively used today? KDE4 seems to be one step forward, 10 steps back... then once it gets to about version KDE 4.19372 we get a usable desktop.

I don't mean to complain because you shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth, but I feel very frustrated by KDE4. I welcome change, I don't fear change, I am willing to give it a go - but it is like pulling teeth. For years there has been arguments over whether KDE or Gnome are better, I think KDE has just shot themselves in the foot. The thing that attracted me to KDE was that it was more like windows than Gnome, I think I might install Gnome now.

I think KDE is definitely going in the right direction. The folder view might seem as something we're completely not used to, but I believe it's made our conventional desktops into something a lot more powerful. Just use me as an example, my desktop used to be a dumping ground for random files.

I haven't enjoyed KickOff though, but I use alt-f2 for everything so I don't really mind. I should try out lancelot, it looks fantastic.

judland wrote:It took me a couple days to get my new KDE 4 legs, but now that I'm comfortable with it, I would not want to go back.

I actually had to go back, because my Thinkpad's wireless network thing wouldn't connect under KDE 4-- but perhaps the new version does better. I'll wait until my in-house sysadmin gets back from Munich, though-- not looking forward to finding out everything completely on my own.

ida, just for clarification, are you using 4.1 or 4.0?
( and belive me, I'm using folderview for a small time now, and it feels a lot more confortable, I have one for my downloads folder and another for the desktop. no more mess on my pc )

Folderview wasn't in 4.0, so it must be 4.1.

oh =O
yah, that's right.
btw, i'm the only that really liked the folderview feature?

It is the version that comes with Fedora 9, upgraded to the latest stable release using Yum.

Code: Select all

[luke@localhost ~]$ su
Password:
[root@localhost luke]# yum list kdebase
Loaded plugins: refresh-packagekit
Installed Packages
kdebase.i386                             6:4.1.1-1.fc9          installed

Regarding the folderview thing, I suppose it does make sense as I use my desktops as a dumping ground for downloaded files and what not. But I don't like being forced into using this without being able to use the desktop how I have been used to.

Ida: you're not forced to.
there's a way to make the desktop just like you're used, ( on 4.1 I don't remember how, but on 4.2 it's simply a matter of desktop-config, files on desktop )

Tomaz wrote:oh =O
yah, that's right.
btw, i'm the only that really liked the folderview feature?

I like the folderview feature too.
And i can't understand what Ida has against it, as you can make it as large as you like. So just make it as large as your desktop if you want to spread the icons all over it.

By the way, on suse11 with kde 4.1.1 you can disable the folderview and place icons directly on the desktop.