Hi!

I think that I started using KDE in late 1996 and few days ago (I'm using 3.5.10 steel) I installed 4.1.1 and big surprise. IMO few steps back from 3.5.

Are there any user who could describe why is KDE 4 better than 3.5 and what is improvement, please.

Thanks in advance,

RH

Maybe this is a good place to start: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KDE_4

My personal opinion: KDE4 is about revolution, not about evolution. The devs have decided to take new, untrodden roads. There may be some bumps on the way, but the glimpses of our destiny promise that we are heading for something beautiful.

XiniX wrote:Maybe this is a good place to start: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KDE_4

My personal opinion: KDE4 is about revolution, not about evolution. The devs have decided to take new, untrodden roads. There may be some bumps on the way, but the glimpses of our destiny promise that we are heading for something beautiful.

They decided what they decided. If they will keep users is the other side of their policy. I know for mysyself: stay with KDE 3.5 as long as it will be maintained and preparing for Xfce or GNOME.

@Robin, why are you trowing rocks so early?

KDE4 is becoming really good, can you please stat what are the steps back that you have?
I, for myself, do have some steps back, but they are being worked on. for instance KDevelop and K3B,
but Plasma is a huge improvement over all linux desktop efforts, Dolphin is a great filemanager, GwenView is getting really better than the kde3's versions, all the games are in a better shape...
I don't see your point, because you didn't explained them.

KDE 4 is a work in progress. The current KDE 4.1.x is certainly usable, but, as you've seen, there are still some bugs and missing features. If you're looking for something that's more on par with KDE 3 in features and stability, then you may want to wait until KDE 4.2 comes out this January to make the jump. It's going to be a very big release and it should, I imagine, address some of your concerns.

In the mean time, why don't you draw up a list of some of the specific problems you have with KDE 4 along with some possible solutions? That sort of specific feedback would be very helpful.

RobinHood wrote:Are there any user who could describe why is KDE 4 better than 3.5 and what is improvement, please.

Simple: KDE3 was about replicating what Windows does. Yes it was. And to be honest, it looked like Windows95 on steroids. It just didn't look or feel like a modern GUI. Yes, it was very powerful, but it _looked_ like it came to the party over five years late.

KDE3 was powerful, but it was hidden beneath a layer of complexity. You had all the power you could ever want, but it was so inaccessible, that it could just as well not have those features at all. My wife hated it because she couldn't actually do anything with it, because all the complexity was in her way.

KDE3 was very good at doing what it did. That is, be a GUI for the user so he could run his apps. It looked dated, but it worked. But the thing is that the world is changing, and KDE3 would not cope with the demands of the future.

What about KDE4? Well, it looks modern and clean (although it could be even cleaner still). It actually looks like a GUI that has been designed in this millennium. And what's more important, it lays the foundation to build some truly great apps. Foundation that KDE3 lacked.

And I find it interesting that people are comparing KDE4 to KDE3.5.9, and saying KDE4 falls short. Well, KDE3.5.9 is tried and tested release, KDE4 is brand-new. I remember when I used KDE2 for the first time. It was crashy and it didn't realyl work right. KDE3 was a lot smaller step, but it too was crashy and "less than perfect". What about KDE4? Well, 4.0 was.... nut really usable. 4.1 is very much usable, with 4.2 looking to be kick-ass. It seems to me that KDE4 is gaining usability (and that includes features, if the system does not have the features you need, it's not really "usable"). a lot faster than KDE3 did.

Yes, in many ways KDE3 is better than KDE4 is. But that's because KDE3 has years and years of development behind it, KDE4 does not.

Janne wrote:

RobinHood wrote:Are there any user who could describe why is KDE 4 better than 3.5 and what is improvement, please.

What about KDE4? Well, it looks modern and clean (although it could be even cleaner still). It actually looks like a GUI that has been designed in this millennium. And what's more important, it lays the foundation to build some truly great apps. Foundation that KDE3 lacked.

OK it looks modern? but what I would do more with this modern look which I cannot with KDE 3.5.10?

Robin: on the apps side, launch a few apps, for instance gwenview, and compare them with the 3.5x versions.
on the desktop side, try to configure your panel, or the screen, put a few plasmoids on the screen and see it`s shine.

you still failed to tell us what you did on 3.5 that you cant do in 4.x

Tomaz wrote:Robin: on the apps side, launch a few apps, for instance gwenview, and compare them with the 3.5x versions.
on the desktop side, try to configure your panel, or the screen, put a few plasmoids on the screen and see it`s shine.

you still failed to tell us what you did on 3.5 that you cant do in 4.x

About gwenview, I never I ike it and all the time I use GQView and GIMP and with GIMP I don't see any difference. But (I didn't read enough IMO) I didn't find how can I put application on the panel or is not possible anymore.
I have 2 GB of RAM and KDE4 works slowly than KDE3.
I use also some programs for genetics and they work slowly too. And one more: how can I reorganize panel, time for example between klipper and volume icon?
Thanks.

