When KDE 4.0 was released that fateful day in January, it unleashed an unholy boatload of controversy. Was it a final release? Was it really a final release? And just because the developers say it is a final release, but that it isn't, it's just numbered as such, and we shouldn't worry if things don't seem finished -- does that mean we shouldn't be concerned if things don't work?
We stand by the statements we made originally. KDE 4.0 is pretty and showed a lot of potential. We knew it would get better, but what would the cost be to the desktop environment? Would they be able to get the desktop environment to a stable, workable condition in time to keep alive the interest of those who opted to stay with KDE 3.5 at the time, or even moved to GNOME or Xfce?
The KDE 4.1 final release has become what many hoped the January release would. It is as stable on our OpenSUSE 11.0 system as our GNOME desktop. It is much faster and less weighty than a KDE 3.5 install. It is, of course, still really pretty. But better than that, it is functional. It can be configured to work the way you work, and even make your work easier. We can finally set our default desktop to KDE4 on login, and use it on a daily basis.
And yes, it is very different. And where we might not understand the reasoning behind every change (and some may even puzzle us a bit) we are really excited about the way things are shaping up.
The developers behind the open source KDE desktop environment made some major changes when they launched KDE 4.0. While KDE 3.5 had long been described as one of the best Linux desktop environments for users familiar with Windows, KDE 4.0 introduced a whole new look and feel. The start menu was completely redesigned and the desktop environment made heavy use of widgets. And oh yeah, a number of KDE 3.5 applications were left behind.
Now the KDE has released KDE 4.1 beta, which introduces or brings back the following features:
The KDE PIM manager, Kontact is back
Dolphin, the file manager gets tabbed views
KDE CD Player is back
Konqueror now supports web browsing sessions, an undo mode, and smooth scrolling
Gwenview image viewer now supports a full screen interface
The Plasma interface which covers the launcher menu, panels, and desktop has been refined
Dragon Player, a new lightweight media player has been added
Linux is great to use at home. It can be handy at work. It's a great server operating system. But there's one other place that Linux is really worth its weight in gold: public, or semi-public, computers. There's nothing quite as nerve-wracking as seeing someone on a computer you're responsible for, and wondering what exactly they're up to. Except for maybe seeing someone you're responsible for on a computer, and wondering the same thing.
Public computers are pretty easy to visualize -- in places like internet cafés, libraries, or school computer labs. Semi-public computers are a little more obscure. Semi-public users can be any group from the temp workers in your office to your house guests or kids. The real function you'd want in any of these settings is control of some sort. You want the computer to stay in the condition it was in originally, at least as far as software goes. You might not want the users to have access to certain applications, or maybe they should access the internet through a proxy.
There are a number of ways to achieve this sort of set up. Before you shake your head and start wondering how exactly you're supposed to change login and desktop scripts... Relax. KDE's Kiosk is a pretty simple way to lock down a desktop.
Right now, it appears that Kiosk is still being ported to the KDE4 framework, so you'll have to stick with an older version of KDE for locked down desktops. Since most distros that feature a KDE4 desktop tend to still include KDE 3.5.x alongside it, this shouldn't be an issue.
Have you been so busy sending angry letters to Saturday Night Live about their choice of actors to portray Barack Obama that you've fallen behind on your Download Squad reading? Not to worry. Here's a roundup of some of the stories you might have missed this week:
Download Squad at Future of Web Apps
Download Squad's Grant Robertson hit up the Future of Web Apps 2008 conference in Miami this week. And he's been kind of busy. Here are just a few of the topics he's covered or live-blogged:
This week DivX shut down the online video sharing site Stage6. The web service never got as much attention as YouTube, DailyMotion. But it was a favorite among online video connaisseurs for its excellent video quality. DivX is now directing users to check out online video site Veoh.
TotalEdit is an advanced text editor with programs that could come in handy for coders, including syntax-coloring, code-folding, and line-numbering. There's also a portable version you can run from a USB drive. But one of the best things about this article is the fact that a bunch of readers weighed in with their favorite text editors in the comments.
Canonical has released a new LiveCD with the first alpha version of Kubuntu 8.04 using KDE 4 as its desktop environment. Kubuntu is identical to Ubuntu in many ways, but instead of using the GNOME desktop environment, Kubuntu uses KDE and its associated application suite. But since KDE 4 is brand spanking new, the Kubuntu team is taking things slowly.
Kubuntu 8.04 will come in two varieties. The version running the well-tested (and therefore somewhat boring) KDE 3 dekstop environment will be supported commercially. The version running KDE 4 will only have community support. Of course, the Linux and Ubuntu communities being what they are, community support is nothing to scoff at.
