Filed under: OS Updates, Linux, Open Source
KDE 4 is available: First impressions
by Kristin Shoemaker Jan 11th 2008
On January 11th, 2008, at roughly 7 am ET, KDE 4 became available for download. Not that we were refreshing our browsers or anything in anticipation. Packages are currently available for Kubuntu (Hardy and Gutsy), Debian (in the experimental branch), Fedora (in the Rawhide repository), and openSuSE. ArkLinux and Mandriva packages will be available soon.We had two main questions. What's new? What doesn't work as intended?
The short answer to the first question: Just about everything.
The short answer to the second: A few things. The most notable being that in Kubuntu (and I would assume any distro that relies on sudo instead of root to install packages), Adept still won't accept your sudoer password. We worked around this by giving root a password, and then starting adept. It worked, but it really shouldn't have been necessary.
The look is very different than KDE 3.5.8, and certainly more polished and streamlined than the release candidates. The KDE 4 components are well integrated, which in turn makes the KDE 3.5 components we already had on the system a bit incongruous. We found there were KDE 3.5 applications on our menus, as well as the KDE 4 counterparts they replaced. It's easy to determine which is which (KDE 4 applications are labeled as such) but we can't seem to launch the KDE 4 menu editor to remove references to the KDE 3.5 applications.
We really like the Favorites tab on the Kickoff menu (formerly the K menu). We like that you can easily remove the default favorites, and add your own by simply right clicking the application. The functionality of Kickoff is very different than the traditional K menu, and we suspect a decent portion of the user-base will have some issues with it at first. Selecting a tab brings up a menu. The menu slides to reveal any submenus, and you can navigate back and forth with arrows. Not terribly difficult, but different enough that many people will find it slows them down at first.
As far as speed goes, KDE 4 is a winner. We don't have it installed on a slouch of a machine (AMD X2 processor with 2 gigs of RAM), but it seems much more responsive than KDE 3.5. It loads quickly, and transitions between programs and workspaces are fast and easy, even with desktop compositing effects turned on.
We'd recommend upgrading to KDE 4 if you're a trailblazing type (or really, really like eye candy.) The most significant flaw we found was far and away the Kubuntu/Adept oversight. We'd recommend keeping KDE 3.5 for at least a bit longer if you've got less time or inclination to tweak your system. KDE 4 promises to be, and at least now partially delivers, a strong, fast, and utilitarian desktop.
Krunner is a neat little application. It's a launcher, a web search tool, and a calculator. It also shows and allows control over system processes. We could see ourselves using this frequently.
As far as speed goes, KDE 4 is a winner. We don't have it installed on a slouch of a machine (AMD X2 processor with 2 gigs of RAM), but it seems much more responsive than KDE 3.5. It loads quickly, and transitions between programs and workspaces are fast and easy, even with desktop compositing effects turned on.
We'd recommend upgrading to KDE 4 if you're a trailblazing type (or really, really like eye candy.) The most significant flaw we found was far and away the Kubuntu/Adept oversight. We'd recommend keeping KDE 3.5 for at least a bit longer if you've got less time or inclination to tweak your system. KDE 4 promises to be, and at least now partially delivers, a strong, fast, and utilitarian desktop.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
brian said 10:51AM on 1-11-2008
No thanks. I perfer Gnome.
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rodan32 said 11:31AM on 1-11-2008
Wow, awesome comment! Thanks for the insight into your preferences. I'm sure the world was dying to know.
brian said 11:40AM on 1-11-2008
rodan32: Don't be a wise arse.
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Mike said 12:12PM on 1-11-2008
brain: Don't be self important.
Andrew Min said 11:50AM on 1-11-2008
I wouldn't recommend upgrading. For me at least, I had to run a shell script in order for it to work (/usr/lib/kde4/bin/startkde). Otherwise, I got a dumb terminal.
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brian said 1:27PM on 1-11-2008
Mike: Learn to spell my name.
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ruel24 said 3:17PM on 1-11-2008
KDE 4 has killed just about everything I like about KDE! Where is all the customization options? Where is the configurability? What KDE 4 delivers is Gnome with a prettier face... Give it back to me, KDE!!! I've waited this long among all the hype for this???
KDE 4 is to KDE what Vista was to Windows!
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Yesudeep Mangalapilly said 10:38AM on 1-12-2008
My first impressions about KDE 4 were very negative.
Let's go through some of the changes they have made (they've made way too many to enlist here):
1. A new refreshing look that albeit looks decent lacks polish. Take a look at the krunner dialog you just presented for an example. It looks like a tacky web page thrown together on short notice. Black and white, totally contrasting colors, make that dialog look so pathetic it's not even funny.
2. The new oxygen theme and icon set have had a huge amount of working going into them, which shows in the release. However, one thing they missed out on was GTK+ theming. Not as many people use Konqueror for their Web browser. As soon as you fire up Pidgin, GIMP, or Firefox, you can see leaks in the design--I smell politics.
3. The usability of KDE 3 (which was way higher than this release) has gone for a total toss. My KDE 4 desktop shows items that don't really exist. When I click to open them, archiving tools tell me the file doesn't exist. There is a nifty feature that allows you to manipulate files in some ways using just the area surrounding the icons, however. There should have been NO release until they had all their priority one issues sorted out. Apparently, the ability to customize panels was just not on their priority list.
4. Windows Vista seems to be tremendously impressing upon KDE developers. KDE 4 looks terribly Vista-ish, which may or may not be an annoyance to you.
5. Try aligning icons either horizontally or vertically on the desktop. It just doesn't work right! You can even see ghost icon boundaries that remain on the desktop for no particular reason, however, when you hover over them they disappear.
6. The Kickoff menu is ridiculous. First, it doesn't show proper icons for application categories (it displays question mark icons), then the "one level back" arrow is inconspicuous and takes people some time to find and get used to. People don't really expect it that way.
All of this is too much for KDE 4 to be labeled "usable". It's far from usable at this point in time. We can only hope the KDE developers don't make another release before sorting out major annoyances like these.
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Vlad Gerasimov said 12:25PM on 1-12-2008
Hi, I am the author of new default KDE4 wallpaper, I wanted to let you know you can download it separately in many color variations from http://www.vladstudio.com/wallpapers/?keyword=eos
Thanks!
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jbo5112 said 7:46PM on 1-25-2008
What's with the fee on the wallpaper that isn't stamped with your logo? Isn't the wallpaper available under the GPL (or something similar) without the logo?
Anyway, it's very nice work, but I'd be more inclined to pay if the lifetime membership were cheaper and it included 1920x1440.
Impius Nex said 10:33AM on 2-05-2008
Actually, there are no packages for KDE 4.0 in Gentoo.
See http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-639443.html for details.
There's not even masked ebuilds for KDE 4.0 in portage (without using overlays).
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Kristin Shoemaker said 5:29PM on 1-11-2008
Interesting. The KDE 4 announcement said otherwise... but it appears as though lines were crossed somewhere between RC2 and and final, as I'm looking at the overlays now and don't see anything there past beta 2. Thanks for putting that straight!