I am periodically trying KDE SVN on Gentoo and I can say it becomes better and better. But so far in KDE4 I am missing features and application I like so I am still waiting for KDE4.2 despite I like the newest SW (that's why I use Gentto ). When it is out I will decide.
Nevertheless I didn't observe any unstability or freezing in SVN version. Kwin is quite slow using composite effects comparing to compiz fusion but nothing is crashing.

Sorry to change the topic to an extent but freespire isn't providing my drivers and I want to download kde.

What is the best method to do so over freespire from the URL site?

[Dell gx240 / 1m ram / 1.8g / 80g hd (no writable cd)]

I have seen more crashes in MS 98 than probably anyone has experienced in Linux

Thanks
Camel

Biggest thing missing for me are panel applets (I guess they're plasmoids now) that I used in KDE3. Quicklauncher and the command line applet were two. I got a quicklauncher from kde-look, but it's very beta, buggy (won't save my settings between sessions), and hard to use (can't drag'n'drop from the menu or desktop. As for a panel command line, there's one in the works but it's not ready yet.

Other than that, I've just generally found it more of a pain to get the desktop looking the way I want it to look. So many things are tied together appearance-wise that I have to make compromises.

Since my last post here, we have v4.2 out now.
As I don't have enough resources for experimenting, is there anyone that can direct me to some documentation about the "filling the gap" between v3 and v4?
Thanks once again.

Uqbar wrote:Since my last post here, we have v4.2 out now.
As I don't have enough resources for experimenting, is there anyone that can direct me to some documentation about the "filling the gap" between v3 and v4?
Thanks once again.

I'll have to say the gap is shallower now, but I don't personally recommend KDE4 until the next Kubuntu LTS. That might be KDE 4.4.

I've tried KDE4.2 and IMO it's still not ideal for production use. Dolphin and Konqueror crashes too often, Konsole lacks keypad support, K3b still in alpha, Koffice and Krusader still beta, global menu still not possible unless the unofficial style bespin is installed (I hate the mac style, I simply want the global menu).

Of course, your mind may vary, and KDE 4.2 may be good enough for many people.

You must try yourself to see if KDE4 works for *you*, not somebody else. If in doubt, install in a virtual machine such as sun virtualbox 2.1, which will give you plenty of idea.

Another approach to try is to use the KDE4 Live CD, that is based on openSUSE but it is quite stable and useful since it integrates more official KDE components than Kubuntu installed by default.

Some things that will be missed:

- Quanta Plus
- Kile
- A boatload of styles and window decorations, and colorschemes as well
- some functionality in the KPrinter dialog (i.e., being able to print in reverse order, print just odd/even pages, etc.).

for me:
kcontrol -- system setting is missing so much its a waste of space (though this goes back to the beginning of the system settings toy
ksysv -- found nothing to replace it
kfmclient -- VERY unstable
dolphin -- hate it with a passion - wastes more screen space than it actually uses.

@cheifchimp: When kfmclient crashes, please generate backtraces and file bug reports so the developers can fix them in future releases. You can also still use Konqueror. You can change your file manager default in System Settings > Default Applications > File Manager.

A New KDE Control Center is being developed by me and msoeken. It is not currently capable of displaying Control Modules as of yet, but it does support both the classic tree view and the new Icons view.

cheifchimp wrote:dolphin -- hate it with a passion - wastes more screen space than it actually uses.

You cannot please all the people, it seems: I really LOVE dolphin. Do you know you can close/open the panels with just one key? F11 will give you a lot of space...