BTW: it is very easy on KDE 3.5

RobinHood wrote:About gwenview, I never I ike it and all the time I use GQView and GIMP and with GIMP I don't see any difference.

Not surprising, since those programs were not written with KDE, never mind KDE4, in mind. You will notice most improvements when the programs are actually written with KDE4 in mind.

Of course, depending on the rest of the distro/hardware/other factors, you may or may not notice speed differences (for better and for worse I might add).

RobinHood wrote:But (I didn't read enough IMO) I didn't find how can I put application on the panel or is not possible anymore.

Do you mean adding a short-cut icon to launch the program?

If so:

1. Right-click on the desktop and choose unlock widgets.
2. Locate the correct program in the new startmenu.
3. Right-click on the program and choose "Add to panel".

RobinHood wrote:I have 2 GB of RAM and KDE4 works slowly than KDE3.

It doesn't here, but see above with regards to the overall nature of your installation. Especially if you happen to have a nvidia-card...that being said, I have 2 gigs of RAM too AND a nvidia-card and KDE4 definately feels faster on my machine. I haven't performed any sort of benchmark though, so it's just a very subjective feel.

RobinHood wrote:I use also some programs for genetics and they work slowly too. And one more: how can I reorganize panel, time for example between klipper and volume icon?

Unfortunately, I don't think you can reorganize things in the systray yet (I'd love to be proven wrong though!), although shuffling everything else around is a piece of cake:

1. Right-click on the desktop and choose unlock widgets.
2. Right-click on the panel and choose "Panel settings".
3. Move the mousepointer over whatever you want to move (say the pager widget) and drag it to whereever you want it to be.

and what about us, poor ms windows users, now at last with kde4, we have all those shiny kde app available

well for my 1 week of KDE with mandriva, i find it buggy (as you know with my fullscreen issue) but compare to vista at release this is nothing.But i have high hopes for it (although im not exactly a pro linux users, i only started when i jumped on the mandriva band wagon with 2008.1 which i loved sooo much when everything else like ubuntu and fedora looked like ****.I felt KDE 3.5.9 was a very attractive desktop, until i looked at kubuntu and only saw that it was mandriva that made KDE 3 look nice with La Ora.With KDE 4.1, i find KDE 4 out of the box is nice, and i sorta blend the mandriva good and the KDE good, i switched to the kde turn on and shutdown, but i left la ora window bordering because i don't really care for oxygen borders)

But KDE4 is a attractive desktop, i even got people on a vista forum to say it looked nice.Dolphin is a great file browser, very attractive, clean and easy to use.The new KDE control panel is a great plus, and with that and the mandriva 2009 control centre my GUI is very complete and i find it easy to change things in KDE4 then in vista now.

And KDE 4.1 right now is very usable despite my fullscreen issue.Maybe because i have an alienware with a quad core cpu and 3gb of ram and a 512mb video card from nvidia, but i find it opening windows at a pleasing speed (not super "oo" "wow"' like 2008.1 and KDE 3.5.9 was, but why you NEED that, if it opens at normal not annoying pace and looks wonderful, i really don't care.

But i will say the KDE team should be proud of themselves for this release with that is with is a competitive GUI with MAC OS X and Vista (well vista seems to lose its GUI after a special blue screen after sleep mode ) and i hope kde continues to get better. I don't understand why everyone is bashing this release and taking it final, i mean come on do we have to emulate the people with Vista and XP?We bashing KDE4 is only hurting linux.People seem to forget what we are getting is for free, and the linux motto of "release early, release often" . People are just being stubborn and *some* are afraid of change, which effects linux as a whole as well.

*although amarok does need a little work though despite it only being in alpha/beta or whatever it is.

When i started to use KDE4 on daily basics in march, it was all about trying this cool new stuff, now its really usable, in some areas better, some wors then kde3.(on the to-do list for 4.2)
But in general KDE4 is all about making a sustainable and elegant future platform for devs, and a polished, ogranic and highly customizable desktop & app collection for users.

RobinHood wrote:OK it looks modern? but what I would do more with this modern look which I cannot with KDE 3.5.10?

Are you saying that appearance of the UI should not be focused on at all? I firmly believe that a beautiful UI is more pleasant to use and therefore more usable than utilitarian UI, everything else being equal.

Besides, making the UI look good does not mean that developers are not focusing on making the system more functional as well. Appearance is created by artists, functionality is created by programmers.

Modern appearance makes the system more appealing for new users. That means more users, and that means more bug-reports, suggestions and contributors. And that means better product for everyone.

Robin: you answered that the versions of ... gimp and gqview?
ok... gimp and gqview are not kde4 programs, they are not written by kde people, they use another toolkit for UI-related stuff ( called GTK ), and GQView is the fastest image viewer around, I'm sure of it but if you want to show that KDE 4 is worse than KDE 3 you need to give KDE examples. =/