View Full Version : KDE 4.2 Released
Faolan84
February 22nd, 2009, 06:52 AM
So to follow up with a thread I created several months ago on KDE 4.1 vs Gnome (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=911735) I am going to report that 4.2 has been released and by looking at the release notes it seems that the developers have romoved many of the usability kinks that plagued the 8.04 and 8.10 KDE 4.x releases which were some of the best ones done by any distro bar only to maybe OpenSuSE.
Although, because I am lazy and MOREOVER because I don't want to install from an experimental PPA and deviate the stock KDE provided right now with both 8.10 and 9.04-Alpha I would like to invite to the table any KDE devs who would like to talk about all the developments seen both on the review sites and talk about some of the more unnoticed changes that are going on under the hood and also other added features.
Mostly I am hearing the claim that 4.2 is what 4.0 was aspiring to be on first release and that 4.0 == alpha and 4.1 == beta. Now reguardless whether I or anyone else agrees with that analysis is point aside the question that I think needs to be asked how does KDE 4.2 compare to the gold standard that 3.4 set and 3.5 raised? Are "little" things like bringing back right-click application menus on the desktop and global "mac" style menus back along with a whole slew of other features that seemed to get swept under the rug. Also does Kopete's Yahoo protocol still list everyone who has ever contacted me under one of my groups (this is a really weird bug that doesn't occur in the KDE 3.x version or in Pidgin)?
Speaking of which, other issues that are important: what is the status of the associated third party software. While it seems that Amarok finally released a stable version for 4.x, many people's favorite applications are in limbo as of now and there isn't much info on the net about what's going on. Will K3B release a K4B soon? What about Kaffiene, KOffice, Konversation, and a whole kslew of kapplikations? (Yes, I did.)
To finish on the up side I hear that 4.2 is much faster because of QT 4.5 and that further speed improvements are in the works for future releases. Also screen shots of the new Air theme in my opinion have a better look than the default Oxygen theme.
SunnyRabbiera
February 22nd, 2009, 07:33 AM
KDE 4.2 is almost on par with KDE 3.5 and Gnome 2.24 in terms of usability and overall ease of use.
Its vastly superior to KDE 4.0 and 4.1 and is a major improvement.
The only thing I dislike is plasma, I still find it unstable and buggy.
The Ubuntu build of KDE 4.2 is pretty decent however Mandriva is a little better at it.
My major dislike though is so far every KDE 4 distro looks the same to me, most Gnome and kde 3 distros by now have their own looks but most KDE4 look too similar.
Faolan84
February 22nd, 2009, 07:56 AM
I think that over time the distros will better customize the KDE 4.x releases. I think it has more to do with some sort of "ooo... shiny" or Vista fetish that's going on in the community. As for Mandriva, I knew they were still around, but I didn't think they were a major distro anymore. Most people I know who used it now use PCLinuxOS which I hear is nice. Honestly, I didn't think Mandriva was even trying. And it's a shame the way the company was ran into the ground. The distro had a lot of potential, but when I tried 2007.1 I was thoroughly disappointed at the distro's stagnation.
As far as KDE based distros go, I've always liked SuSE / OpenSuSE. I used them up until 9.3 or so (7.1 was my first experience with Linux and I bought most every new retail release of SuSE Pro up to 9.3, got a pretty good discount on it too). As of late I think OpenSuSE made some bad decisions especially regarding shipping crippled software plus their default repos have been lacking as of late.
Then I switched to Kubuntu, and as of the 4.x debacle I switched to Ubuntu, but I definitely will try out 4.2 once 8.10 is out.
SunnyRabbiera
February 22nd, 2009, 12:35 PM
I think that over time the distros will better customize the KDE 4.x releases. I think it has more to do with some sort of "ooo... shiny" or Vista fetish that's going on in the community. As for Mandriva, I knew they were still around, but I didn't think they were a major distro anymore. Most people I know who used it now use PCLinuxOS which I hear is nice. Honestly, I didn't think Mandriva was even trying. And it's a shame the way the company was ran into the ground. The distro had a lot of potential, but when I tried 2007.1 I was thoroughly disappointed at the distro's stagnation.
As far as KDE based distros go, I've always liked SuSE / OpenSuSE. I used them up until 9.3 or so (7.1 was my first experience with Linux and I bought most every new retail release of SuSE Pro up to 9.3, got a pretty good discount on it too). As of late I think OpenSuSE made some bad decisions especially regarding shipping crippled software plus their default repos have been lacking as of late.
Then I switched to Kubuntu, and as of the 4.x debacle I switched to Ubuntu, but I definitely will try out 4.2 once 8.10 is out.
8.10 is already out, but you really dont need 8.10 to try out kde 4.2.
