KDE4 Likes and Dislikes

[apswartz]

I keep going back and forth between KDE3 and KDE4. 4 is improving but still isn't quite there.

Things I like about KDE 4
1. Okular - wow! this is great. I use it in KDE 3 as well.
2. Sound - much better than KDE 3. When I plan to listen to music I log into KDE 4.

Things that are (still) lacking in KDE 4
1. I miss my Alt-F2 run dialog.
2. My laptop sound controls on my Dell Inspiron 1420 don't work
3. Where is suspend?
4. I like the older KTorrent better
5. I miss being able to configure KDE the way I could in earlier versions.
6. I miss my apps on the toolbar ready to launch!

[jacksaff]

1. The new krunner is much better than the old and it is still there with ALT-F2
2. Maybe there is no easily discoverable gui for it yet? There is no reason why kde4 should have any less hardware interoperability than any other desktop.
3. See 2
4. Me too. Ktorrent was late to port to kde4 but it will get there.
5. It's coming! The underlying code allows more configuration and inter-operation than before but writing interfaces for it is lower priority than debugging.
6. Can do easily in 4.1beta

4.1 beta is usable for me full-time now (although it is still a bit buggy) and the reason for all the underlying changes are becoming hugely apparent. Kde4 is faster, looks better, has features that weren't possible in 3 (and will soon have all the ones that were) and will allow faster development through more shared code and better underlying frameworks. What's not to like?

[apswartz]

1. The new krunner is much better than the old and it is still there with ALT-F2
2. Maybe there is no easily discoverable gui for it yet? There is no reason why kde4 should have any less hardware interoperability than any other desktop.
3. See 2
4. Me too. Ktorrent was late to port to kde4 but it will get there.
5. It's coming! The underlying code allows more configuration and inter-operation than before but writing interfaces for it is lower priority than debugging.
6. Can do easily in 4.1beta

Thanks for the reply.
1. I had to change the krunner hotkey to get it to work. Right now I am using Alt-r. Alt-F2 (and I tried Alt-F1 to F5) will not work for me in KDE4. Alt-F11 worked.

2. Wonder if the underlying sound system has been designed to work with it yet. Hasn't it significantly changed?

3. Even when I go to logout the options to suspend and hibernate are gone. Hitting the power button automatically shuts down the computer instead of popping up my options (like KDE3). Even though I have the session manager configured to show shutdown options.

I wonder if the are these hardware-specific issues?

[dentaku65]

KDE4 as brilliant performance and clean interface; only one thing:

1) The Main Manu is...unusable to me

[BLTicklemonster]

Biggest thing I dislike about Kde is the fact that it just appears to be overly "different" just for the sake of being different.

I've tried KDE4 twice now, and each time I totally hated the way I had to navigate to get to anything.

I know some other people like it, but here's this thread asking, so here I am telling.

Other than that, it boots. Got that going for it, for sure!!!

[RiceMonster]

I have a Dell inspiron 1520, and my laptop controls only worked outside of GNOME if I ran gnome-settings-daemon, but then I found out about keytouch in the Arch wiki. You have to tell it what all your key's do, but it's really easy to set up. I don't know if it's in the Ubuntu repositories.

[samwyse]

My current issues:

1. QT4(?) is slow and glitchy.
2. Useless and distracting animations; color scheme sliding effect in Konsole, titles fading effect in settings, but I suppose they can be turned off somewhere.
3. Gwenview is too simple, no thumbnail preview yet in Konqueror.
4. The bread crumb view is too crowded. Avoiding the "extra" buttons like the folder list button makes it slow to use. It would be much more useful if the crumbs were normal buttons like in Nautilus. Luckily the normal location bar can still be used.
5. Panel items aren't movable (until 4.1).

The rest is fine or I haven't tested it enough due to problem #1. There's supposed to be a problem with NVidia cards, but I'm not sure in what cases it applies.

[samwyse]

KDE4 as brilliant performance and clean interface; only one thing:

1) The Main Manu is...unusable to me

You can switch it to a normal menu.

[ChameleonDave]

KDE 4 is my only desktop environment (unless you count Fluxbox, which I use as a failsafe), and I love almost everything about it. I have a few problems with it, but they are all to do with unfinished software, and I consider that not to be a criticism of the DE as a whole.

What I hate is not the actual DE, but the mentality behind releasing alpha and beta software too early and in an unco-ordinated fashion. If I were in charge, the development schedule would have been very different and much more logical.

[madjr]

KDE 4 is my only desktop environment (unless you count Fluxbox, which I use as a failsafe), and I love almost everything about it. I have a few problems with it, but they are all to do with unfinished software, and I consider that not to be a criticism of the DE as a whole.

What I hate is not the actual DE, but the mentality behind releasing alpha and beta software too early and in an unco-ordinated fashion. If I were in charge, the development schedule would have been very different and much more logical.

i guess bad reviews and rants seems to be their incentive to speed up development...

some people work like that