The first Alpha release of Kubuntu 8.04 with KDE 4 is a bit rough around the edges. For example, you'll probably have to run KNetworkManager manually if you want to enable your WiFi card. But for a first release it's pretty cool. And if you want to check out KDE 4's new widget engine, start menu and other features, you can run the operating system from a LiveCD without writing anything to your hard drive.
We do, now, have a (mostly) working install of KDE 4 on Xubuntu. And we stand by what we said with our first impressions. KDE 4 is fast, and does have the potential to be a powerful and utilitarian desktop.
However, it's just not there yet.
A few of the major issues we encountered we have since solved.
Updates can be made to a system that doesn't have a root account using gksu and Synaptic, or via the console. It seems there is a problem with calling kdesu. The other solution, of course, is to give root a password. This was a bit disappointing, but it certainly wasn't a deal breaker.
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.
There's one thing for certain: Now is an exciting time to be a KDE user. The much anticipated launch of KDE 4 is slated for January 11th, 2008. This is a major revamp of the look and feel of the KDE desktop, with the inclusion of a built-in compositor (think eye candy) and something called "plasmoids" (little functional widgets embedded into your desktop).
It's a lot of new bling aimed at improving the desktop experience. Will it? More importantly, will it for you? What would make you choose KDE over GNOME (or vice versa)? This week we take a brief look at KDE in both its 3.5.x and 4 incarnations, and outline a few rules of thumb on choosing your desktop environment.
Let's take a quick look at KDE's history and underpinnings. KDE was launched in 1996 and is based on the Qt (pronounced "cute") toolkit. (A toolkit is a set of libraries of the things that make up a graphical user interface -- things like windows, buttons and their functions.) But all was not right with the world. Qt, at that time, didn't use a completely free software license. This caused some concern about the legality of linking to Qt libraries, and the Debian distribution even went so far as to remove KDE from their repositories for a time.
One of the nice things about the Ubuntu Linux distribution is that it has a regular development schedule. Every six months a new version of the operating system is released. And every two years, Canonical (the corporation behind Ubuntu) puts out a "long term service" release which will be officially supported a bit longer than the typical 18 months.
But now it looks like one arm of the Ubuntu team is going and messing with the schedule. Kubuntu features the same core as Ubuntu, but it uses the KDE desktop manager instead of Gnome. And while the next version of Ubuntu is scheduled to be a long term support release, the Kubuntu team has decided that Kubuntu 8.04 will not be an LTS release.
Now before you get yourself all worked up about this change of protocol, you should know that there's a pretty good reason for this decision. It turns out that the folks behind KDE are planning on releasing KDE 4 early next month. It's got a bunch of new features including a new file manager, pretty desktop effects, and a new icon set. A lot of people have understandably been interested in trying out release candidates of KDE 4 on Kubuntu, and a huge number of people have downloaded an unsupported Kubuntu 7.10 disc image with KDE 4.
So the Kubuntu team has decided to include KDE 4 in Kubuntu 8.04. But since the new desktop manager is still new, and represents such a major change from KDE 3, the developers are reluctant to promise long term support for this release.
Sure Windows Vista and Mac OS X have some pretty desktop effects that let you see through transparent windows or preview all open windows at the same time. But while Linux was once known as a utilitarian operating system for people who like staring at terminal windows, we've seen some amazing developments in Linux desktop effects over the last few years with Compiz.
While some popular Linux distributions like Ubuntu have begun integrating Compiz effects, the newest version of the KDE desktop interface is going another route. KDE4 users will be able to implement many effects without installing Compiz at all. There are a few benefits to this approach. For example, Compiz might not run as well on older, slower systems (although you could probably say the same for KDE4), and more importantly, integrated effects means less tinkering beneath the hood for KDE4 users. You'll be able to adjust your effects settings from the same menus you use to make other system adjustments.
So what kind of effects are we talking about? Window transparency, transition effects (windows can zoom open or closed, or explode as you minimize them, etc), a robust application switcher with Exposé clone, and so on. Francis Giannaros put together a video demonstrating just a few of the effects you can play with.
When KDE 4.0 was released that fateful day in January, it unleashed an unholy boatload of controversy. Was it a final release? Was it really a final release? And just because the developers say it is a final release, but that it isn't, it's just numbered as such, and we shouldn't worry if things don't seem finished -- does that mean we shouldn't be concerned if things don't work?
Linux is great to use at home. It can be handy at work. It's a great server operating system. But there's one other place that Linux is really worth its weight in gold: public, or semi-public, computers. There's nothing quite as nerve-wracking as seeing someone on a computer you're responsible for, and wondering 
Have you been so busy sending angry letters to Saturday Night Live about their choice of actors to portray Barack Obama that you've fallen behind on your Download Squad reading? Not to worry. Here's a roundup of some of the stories you might have missed this week:
On January 11th, 2008, at roughly 7 am ET, 
There's one thing for certain: Now is an exciting time to be a 