I have used KDE 4.2 in Hardy, works fine.
To use it use this page for instructions:
http://www.kubuntu.org/news/kde-4.2
Now yes the repo says intrepid but I assure you it will work fine if you use hardy.
For older buntu's I am unsure though but I can confirm it works well in hardy.
As for mandriva, actually the latest 2008-9 releases have been much better then older versions such as 2007.
Sand & Mercury
February 22nd, 2009, 01:04 PM
I was gonna point out that Air is only a wallpaper and not a theme, but after googling I have my foot in my mouth. :lol:
It's shaping up to be an absolutely stunning look for 4.3 too.
vishzilla
February 22nd, 2009, 01:11 PM
I was gonna point out that Air is only a wallpaper and not a theme, but after googling I have my foot in my mouth. :lol:
It's shaping up to be an absolutely stunning look for 4.3 too.
for you reference: http://pinheiro-kde.blogspot.com/index.html :D
mips
February 22nd, 2009, 05:37 PM
Apparently Qt4.5 makes huge improvements.
I'll be installing QtCopy4.5 with KDE 4.3 trunk soon.
Skripka
February 22nd, 2009, 05:48 PM
KDE 4.2 is almost on par with KDE 3.5 and Gnome 2.24 in terms of usability and overall ease of use.
Its vastly superior to KDE 4.0 and 4.1 and is a major improvement.
The only thing I dislike is plasma, I still find it unstable and buggy.
The Ubuntu build of KDE 4.2 is pretty decent however Mandriva is a little better at it.
My major dislike though is so far every KDE 4 distro looks the same to me, most Gnome and kde 3 distros by now have their own looks but most KDE4 look too similar.
I'd sooner say that Kubuntu KDE4.2 is a HUGE improvment over 4.1...but Kubuntu 4.2 is still at/near the bottom of the KDE totem pole.
@OP: Know that Amarok2 CANNOT play audio CDs....and likely WILL NOT.
mips
February 22nd, 2009, 05:53 PM
I'd sooner say that Kubuntu KDE4.2 is a HUGE improvment over 4.1...but Kubuntu 4.2 is still at/near the bottom of the KDE totem pole.
I have always found Kubuntus implementation of KDE near the bottom of the KDE totem pole, irrespective of the version.
Skripka
February 22nd, 2009, 05:54 PM
I have always found Kubuntus implementation of KDE near the bottom of the KDE totem pole.
I didn't think it was "that" bad...until I moved to KDEmod. Yep....it really is that bad.
kelvin spratt
February 22nd, 2009, 05:59 PM
KDEmod is pushing all the time to improve KDE4.
mips
February 22nd, 2009, 06:41 PM
KDEmod is pushing all the time to improve KDE4.
Nonsense. KDEmod is nothing but a modular KDE4. The patches they implement in KDE4.x are basically only related to their branding/logos. They decided not to go down the same route as what they did with kde3.5 where they implemented lots of patches beyond simple branding.
kelvin spratt
February 22nd, 2009, 06:52 PM
Now I kwow why kdemod4 works better in Arch than KDE4 vanilla?
T2manner
February 22nd, 2009, 06:53 PM
KDE reminds me of the way Windows looks.
Faolan84
February 22nd, 2009, 09:46 PM
I could never figure out if the Oxygen theme was a response and associate plasma design was tier response to Vista's design or if it was independent. It definitely looks inspired and I don't think that KDE 4.x should have a default look similar to Vista. I have said many times that making Ubuntu look like Windows would be a tragedy because people would then expect it to function like Windows. That's just how the average user thinks and if developers can't wrap their heads around it they will learn soon enough. The crew at KDE should take that to heart. That is why every time the discussion comes up in UbuntuForums.org on this topic it is always laid to rest as one of the worst things the project could ever do.
The Oxygen widget colour, widget, and icon theme on the other hand is really nice, but the Oxygen plasma theme makes it too much like Vista. The KDE team need to create a style that is their own, that people can recognize as being KDE and not some that looks like it's wanting to be Windows Vista which was a train wreck of an OS to begin with.
Also, the KDEmod projects has in my opinion been one of the best KDE releases ever for a distro and I think Kubuntu could learn a lot from them. The one reason I liked Kubuntu above the others is simple because as far as dependencies go, Kubuntu is one of the most modular. Whereas OpenSuSE, Fedora, and Mandriva have all at times been known to build into their packages extra deps that have not real purpose. All those extra deps can slow things down, waste hard drive space, and make upgrade times longer when you upgrade to the next release.
