KDE 4.0 Alpha 1 "Knut" released

[luca.b]

As the subject says, the first alpha of KDE 4.0 has been released today. There's an announcement at dotKDE (http://dot.kde.org/1178891375/) and also some screenshots (http://www.kde.org/announcements/visualguide-4.0-alpha1.php). It's still, well,alpha, so some features aren't in yet, but the core technologies have been integrated and kdelibs' API is now frozen (meaning it won't change).

This is also an opportunity (for the daring) to help KDE by testing and reporting HIG violations (http://dot.kde.org/1178743323/) in an effort to help usabilty.

Personally I'll start compiling KDE 4.0 tonight, although Kubuntu packages should be ready soon.

[Adamant1988]

I'm really looking forward to KDE 4.0's release. KDE applications have almost always been 'best of breed' at what they do, in my experience. So, if this produces better apps then that's wonderful.

[fuscia]

downloading the live cd now. dolphin is great and i'll be curious to see how it developes. when i tested it against thunar, konqueror and nautilus, it came out the lightest load.

[mech7]

I wonder why KDE default still has that huge taskbar.. it's so frikking high

[Erunno]

Anyone else having trouble with the kubuntu.org repository ? Apt is giving me a 404 for not finding a file called "Packages.gz".

[FuturePilot]

I wonder if KDE will still randomly freeze on me.:confused:

[Erunno]

I wonder if KDE will still randomly freeze on me.:confused:

It's an alpha version. You have one chance to guess it correctly.

[karellen]

I wonder why KDE default still has that huge taskbar.. it's so frikking high

I know what you mean. I asked myself the same question and the best answer I could give is that because it wants to include as many minimized apps/launchers into one single taskbar, as in gnome there are 2 by default...

[Adamant1988]

I'll be the first to say that the double thick kickerr is NOT appealing, but functionally it's nice to use.

[tikal26]

Well kicker is not suppose to survive once plasma get going. Now is when the work on plasma is suppose to start as you can see here
http://www.kde.org/announcements/visual_guide_images-4.0-alpha1/krunner.png

[fuscia]

it's not like the size of kicker can't be easily adjusted. what's it supposed to do? guess what you like?

[secret_force]

Anyone else having trouble with the kubuntu.org repository ? Apt is giving me a 404 for not finding a file called "Packages.gz".

You need to change the repository on the site to


deb http://kubuntu.org/packages/kde4-3.90.1/ feisty main

this worked for me...but once installed I can not get it up and running, it keeps saying kde 3.5.6

[ceelo]

I don't know, I like the large kicker size. I actually set it larger (54 pixels) so that it can hold 3 open windows per column in the task bar. I run at 1280x1024 on my desktop and it doesn't feel in the way to me.

[Rhapsody]

I've got a very customized system of panels here. There's the main panel (50 pixels high) with my taskbar, desktop preview & pager, system tray, wastebin, and clock on it at the bottom. There's also a child panel (48 pixels high) at the top of the screen, with my K Menu, system places, and lots of application icons. Both are aligned to the left of the screen, auto-hide after 1 second, and are 90% of screen width.

It's an odd setup, but it works really well.

As for KDE 4, I'm looking forward to it. I'll almost certainly not be using it before 2008 though.