KDE 4.. is it really as bad as people are saying?

[kaldor]

I hear people saying KDE4 is horrible. Is this just opinion or is it really as unstable as people keep saying?

[bubba_169]

In my experience it isn't all the hype made it out to be ... very much a step down from KDE 3.5 in most situations.

I usually use Gnome though \\:D/...

[feisty john]

KDE 4 is not ready for prime time. There's supposed to be a much more functional and stable version coming out this summer or fall or something, but I'd wait until early 2009 to really give it a go. KDE 3.5 is totally awesome so try that for a while.

[mrsteveman1]

The interface isn't ready right now it seems, but the platform under it, that is to say QT4 and the newer KDE4 libs are all quite good and much better than the KDE3 versions, so things should improve.

KDE4 is a significant platform upgrade that i can't even really compare to anything in the past with Linux.

[Zorael]

Don't judge it yet, it needs to mature. It's only "bad" in the sense that it's "not finished"; several features are missing. In my opinion they should've waited and numbered 4.1 as 4.0 instead.

The 4.1beta is a great improvement over 4.0.4 - I haven't tried 4.0.5 yet - but it's still not polished enough. I have high hopes for 4.1, which is slated for (preliminary) release in just over a month. And it can only get better with 4.2, 4.n, 4.n+1, amirite?

KDE 4.0 was released on January 11, 2008. Despite being a stable release, it is intended for early adopters. Users wanting a stable, "feature complete" desktop may wish to continue using KDE 3.5 for now. There are maintenance releases every month, which fix bugs and add some minor features such as resizable desktop panels.
Major releases (4.x) are scheduled for every six months, while minor bugfix releases (4.x.x) are released monthly.

[Anzan]

Not only is it unstable but KDE has drifted so far from Unix principles and KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) that I have no interest in it.

However, if one likes widgets and gadgets running atop complex dependencies, by this time next year it might be good for production machines.

[buntunub]

If you want a good look at KDE4, try out SUSE11 KDE4 variant. Its really quite good, and stable. Ive had no crashes on it to date and its light on the resources as well. KDE4 really does have a long ways to go yet to reach its potential, but thats a good thing IMO. Its innovative and there is tons of room for future development. It will very soon be the premier Desktop for Linux, of that I have no doubt.

[Saya]

If you want a good look at KDE4, try out SUSE11 KDE4 variant. Its really quite good, and stable. Ive had no crashes on it to date
When you start calling something "good" because it doesn't crash, things really are going downhill.

[mrsteveman1]

Not only is it unstable but KDE has drifted so far from Unix principles and KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) that I have no interest in it.

KDE is disorganized and overly complicated yes, but there are certainly cases where simplicity isn't the only concern and thus simply being non simple isn't a mark against it.

Gnome on the other hand is too lightweight and simplistic for me.

BTW, does anyone else pronounce gnome as "genome" as in genetics? I hate saying "guh-nome" just like i hate saying "guh-new" for GNU, i just say the letters :D

[doorknob60]

GNU, saying it with letters ftw! I say Gnome like...not how you say it :P KDE 4 has great potential, and I'll be switching to it soon, but for now I'm gonna stick with 3.5.x. Also, who pronounces Ubuntu as ooo-bun-too, my dad pronounces it like ooo-boon-too (which I think is right), but I just can't say it like that anymore lol. Also, I pronounce Debian like dee-bee-un, but my dad says it like deb-ee-un (which I think is right too), but again I can't relearn how to say it lol. At least I don't say Suse like "sooos" anymore lmao :P

[John T. Monkey]

I used it for about a month with Kubuntu, and its not as bad as I've heard people say.

Options are abit lacking, one or two bugs, and not many wigets, but its generally stable and it looks good.

I'm now back onto GNOME for the time being though...

[cardinals_fan]

KDE 3.5 > KDE 4, not just because of stability. KDE 4 is covered with widgets and gadgets and plasmoids or whatever they call them now, most of which serve no useful purpose. Kwin has bunches of worthless and hopelessly buggy "effects" which are a total violation of KISS principles. And then we have Oxygen, which is really just an excuse to waste more of my resources for negligable benefit. The new System Settings panel is lacking compared to the old one.

On the plus side, many KDE apps have gotten a much-needed tuneup. Gwenview and the whole KDE games pack have received improvements.

Qt 4 has lots of promise though.

[raul_]

Most people say that because it's not Gnome. What I've heard from KDE users is that it's still only aimed at developers and early adopters, and it's coming up great.Something,of course, KDE developers have been saying since it was released.

You have to see things in context. KDE4 is wonderfully designed, and most people don't understand what's under the hood: the work KDE people have been doing will, for example, make possible for KDE apps to run NATIVELY on Windows or Mac, and Windows or Mac users will be able to develop KDE apps in a transparent way, without even needing to use Linux.

KDE4 will be a very flexible DE, and most of all, IMO, brings inovation to the table, something I haven't seen from Gnome developers in some time.

Of course, that's just my 2 cents, and as you can see, I'm a KDE user who isn't that fond of Gnome :)

Of course people have their right to talk trash about KDE, but what I've seen is that a lot of persons are already biased before they have a look or give it a try, and I think those opinions are unfair.

[Anzan]

KDE is disorganized and overly complicated yes, but there are certainly cases where simplicity isn't the only concern and thus simply being non simple isn't a mark against it.

Gnome on the other hand is too lightweight and simplistic for me.

BTW, does anyone else pronounce gnome as "genome" as in genetics? I hate saying "guh-nome" just like i hate saying "guh-new" for GNU, i just say the letters :D

I understand. Gnome is a bit too bloated for me: I like that Pidgin and Evolution and the date/time panel applet all talk to each other but the lines of communication sometime chatter in the background, even when the process is supposedly dead. That's just broken.

I also like the Compiz bling.

More and more though, I find light WMs are more stable and configurable than DEs.

I think that the direction that KDE is moving in might be followed by Guh-Nome over the next years.

But that that direction is moving away from core Unix/Linux principles.

The desktop environment is not the OS. When the DE borks and a new session doesn't clear it and rebooting the OS does, there is something very wrong. That way lies Windows and Windows is inherently broken because the GUI infests the kernel.

So that's why KDE 4 is, to me, even worse than people say.

For those who like it, that's great.

But I won't be rebooting just because some plasmoid or junklet hangs and its dependencies break everything else in a session.