Secondly OpenSuSE, Fedora, and Mandriva all need to have extra unofficial software repositories added if one is to do things like watch or backup your DVD collection (important because I don't own a DVD player or a TV). Also a lot of other good and useful software is not in the repos like emulators and support for proprietary formats. And yes, Ubuntu needs and extra repository for that stuff too, but unlike Ubuntu these extra repos can be dangerous to use because upon a major version upgrade these repos might not be synced or updated and that can wreck havoc on a system. This once happened to a friend running OpenSuSE and using the Packman repo I believe and the mirror wasn't updated to accommodate the the changes.
In essence, as plain and ugly as Kubuntu can be, things are getting better with package kit replacing Adept in 9.10 one of the biggest complaints will be permanently fixed, while the rest of the issues regarding Kubuntu being a poor KDE release could be fix with better ascetics and more attention to detail.
Skripka
February 22nd, 2009, 09:55 PM
I could never figure out if the Oxygen theme was a response and associate plasma design was tier response to Vista's design or if it was independent. It definitely looks inspired and I don't think that KDE 4.x should have a default look similar to Vista. I have said many times that making Ubuntu look like Windows would be a tragedy because people would then expect it to function like Windows. That's just how the average user thinks and if developers can't wrap their heads around it they will learn soon enough. The crew at KDE should take that to heart. That is why every time the discussion comes up in UbuntuForums.org on this topic it is always laid to rest as one of the worst things the project could ever do.
The Oxygen widget colour, widget, and icon theme on the other hand is really nice, but the Oxygen plasma theme makes it too much like Vista. The KDE team need to create a style that is their own, that people can recognize as being KDE and not some that looks like it's wanting to be Windows Vista which was a train wreck of an OS to begin with.
Also, the KDEmod projects has in my opinion been one of the best KDE releases ever for a distro and I think Kubuntu could learn a lot from them. The one reason I liked Kubuntu above the others is simple because as far as dependencies go, Kubuntu is one of the most modular. Whereas OpenSuSE, Fedora, and Mandriva have all at times been known to build into their packages extra deps that have not real purpose. All those extra deps can slow things down, waste hard drive space, and make upgrade times longer when you upgrade to the next release.
Secondly OpenSuSE, Fedora, and Mandriva all need to have extra unofficial software repositories added if one is to do things like watch or backup your DVD collection (important because I don't own a DVD player or a TV). Also a lot of other good and useful software is not in the repos like emulators and support for proprietary formats. And yes, Ubuntu needs and extra repository for that stuff too, but unlike Ubuntu these extra repos can be dangerous to use because upon a major version upgrade these repos might not be synced or updated and that can wreck havoc on a system. This once happened to a friend running OpenSuSE and using the Packman repo I believe and the mirror wasn't updated to accommodate the the changes.
In essence, as plain and ugly as Kubuntu can be, things are getting better with package kit replacing Adept in 9.10 one of the biggest complaints will be permanently fixed, while the rest of the issues regarding Kubuntu being a poor KDE release could be fix with better ascetics and more attention to detail.
I'd suggest educating youself:
The KDE Oxygen plasma theme has changed since 4.1. 4.0-4.1 had a black taskbar--with 4.2 Oxygen now being a clear gradient. Also there are other plasma themes out there. You don't like it-change it, as with any other bit of a linux OS.
PackageKit is a disaster in its current state of development on the Ubuntu repos, the new Adept on the Ubuntu repos is in much better condition than PackageKit-of course that doesn't say much...but Kpackacge kit is NOT an improvement over Adept. Kubuntu moving to KPackageKit is one of the secondary reasons I moved to Arch. Kubuntu will be moving over for Jaunty, IIRC, as Adept has halted all development over a month ago.
Kubuntu is a mess...and it is staying at the bottom of the KDE totem poll for a while to come.
McJack
February 22nd, 2009, 10:07 PM
The potential is staggering
Faolan84
February 22nd, 2009, 10:20 PM
Yeah, I realise PakageKit is a mess right now, but it's slated for the 9.10 release too and I've got news for all those using Ubuntu and GNOME -- It's coming to you too. PackageKit is the backend! So it's only logical that Synaptic will be replaced too (a real tragedy). I agree that PackageKit needs a lot of love right now and is no where near ready, but also 9.10 is also quite a ways away and so a lot will happen between then and now. If it will be a mess in Kubuntu it we be much the same in Ubuntu with PackageKit. As for Adept, I used it in 8.04 and 8.10 and it was broken in both. Honestly I preferred Synaptic and just used it instead.
Also I wasn't ware of KDE changing the default theme of the plasma panel from black to transpearent and yes I am aware that can be changed manually, but you have to understand you don't want to give the wrong first impressions to users and I think making KDE resemble Windows Vista enough to warrant the kind of comparisons made in many reviews on the net was a bad idea to start. If that's been corrected and improved since 4.1, that is all the better.
