KDE4 - rant!

[Inf0Byt3]

KDE... One of the best desktop environments... has reached version 4. So i decided to give it a try, since all my friends around here told me it's "cool". So I booted up Kubuntu, got the packages, installed them, logged off and on, and guess what I see... A FAILED VISTA COPY.

It's a shame... Now I won't ever say a bad word again about Micro$hite again... Ever... It seems that "progress" nowadays means "Widgets", "Improved start menu" and FONTS BIG LIKE THIS. I'm sure the KDE team must be happy they "evolved". Maybe i'm crazy and I don't know what's good and what's not... Oh yes, and i know i can change the fonts, but what about the other "improvements"? Whatta heck is that menu there? I prefer Windows 95's desktop 1000 times over the new KDE.

I respect their work, because I know I won't ever be able to cut code like them, but why did they have to do this step? For crying out loud, why? Why this project too? Another software I used to like and that will never be installed here again .

Oh yes, and this message was posted from KDE3.5 .

[Rook Zimbabwe]

Gnome man... gNome!

[pdwyer]

"Progress" these days tends to be just incorporating or integrating 3rd party (or competitor) features into the core product. Blurring the line can be nice but generally it just makes using a different 3rd party product more difficult.

Then you just add special sauce (bells and whistles) and your done.

Saves on imagination

[Inf0Byt3]

I guess Gnome is gonna get on my box now... As long as it doesn't get on KDE's path.

Dunno about the rest, but I for one prefer innovation and simplicity instead of "you got this so i got it now too. see? we can do it too, our schlung is just as big"... This is just silly to speak-so. Sincerely, I was expecting that the linux-world wouldn't put their mind with the competition and they would provide functionality not cheap copies over bull$it software.

As pdwyer said, this saves on imagination. But it's a shame nevertheless.

[bembulak]

+1
I totally agree with you. I tested it too and it's ...

The startmenu is too nested. Why do I need these "widgets-eye-candy-thingies" on my desktop? I do not even have Icons! Why should I? I need the space on my screen for apps and not for big thingies, that show me damn weather info or CPU-stats.

The new menu in Gnome also sucks. I like simplicity!

Like this:

[Inf0Byt3]

Those icons are horrible. Couldn't find a way to get them to look good. They cannot be arranged in the classic way, one under another because it looks like crap (they don't have the same size).

I didn't test the new Gnome... But if it's not good, then xfce is the winner!

[bembulak]

But if it's not good, then xfce is the winner!

XFCE is a good middle, indeed. But also has grown and grown.
Meanwhile I tested LXDE. Like it a lot. GTK based, smaller than XFCE, a great Filemanager (PcmanFM), with Openbox as Windowmanager. Really Good.

[Inf0Byt3]

WOW!

Great find. At least from the screenshots, it looks great. Gonna try it today .

Thanks for the link .

[bembulak]

You're welcome.
Since I do have very old hardware, but want to run new distros with new kernels, I'm force to use lightweight Windowmanagers/Desktops. But I simply don't want to miss a comfortable way of working. So I thumbled across this one. Pretty active, envolved in about 1 year or so. I first read an article on pcmanfm in a magazine. A few weeks later I heard about the desktop (same developer, also with old hardware).

This really could be a next "xfce". Small, simple, fast.

[Inf0Byt3]

Installed it and all I can say is: Holy cow, this is fast! It loaded the desktop in less than 1 second. Awesome DM. One thing that I didn't like: The desktop icons are fixed e.g they can't be moved around, but this is not an essential thing. I'll keep this one .

Speaking about hardware. Linux is a strange OS at least from the resource usage point of view. While XP could run on a 400 mhz AMD with 128 mb of RAM, Linux was barely loading in a couple of minutes and it barely worked, almost unusable.

[bembulak]

While XP could run on a 400 mhz AMD with 128 mb of RAM, Linux was barely loading in a couple of minutes and it barely worked, almost unusable.

Depends on the Displaymanager/Windowmanager.

I've got an 800Mhz Celeron running on one of my machines with Fluxbox. Fast enough. Als long as you use Epiphany instead of FireFox and Sylpheed instead of Thunderbird and Abiworkd + Gnumeric instead of Openoffice and of course PureBasic instead of Eclipse.

At the Moment I'm running TinyMe Linux and PCLinuxOS dervirat. 200MB has the CD and it runs with LXDE out of the box.
Damn, this is a fast Distro! ~1 Minute to boot and just a few seconds for loading the desktop (iDeks is switched off, I don't need Icons).

[the.weavster]

I'm a Linux newbie I'm a little unsure of this desktop thing. I originally installed Ubuntu so the desktop was gnome. I then installed the kdecore package so I could then start a session in either Gnome or the KDE.

When I'm using the KDE I've found I can still use apps that were designed for Gnome, they just look less pleasing than they do under Gnome.

So what's the bottom line, is it just fluke my Gnome packages are running under the KDE or can any package run with any desktop?

If I were to install the alternative desktop mentioned here would I still be able to run any app designed for KDE or Gnome?

I'm running KDE 3.5 and I really like it, it's a real shame if they're going to stuff it up with the next generation.

[bembulak]

As long as you have the needed Libs installed you can run whatever you want, but be carefull:
KDE uses the famous QT toolkit to display windows, buttons, ... , so you need to load them into your RAM.
PureBasic, Gnome, Gimp, LXDE, Brasero, ... use the also famous GTK Toolkit to display windows, buttons, ... so you also need to load them into RAM when you use them.
I could not use KDE with GTK Apps on my machine, beause CPU, RAM and GFX can't handle it. (In fact, they can, but opening an application takes minutes....)

It's all youre choice. Normally ppl tend to stay with "one" toolkit.
Since I like simplicity and I love PureBasic, GTK is my toolkit. So I use a Desktop, that supports GTK. So I can choose from these: Gnome, XFCE, LXDE, IceWM, FluxBox, BlackBox, OpenBox.
At the moment I'm running LXDE, since it is very, very fast, but the usability is still great!

[Kaeru Gaman]

Holy cow

.....and here's dah smiley forya:

[r_hyde]

RE: KDE4

There was a philosophy behind this version that had me excited when I first heard about it, because the KDE folks assembled a team of artists, designers & usability experts to envision what they hoped would be an evolutionary step in OS look-n-feel. Now it's out, and what a friggin' letdown!

Incidentally, Microsoft did a similar thing - spending a couple of years doing usability testing to winnow out the kinds of design elements people found confusing and non-user-friendly - and crappy Vista/Office2007 was the result. All that these new desktop environments do (Vista & KDE4, but especially Vista) is paint another layer of shiny lipstick on increasingly unpleasant pigs that just can't seem to get enough of my RAM, disk space, & GPU/CPU power.

For linux I will stick with PCLinuxOS with KDE3.5 (a little bulky, but fast enough & supremely configurable), and I will keep my copies of Windows XP & Win2K until Microsoft does something truly innovative and makes an OS that is both secure and *not* completely obnoxious.