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KDE 4.1 Beta 2: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back (Datamation)
Datamation reviews the second KDE 4.1 beta. "However, if the second beta of 4.1 is any indication, it will be only partly successful in quieting user dissent. On the one hand, KDE 4.1 includes the first 4.x versions of several major KDE applications, which goes a long way toward improving the user experience. And, in both other programs as well as the desktop, the second beta sports countless improvements in functionality and design. On the other hand, not only are many of the interface changes that people complain about still there, but the new Folder View raises a whole new set of issues about how users organize their desktops."
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KDE 4.1 Beta 2: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back (Datamation) Posted Jul 5, 2008 19:58 UTC (Sat) by pointwood (subscriber, #2814) [Link] "Everyone agrees now that KDE 4.0 was a mistake." Where did he get that from? I hardly think all KDE developers agrees with that.
KDE 4.1 Beta 2: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back (Datamation) Posted Jul 5, 2008 20:43 UTC (Sat) by mgb (subscriber, #3226) [Link] Perhaps not "everyone", but most people (including many KDE developers) agree that it was a mistake to release a bunch of libraries and some partial apps as 4.0 rather than alpha-something. The technology is interesting, but KDE 4 is at least a year away from being suitable for regular office use.
KDE 4.1 Beta 2: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back (Datamation) Posted Jul 5, 2008 20:59 UTC (Sat) by pointwood (subscriber, #2814) [Link] Maybe I'm just looking in the wrong places, I don't follow any of the mailing lists, but I do follow planet kde and I haven't really seen any KDE developers saying that. I've used KDE4 beta 2 for a couple of days and it is a major improvement over 4.0.x (which I agree wasn't really usable). If the final release is stable, then I believe I might start using it over KDE 3.5.x.
Developers are the wrong people to ask Posted Jul 6, 2008 6:58 UTC (Sun) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] After all, they produced the software, they made the design decisions, so they are the least likely people in the world to think that the software or the design decisions were flawed. The users will ultimately have to decide whether to choose to run KDE 4.x or go with something else.
Developers are the wrong people to ask Posted Jul 6, 2008 7:26 UTC (Sun) by pointwood (subscriber, #2814) [Link] I think the major issue a lot of people have been complaining loudly about is the unfinished state that KDE 4.0 was released in. Particularly Plasma, being a very visible part of KDE4, wasn't really ready. If they had released 4.0 as a "developers release" and made it quite clear in the press release, etc. that this wasn't really ready for use by "normal users", then I bet much of the flaming and discussion wouldn't have happened.
Developers are the wrong people to ask Posted Jul 6, 2008 9:16 UTC (Sun) by Duncan (guest, #6647) [Link] I believe you are correct, except that I would have called 4.0 an early tech preview. For years, starting back on MS (before I emigrated to a land of freedom; I'll continue to compare with them as the majority platform provider out there) with IE 4.0 where I ran both public previews, I've been a "bleeding edge" beta adopter, but 4.0 wasn't even beta, and certainly not even as functional as the MS public tech previews. It wasn't bleeding edge beta, it was ground hamburger early-alpha tech preview, the kind of stuff the demonstrate at developer conferences and perhaps send the devs home with a conference edition tech preview, but not even public preview level; the kind of stuff one realistically isn't even expected to file bugs on, or to realistically test, because there's still way more missing than there in the first place, and filing bugs just doesn't make sense yet because there's more bug than product! So as soon as I actually had time to try it out and find it wasn't just me missing the functionality, but that it actually wasn't there, I dropped 4.0 like the non-functional bits of bloody ground hamburger flying everywhere (when compared to the more conventional "bleeding edge" beta, at least) it actually was. Don't get me wrong, I'm still a strong KDE user, but for now it's KDE 3.5.9, not that 3.90 early 4.x preview raw bits of meat flying everywhere crap they labeled 4.0. I've every faith they'll get there... eventually, but it certainly wasn't then, and I doubt it'll be what they call 4.1 (which is more likely 3.95 or 3.98, now). Of course, the problem was one of PR. The devs had been talking up all this fancy new technology, and everyone was hot to try it with 4.0... only what was labeled 4.0 should have been early tech preview as I said -- a chance to play with the new technology using still only partially developed and working toys, nothing more. If they'd handled it that way, I expect a lot more people would have been a lot happier with it. But back to the present. As I said, I expect what is to be labeled 4.1 to not even be a real .0 release yet. Actually, I expect this to be much closer to what MS would release as public preview two. As such, as a normally bleeding edge user and happy to be one, I expect I'll actually find