Anyways what a lot of people are waiting for is K3b, Kaffeine, KOffice, and Koversation to be released too before moving to 4.x. Those people have stayed with the 3.x or are using some other DE. For them 3.5 remains a gold standard and really, Kubuntu did okay with the 3.x releases. They weren't perfect but with a few adjustments mainly to the themes things were good.
Arch's KDEmod -- I'd have to say you are right -- is one of the best releases of KDE and if PackageKit sucks hard in 9.10 and is implemented before it's ready then I'll probably switch to either Arch or OpenSuSE. But Arch looks so much better because they don't nueter their packages and you don't have to have extra unstable repos installed to get the good stuff. Something tells me though that all things considered if PackageKit is not ready they will do the right thing and wait for it to be placed in the first 10.x, even if that means delaying an LTS release to the second half of 2010.
Also on another note:
AMD6400+ w/Zalman cooler, MSI K9N mobo, 2XSATA ,3rd HDD via 3.5" removeable bay, 4GB GEIL 800mHz, PNY Nvidia GTX260, 64-bit Arch with KDEmod4.2
That's one freaking awesome machine!
MarblePanther
February 22nd, 2009, 10:22 PM
I think one might be better off installing kde 4.2 from the experimental PPA onto "regular" Ubuntu than by using Kubuntu itself. I tend to stay away from all the Ubuntu spinoffs though...simply because I like modifying plain Ubuntu, even if it means going through and removing all GNOME modules, etc...or just use the server or base install disc instead
I tried out Arch and loved it (tweaking heaven) along with KDEmod, except for one glaring problem: the packages are too bleeding edge for me. HAL was broken (this is a problem that affects many people)--which is a major problem for me. Arch's concept is nice but is too bleeding edge for me.
I hope futher releases of Ubuntu stop focusing solely on GNOME, and help integrate other DE's more effectively (such as adding that new notification system to KDE4).
Faolan84
February 22nd, 2009, 10:43 PM
I hope futher releases of Ubuntu stop focusing solely on GNOME, and help integrate other DE's more effectively (such as adding that new notification system to KDE4).
I thought that's already being done in Kubuntu.
I tried out Arch and loved it (tweaking heaven) along with KDEmod, except for one glaring problem: the packages are too bleeding edge for me. HAL was broken (this is a problem that affects many people)--which is a major problem for me. Arch's concept is nice but is too bleeding edge for me.
I had no problem wit HAL. Maybe you needed to add some hardware description files to your setup if you are using something exotic. I've actually found Arch's implementations and softwares to be quite stable. Yes, they do you the most current packages, but they are also official packages with no backports from future versions which is something more "bleeding edge" distros do like Fedora. Heck even K/Ubuntu does it. That's what tends to cause instability is backporting features that may not always be stable, not using the default packages.
I've never really ran into that problem using Arch and I do hear it is quite rare, so there may have been a problem with your particular setup. Something special may have to have been done manually that Kubuntu does automatically for you at setup. It would not surprise me too much.
Also, I don't think that the HAL problems were just specific to Arch users. I know someone who runs OpenSuSE who has problems with HAL in KDE 4.1 and I heard there were some minor issues in Kubuntu also so they may have been bugs specific to various releases and subreleases of KDE 4.x. and not really related to HAL itself.
Skripka
February 22nd, 2009, 10:44 PM
Something tells me though that all things considered if PackageKit is not ready they will do the right thing and wait for it to be placed in the first 10.x, even if that means delaying an LTS release to the second half of 2010.
I honestly don't know what to think--*buntu et al seem h*ll bent on keeping to their time-table regardless of what that means or does. Considering how good Synaptic is-they have a tall order to get Packagekit up to that par. H*ll when I was on Kubuntu I always used Synaptic anyway-simply because there weren't any other tools that did the job.
To me, it seems their definition of "stable" is anything that is older than 4 months in it's current state of development. The Qt4 on the Ubuntu repos is like this-many Kubuntu bugs can be traced back to the old version of Qt, the same for the Nvidia drivers-177.80 was buggy in many places yet made the cut because it was old enough. There are lots of dangling unfixed/addressed bugs too.
OpenOffice3 does not make the cut though-because it isn't yet old enough. Which is funny as OOo3 is more stable and less problematic than the 177.80 driver was.
Also on another note:
That's one freaking awesome machine!
Teeehehee, thx, it is :D , I left out the part about it driving a 22" monitor, and having an old Logitech G15 and Revolution MX plugged into it...I also didn't mention the FSB speed I bumped up as well as the RAM voltages-the RAM is more like 1066 now actuallty ;)
...I could go further, but the MSI K9N Neo I use just cannot handle the higher bus frequencies and voltage throughput beyond 3.36gHz on CPU and 2.05 Volts on RAM and still be stable...I "need" a new mobo, in short. Heeeehehehe.
