Friday, May 30, 2008

KDE 4.1 experience

I tried the installation of KDE 4.1 beta 1 on Debian, as described here. I ended up undoing this about an hour later. The environment isn't really usable yet, so my advice to the public is: don't do it, on a system you plan to actually use.

Here is a random assortment of problems I encountered:
  • You can't configure size and appearance of the panel. This is a long-standing problem, but I thought it was fixed.
  • In general, there don't appear to be all that many configuration options available to replicate various behaviors that I have become accustomed to.
  • Rendering problems in the system tray; icons appear on top of each other.
  • Various kicker widgets don't appear to be available for KDE 4 (yet?).
  • Most applications don't copy their old settings, but it appears that some do?
  • KMail doesn't interact well with encrypted IMAP accounts. I didn't try much beyond that, because I have no accounts that are not affected by that.
  • Clicking on an RSS link in Konqueror doesn't link to Akregator anymore. Probably, various MIME type associations are missing.
  • I couldn't get the environment to remember to open terminal windows maximized. Very annoying.
  • I couldn't add any application icons to the panel. I'm not sure where on is supposed to store one's favorites now.
So it was quite obvious that that various pieces don't really fit together all that well yet. On the upside, I noticed many really good ideas that I would look forward to using if the overall environment worked.

The good news is that the packaging appears to be really robust (I found one packaging bug with a file conflict) and the upgrade and downgrade works well (you have to use aptitude, as described in Ana's post; apt craps out completely).
So when KDE 4 is actually usable, Debian will be ready. But not for lenny; that would be suicide in my opinion.
Posted by Unknown at 05:03
Labels: , ,

8 comments:

  1. Kevin Krammer30 May, 2008 06:42

    Most applications don't copy their old settings...

    The packages in experimental probably still use a different location for the user local KDE directory, e.g. ~/.kde4 instead of ~/.kde for the purpose of safely testing the new version

    ReplyDelete
  2. Unknown30 May, 2008 09:20

    > You can't configure size and appearance of the panel. This is a long-standing problem, but I thought it was fixed.

    I can do that with current experimental packages (4.0.80). There's a plasma button on the right of the panel - if you click on it, a resizing widget appears. It takes a moment to get it, but it's really well thought out!

    ReplyDelete
  3. toots30 May, 2008 09:43

    All these debates about KDE4 shipped or not with lenny on blog that don't accept comments are starting to piss me off.

    So, this is mainly an answer to Fathi.

    No, KDE4 is not usable for main audience. It is not because you like KDE4 that it will be the same for others.

    Two major concerns:
    * KDE4 does not enjoy all previous functionalities. I do not mean being a dropin replacement, but at least that what was possible with previous KDE is still.
    * KDE4 and KDE4.1 are not finished. It's a shame they started the main release cycle with a beta, but it's true. Even though they need testers, it is not serious.

    I would be *very* disapointed if KDE4 was shipped in lenny, and I'm even more since this discussion seems to happen only on blogs while it concerns all developers. And I don't want to open a blog only for a single "please don't" message.

    ReplyDelete
  4. toots30 May, 2008 09:46

    Ha, I forgot.

    Last time I tried, kopete didn't have an IRC module while actual kopete has one.

    Any reason for that ? I fail to understand, and it is a good example of the functionalities that are not available in KDE4.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Jonas30 May, 2008 18:41

    "You can't configure size and appearance of the panel."

    Right-click on the panel, choose panel settings and bob's your uncle.

    "In general, there don't appear to be all that many configuration options available to replicate various behaviors that I have become accustomed to."

    Which ones in particular? Not necessarily a showstopper anyway - but depends on whether the user in question wants KDE4 to be a replica of KDE3 or not.

    "Rendering problems in the system tray; icons appear on top of each other."

    True, but seems to be getting better (I'm currently using 4.0.81 in Virtualbox and while it is still present, it has improved even from 4.0.80).

    "Various kicker widgets don't appear to be available for KDE 4 (yet?)."

    Which one(s) do you want? Truth be told, most of the kicker widgets were pretty much useless...

    "Most applications don't copy their old settings, but it appears that some do?"

    Do you mean KDE3.x apps or KDE4.0.x apps that somehow lost their settings in 4.1? If the former, the settings are probably in .kde for KDE3 apps, and in .kde4 for the 4.x version (you know, to make sure it is easy to revert to the kde3 versions if the 4.x ones should prove to be too buggy). If the latter, I would definately call that a bug.

    "KMail doesn't interact well with encrypted IMAP accounts."

    Works fine for me, although I've only tried it with one account.

    "I couldn't get the environment to remember to open terminal windows maximized."

    Works fine for me. Then again, I usually prefer to use yakuake for my terminal needs.

    "I couldn't add any application icons to the panel. I'm not sure where on is supposed to store one's favorites now."

    Make sure the widgets are unlocked, then drag and drop to the panel. Or, as an alternative, navigate to your fav program - say Okular. Right-click on it and choose "Add to panel". Or "Add to favorites" or "Add to desktop" if you prefer that.

    I agree that KDE4 is not perfect, and not for everyone just yet. But the same goes for KDE3, Gnome, Fluxbox, Windows, and MacOS X too. If only things suitable for everyone is to be included in the next stable branch of Debian, KDE4 won't be a part of the stable branch until Lenny+10 has become obsolete.

    Honestly, your complaints (while valid for you) comes across as "It doesn't work the way I want it to work so it isn't suitable for anyone".

    And....

    @toots,

    Your argument can easily be turned on its head...like this:

    "Just because you dislike the current state of KDE4 does not mean it will be the same for others."

    Does it have some annoying quirks? Sure. Does it contain bugs? Again, sure. Does it make KDE4 impossible to use? Depends on what features you are trying to use. Personally, I have used KDE4 as my only DE since 4.0.1. and would feel really handicapped if I had to go back to 3.5.8 (currently 4.0.4 as main system and 4.1 beta in virtualbox. Main system will be upgraded to the current /trunk as soon as I can find the time to do so). YMMV.

    ReplyDelete
  6. toots31 May, 2008 00:47

    @jonas:

    Sorry Jonas but my argument was going further than just personal feelings.

    There was mainly one thing I wanted to highlight.

    -> This *must* be a common decision

    There's nothing much than this. Really.


    Besides, as an argument, I would say that you all simply focus on the desktop thing, while there are issues with *many* applications.

    I mean, does KDE4's kopete have an IRC extension or not ?

    And the same for many apps.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Janne31 May, 2008 03:50

    "KDE4 and KDE4.1 are not finished."

    Um, that's why 4.1 is called "beta". That is, it''s not yet finished.

    ReplyDelete
  8. mine31 May, 2008 12:57

    hey toots - use kde3.95 if you want... but many people will select an distro which has not a win95 feeling. yes, you can have irc, you can change the pannel-size and so on. besides this: kde4.1 is still beta

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)