it usable now, and will actually probably take to it pretty avidly -- even if I don't expect it to be proper release quality just yet. Note that I'm still saying "expect". I'm not crazy enough nor do I intend to try "betas of betas", not after the versioning fiasco they already pulled, so I'm leaving it alone. When the final 4.1 (aka 3.98, aka 4.0 public preview two, properly versioned) comes out, I'll try it and see if it works as I now expect it to. If so, as a proper bleeding edge beta tester, I'll try it and file bugs on it as necessary, and I'll probably be reasonably happy running it and working around still not quite there functionality. By extension, what will probably be labeled 4.2 should finally be what I'd consider proper 4.0 release quality, something I could honestly but cautiously recommend to non-bleeding-edge but still early adopter users. And along about (labeled) 4.2.2 or or 4.3.0, I expect I'll finally consider it a decent service-pack-1 normal user release. By 4.4, /maybe/ as early as 4.3, all that hard sweat equity investment in all that new technology will be paying off, taking the FLOSS community to GUI heights no one, proprietary or freedom based, has ever reached before. Yes, I believe it /will/ come, but it sure would have been a smoother ride had this versioning and PR fiasco never happened. Duncan
Developers are the wrong people to ask Posted Jul 6, 2008 9:53 UTC (Sun) by pointwood (subscriber, #2814) [Link] Of course, it depends on your definitions, but I think you'll be a bit surprised by the improvements already available in KDE 4.1. I've used KDE 4.1 beta 2 for a few days and except for stability problems in various places, I'll rate it as fully usable. I tried 4.0 and dumped it very quickly since I found it to be more or less completely unusable. I'm running Kubuntu and their next release will be based on KDE 4.1.x and based on what I've seen from the beta release, I'm not really worried. Plasma is a highly visible component of KDE 4 and sadly it was also the most unfinished part in KDE 4.0. It being massively improved in KDE 4.1 also makes KDE 4.1 a lot more usable. 4.1 is clearly still an early release of KDE 4 and you are correct that following releases will be much better. Especially since by then, a lot of the major KDE applications will have been ported to KDE 4.
Developers are the wrong people to ask Posted Jul 7, 2008 11:34 UTC (Mon) by pointwood (subscriber, #2814) [Link] In regards to KDE 4.1 and 4.2, see this http://techbase.kde.org/Schedules/Is_KDE_4.1_for_you%3F
KDE 4.1 Beta 2: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back (Datamation) Posted Jul 6, 2008 1:24 UTC (Sun) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link]
To me, folderview is a huge step forward, not a "step back". The main reason I didn't use KDE
4.0 (other than instability) was the dreadful way it treated my "desktop" which has been
cluttered with too many icons for a year now. Now I have set up a "folder view" of my
desktop, which occupies only half of my actual desktop (I could make it less) and has a scroll
bar. The place looks much more orderly now and I can even filter the view to see, for
example, only PDF files. And, though I haven't done so, I can view multiple folders. This
has made me a convert. That said, folderview (and KDE4, particularly plasma) feels too
unfinished still: in particular, you can't seem to resize the folderview without maintaining
its "aspect ratio", which doesn't seem related to the monitor's aspect ratio. And
resizing/moving plasmoids, in general, is a bit tedious. But I'm sure it will all get sorted
out.
The author complains that you can't automatically arrange icons or plasma widgets on the
desktop. I think the idea is that your desktop should not be so cluttered that auto-arranging
will be necessary, and should not contain file icons. The folderview, of course,
auto-arranges icons inside it, but it would be nice to have options in the arrangement ("by
name", "by type", etc) and an ability to resize the icons.
The author says the missing features will make users "tetchy", which may be true, but to me it
seems the desktop is already functional enough for me. My complaint is it's a lot slower than
GNOME, but I'll wait for the final release and also try it on a non-NVIDIA machine (apparently
there are issues on NVIDIA).
KDE 4.1 Beta 2: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back (Datamation) Posted Jul 8, 2008 17:54 UTC (Tue) by sebas (subscriber, #51660) [Link] The folderview can -- in current KDE's trunk/ -- be freely resized, so that's fixed for KDE 4.1. In fact, you can resize any applet freely, for some (where a fixed aspect ratio is probably sensible), you'll need to hold CTRL while resizing with the applet's handle.
KDE 4.1 Beta 2: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back (Datamation) Posted Jul 7, 2008 14:39 UTC (Mon) by forthy (guest, #1525) [Link] I've tried KDE 4.1b2 (with the SuSE Factory installation), and it definitely seems to be an improvement. There are still rough edges (e.g. why does the autocompletion popup in Konqueror's address bar steal the focus?). The new dashboard doesn't quite behave like Mac OS X's dashboard, too, if it's supposed to be a clone, it's a poor one. Rotated plasmoids tend to render poorly, especially the folder view (not that rotating a plasmoid is something very useful...).
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