MarblePanther
February 22nd, 2009, 10:46 PM
I thought that's already being done in Kubuntu.
I had no problem wit HAL. Maybe you needed to add some hardware description files to your setup if you are using something exotic. I've actually found Arch's implementations and softwares to be quite stable. Yes, they do you the most current packages, but they are also official packages with no backports from future versions which is something more "bleeding edge" distros do like Fedora. Heck even K/Ubuntu does it. That's what tends to cause instability is backporting features that may not always be stable, not using the default packages.
I've never really ran into that problem using Arch and I do hear it is quite rare, so there may have been a problem with your particular setup. Something special may have to have been done manually that Kubuntu does automatically for you at setup. It would not surprise me too much.
Also, I don't think that the HAL problems were just specific to Arch users. I know someone who runs OpenSuSE who has problems with HAL in KDE 4.1 and I heard there were some minor issues in Kubuntu also so they may have been bugs specific to various releases and subreleases of KDE 4.x. and not really related to HAL itself.
here is the bug:
http://bugs.archlinux.org/task/12221
Skripka
February 22nd, 2009, 10:51 PM
here is the bug:
http://bugs.archlinux.org/task/12221
On my Arch, I had to create my own Policykit to get my internal drives to mount...the catch being the new policykt causes my Quickaccess plasmoid to be b0rked. External media mount fine.
Faolan84
February 22nd, 2009, 11:14 PM
here is the bug:
http://bugs.archlinux.org/task/12221
Yep, that is similar to the bug on my friend's OpenSuSE box, except sometimes it works and sometimes it does not. Othertimes drives will lock when he wants to eject something or even better the CD drive will "tease" him by ejecting then sucking the disc back in (that is actually kind of funny the first couple times).
I suggested the same thing that he look at reinstalling, upgrading, or downgrading policykit and if the problem persists check out his hardware decriptions for HAL, udev, etc. Sometimes when things get automatically detected they are miscatagorised. HAL can be a real b* when things go wrong.
To me, it seems their definition of "stable" is anything that is older than 4 months in it's current state of development. The Qt4 on the Ubuntu repos is like this-many Kubuntu bugs can be traced back to the old version of Qt, the same for the Nvidia drivers-177.80 was buggy in many places yet made the cut because it was old enough. There are lots of dangling unfixed/addressed bugs too.
OpenOffice3 does not make the cut though-because it isn't yet old enough. Which is funny as OOo3 is more stable and less problematic than the 177.80 driver was.
So true! That's one of the things that I believe Ubuntu does wrong. Just because something is old doesn't mean it's stable. There's an old plaground with rusted out jungle gyms nearby, but I wouldn't let my nefews and nieces play on them because they are definately NOT stable despite being old. If ubuntu were not so afraid of providing new releases they would not have to backport as much code and that in turn would make make their products a lot more secure and stable because they would be using the improved, new version. I thought it was a darn shame they didn't include OpenOffice. And if you think the NVidia drivers suck, try plugging in an ATI card! Their drivers are hit and miss. SimCity 4 Deluxe under Wine ran great on my laptop with a mediocre NVidia card -- it sucks on my Radeon 9600 with 128 MB of VRAM which is plenty ample for that game.
I'm really hoping that the devs don't rush PackageKit out the door. I believe it's somehting that should be put on a high priority, but if it's not ready then it can wait because Ubuntu and Linux itself cannot afford another major rushed project. KDE 4.0 was bad, but if PackageKit goes wrong it's all of *buntu that gets the blame here and a good portion of the Linux community gets put to shame. It's important that major distros such as Ubuntu and OpenSuSE don't screw things up for everyone by turning people off to what is a great OS.
zedx555
February 22nd, 2009, 11:30 PM
Well I have used KDE 4.2 for about a month. It's still quite buggy and not 'for the masses'. The first bug that I experienced was that the pointer would dissapear when something large had to become the pointer (especially in potato man). It's very irritating that it is not configurable wheter windows would be switched on rolling the mouse. Then, after about a month, KDE desktop widgets crashed, i.e plasma crashes whenever I try to add a widget to the desktop. So I can't add widgets anymore as Plasma crashes. KDE 4.2 just shows that KDE 4 is very promising. I'll wait for KDE 4.3 which should be stabler, faster and come with kdevelop, koffice and QT 4.5 (perhaps) till then I am back to my very reliable Gnome. Waiting for XFCE 4.6 anyways.
Skripka
February 22nd, 2009, 11:35 PM
Well I have used KDE 4.2 for about a month. It's still quite buggy and not 'for the masses'. The first bug that I experienced was that the pointer would dissapear when something large had to become the pointer (especially in potato man). It's very irritating that it is not configurable wheter windows would be switched on rolling the mouse. Then, after about a month, KDE desktop widgets crashed, i.e plasma crashes whenever I try to add a widget to the desktop. So I can't add widgets anymore as Plasma crashes. KDE 4.2 just shows that KDE 4 is very promising. I'll wait for KDE 4.3 which should be stabler, faster and come with kdevelop, koffice and QT 4.5 (perhaps) till then I am back to my very reliable Gnome. Waiting for XFCE 4.6 anyways.
Many problems are related to the fact that Plasma is tested against Qt4.5-where it works beautifully...yet Ubuntu insists on using much older versions of Qt, and hence the problems...until the middle man updates (*buntu)-there's not much KDE can do about it.
Foster Grant
February 22nd, 2009, 11:43 PM
So to follow up with a thread I created several months ago on KDE 4.1 vs Gnome (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=911735) I am going to report that 4.2 has been released and by looking at the release notes it seems that the developers have romoved many of the usability kinks that plagued the 8.04 and 8.10 KDE 4.x releases which were some of the best ones done by any distro bar only to maybe OpenSuSE.
Although, because I am lazy and MOREOVER because I don't want to install from an experimental PPA and deviate the stock KDE provided right now with both 8.10 and 9.04-Alpha I would like to invite to the table any KDE devs who would like to talk about all the developments seen both on the review sites and talk about some of the more unnoticed changes that are going on under the hood and also other added features.
Mostly I am hearing the claim that 4.2 is what 4.0 was aspiring to be on first release and that 4.0 == alpha and 4.1 == beta. Now reguardless whether I or anyone else agrees with that analysis is point aside the question that I think needs to be asked how does KDE 4.2 compare to the gold standard that 3.4 set and 3.5 raised? Are "little" things like bringing back right-click application menus on the desktop and global "mac" style menus back along with a whole slew of other features that seemed to get swept under the rug. Also does Kopete's Yahoo protocol still list everyone who has ever contacted me under one of my groups (this is a really weird bug that doesn't occur in the KDE 3.x version or in Pidgin)?
Speaking of which, other issues that are important: what is the status of the associated third party software. While it seems that Amarok finally released a stable version for 4.x, many people's favorite applications are in limbo as of now and there isn't much info on the net about what's going on. Will K3B release a K4B soon? What about Kaffiene, KOffice, Konversation, and a whole kslew of kapplikations? (Yes, I did.)
To finish on the up side I hear that 4.2 is much faster because of QT 4.5 and that further speed improvements are in the works for future releases. Also screen shots of the new Air theme in my opinion have a better look than the default Oxygen theme.
You just now noticed? KDE 4.2 was released Jan. 27 and the Kubuntu dev team set up a PPA for Intrepid users to upgrade at that time if they wished to. This weekend the KDE packages made their way from the PPA to intrepid-backports.
QT 4.5 is not in KDE 4.2, although there are packages of Qt 4.5 RC1 floating around. KDE's dev team recommends that you not mix the two. http://vizzzion.org/?blogentry=906
Regarding the PackageKit deal ... not very happy with Canonical's decision to move to PackageKit. I may give Chakra/Arch or straight-up Debian a spin before 9.04 drops.
zedx555
February 23rd, 2009, 09:45 AM
Many problems are related to the fact that Plasma is tested against Qt4.5-where it works beautifully...yet Ubuntu insists on using much older versions of Qt, and hence the problems...until the middle man updates (*buntu)-there's not much KDE can do about it.
I have used KDE 4.2 with Arch not Ubuntu. But QT 4.5's not in stable Arch too as it's in RC state. I might try it again when QT 4.5 releases if it can use QT 4.5.
Faolan84
February 24th, 2009, 01:53 AM
There really shouldn't be any reason why KDE 4.2 can't couldn't use QT 4.5. I thought that the QT versions were backward compatible -- that is software compiled under 4.2 could in theory work in 4.4 and 4.5 with little fuss. Now of course in practice they may need to be recompiled to work right but there shouldn't be any need to adjust code from what I understand. The thing I understand you can't do is compile or run code written for QT 4.5 against 4.4 or 4.3 libs. If I'm wrong please stand to correct me.
Also, the Chakra Project sound really cool. When they finally make a stable release I will definitely try it if I'm not already using KDEmod on Arch because of a premature release of PackageKit in 9.10. One thing I won't do is run Gnome in Arch. Been there done that and it was a mess. KDEmod for Arch is the way to go if you go Arch IMHO.
hoboken
February 24th, 2009, 02:11 AM
I might consider using KDE if it were possible to make it look halfway decent. No matter what I do I can't seem to shake that tacky-futuristic look it has going.
No intention of turning this into a KDE vs gnome thread. Call me shallow if you will, but I'm just interested to see if this version is sexier.
Faolan84
February 24th, 2009, 02:36 AM
Well the "tacky futuristic" look seems to be what they were going for. At least they weren't going for "cool hacker." For whatever reason half of all "hacker" themes seemed to be based off of something that looks like belongs in the movie "The Matrix" or from an episode of "Ghost In The Shell: SAC." The other half are just plain ugly and look like they belong in a museum of computer history next to a server running CDE on IRIX or a desktop running Workbench on Amiga.
Then again retro generally isn't my thing and I think that looking like a goth is cool, but making your computer look goth is just plain unreadable.
Faolan84
March 5th, 2009, 05:10 AM
Okay -- Upadate
I just installed Arch linux with KDEmod 4.2 and I think it's a keeper. Could it use some work? Yes, but I think it's finnaly mature enough for my tastes.
Also, a little googling has revealed to me for those curious that indeed there is a lot of work being done right now to bring certain applications from KDE 3.x to 4.x. Namely this seemes to be done by the OpenSuSE and the Mandriva teams which the latter has focussed on K3B in particular. I'll probably be moving to (back) OpenSuSE when 11.2 or 11.3 comes out and is ready. I like Arch, but honestly it's a big headache to set things up sometimes. Epecially when you forget about something and have to go to the commandline. I just hope that OpenSuSE fixes their wine issue they had in 11.1.
My opinion with 4.2 is that a lot of the features have been added to the programs to make them usable again. Amarok does have an issue with ogg vorbis files ending in *.oga instead of the old *.ogg extension. And of corse K3B uses 3.x libs. Other than that it looks nice and everything integrates pretty well. Things are also very stable and speed improvements have been made.
It won't win over a hard core Gnome user, but it is a great piece of work.
Skripka
March 5th, 2009, 05:15 AM
Okay -- Upadate
I just installed Arch linux with KDEmod 4.2 and I think it's a keeper. Could it use some work? Yes, but I think it's finnaly mature enough for my tastes.
Also, a little googling has revealed to me for those curious that indeed there is a lot of work being done right now to bring certain applications from KDE 3.x to 4.x. Namely this seemes to be done by the OpenSuSE and the Mandriva teams which the latter has focussed on K3B in particular. I'll probably be moving to (back) OpenSuSE when 11.2 or 11.3 comes out and is ready. I like Arch, but honestly it's a big headache to set things up sometimes. Epecially when you forget about something and have to go to the commandline. I just hope that OpenSuSE fixes their wine issue they had in 11.1.
My opinion with 4.2 is that a lot of the features have been added to the programs to make them usable again. Amarok does have an issue with ogg vorbis files ending in *.oga instead of the old *.ogg extension. And of corse K3B uses 3.x libs. Other than that it looks nice and everything integrates pretty well. Things are also very stable and speed improvements have been made.
It won't win over a hard core Gnome user, but it is a great piece of work.
Now that you have been assimilated you can join us Conspirators o'er at NOOST (see sig)
mamamia88
March 5th, 2009, 05:16 AM
yeah i installed it today and used it for a couple hours and i liked it alot more than the last time i tried kde. it did freeze on me the second i tried it for the first time though nothing a control alt backspace couldn't fix though
Rokurosv
March 5th, 2009, 05:28 AM
I'm using KDE 4.2 with Qt 4.5 and they work great, so far only some minor issues with some themes but the performance really has improved
Dekkon
March 5th, 2009, 05:32 AM
KDE 4.2 With Fedora 10 is simply, almost amazing. Some bugs, which, seem to be only pertained to Fedora and didn't happen on OpenSuse.
Faolan84
March 5th, 2009, 05:34 AM
Skripka: Well, seeing that the 4.2 release was decent enought to convert me "o'er" I think I'll take up your offer about NOOST.
Now I'm just waiting for 4.3 to be released so that the rest of my gripes are fixed :P It is ashame Ubuntuforums removed the "Other OS Talk" forums. I thought they were quite useful because despite being a forum about Ubuntu anyone using any distro could post a problem within this community and generally (1) not get a rude reply and (2) probably have their question answered. Only a few forums are generally capable of doing that without resorting to some variation of RTFM and those others are: arch's forums, gentoo's, and debian's. Though the debian community has a reputation at times for being less than gentlemanly -- espcially their development circles. Albeit, they are one of the best.
s1300045
March 5th, 2009, 06:14 AM
I am seriously considering switching from kubuntu to a more functional KDE distro. I was going to switch to openSUSE, but Aoofin mentions a wine problem and apparently there's some trouble with Fedora and Qt 4.5 as well. Does that mean I should go with Mandriva instead? Please share your advice!
Kareeser
March 5th, 2009, 06:20 AM
Haven't tried KDE since Ubuntu 5.10... I hope I'm in for a pleasant surprise, but it'll be a learning experience in either case :)
Faolan84
March 5th, 2009, 06:29 AM
I would get a warning that said:
"Failed to connect to mount manager, the drive configuration could not be edited" in WineCfg and nothing I did could fix the problem. I litterally tried everything including deleting ~/.wine and building a package from source obtained from the WineHQ website.
Other than that and a few other short comings with 11.1, it was a fine distro. I just wish that OpenSuSE would not cripple their media packages so they can't even use the optional libs to play MP3, DVDs, and other proprietary formats. Part of freedom of choice is being free to have the choice of using restricted codecs if you want to. Instead, I feel OpenSuSE wants to force me to use only FOSS and that is not freedom.
The fact is that I need things like DVD playback and I don't give a darn what the law is because I bought them and I have a right to play them on any device a darn well please and not the RIAA/MPAA or the US Government has a say in that. It's not like I'm making illegal copies, I am just trying to watch my collection of anime DVDs and listen to some of older rips of the Hank Willams Jr CD that I own. If they have a problem with that then they can buy back my collections at a loss to them for my inconvience.
Skripka
March 5th, 2009, 06:34 AM
Haven't tried KDE since Ubuntu 5.10... I hope I'm in for a pleasant surprise, but it'll be a learning experience in either case :)
Be warned-KDE on Ubuntu is one of those matches from hell...Ubuntu is not made with KDE in mind, so if it is slow and buggy the blame lies at the feet of Ubuntu.
Skripka
March 5th, 2009, 06:35 AM
I am seriously considering switching from kubuntu to a more functional KDE distro. I was going to switch to openSUSE, but Aoofin mentions a wine problem and apparently there's some trouble with Fedora and Qt 4.5 as well. Does that mean I should go with Mandriva instead? Please share your advice!
I know of someone on another forum that runs KDE4 on Mandriva and enjoys it.
I don't have any experience with it personally though. It works beautifully on Arch.
Faolan84
March 5th, 2009, 06:45 AM
I'd say definately give OpenSuSE a try, and if Wine doesn't work then switch. It's worth it. I know the problem doesn't occur with everyone and I have a very interesting Wine configuration folder, so that could be the issue.
I haven't used Mandriva since I gave it a try in 2007. It wan't all that great in my opinion, but then again they were going through bankruptcy issues at the time so they might have improved since then. I'm not too sure about the health of their company right now, but I haven't heard anything bad about them since, so I take it they must be doing just fine. I'd also assume they've made lots of improvements since.
MarblePanther
March 6th, 2009, 02:45 AM
Mandriva's 2008 spring version was the peak of their output in my opinion. 2009 just seemed lacking and unfinished when I gave it a spin.
s1300045
March 6th, 2009, 03:00 AM
Thanks for the input! I think I am going with openSUSE then. :)
Faolan84
March 6th, 2009, 11:08 PM
Actually I just tried OpenSuSE 11.1 on a spare box, and WINE works. Maybe it was something weird involving using their KDE. By the way, I think their Gnome implementation is pretty good with a few adjustments in applications. Then again no distro ships by default all the programs I use.
mechanic
March 7th, 2009, 11:40 AM
One thing about this latest KDE4.2 stuff (Kubuntu Jaunty alpha 5) is that the font rendering seems to have vastly improved over previous versions of U./K. or Debian come to that. It also looks sooo peachy!
Faolan84
March 7th, 2009, 07:30 PM
What in 4.2 could affect font rendering? That is done via FreeType2 and KDE 4.x and had support for FreeType since 4.0 so there is reason there should be any difference in in the rendering of the fonts. Maybe they had hinting turned off by default, but that can be enabled fairly easily. I didn't notice any difference on my arch setup other than the fact that the font defaults were bigger and somewhat bolder but that has more to do with the default font sizes and the DPI settings.
mechanic
March 7th, 2009, 08:53 PM
What in 4.2 could affect font rendering? That is done via FreeType2 and KDE 4.x and had support for FreeType since 4.0 ...
I was comparing with KDE 3.5 and earlier stuff.
Faolan84
March 9th, 2009, 02:38 AM
I found the font rendering to be even. KDE 3.5 can use FreeType2 also. So does Gnome. It's standard, just on some distros you have to enable it.
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