Re: [PLUG] Anybody using KDE 4.1.2?

Matthew Rosewarne <mrosewarne@inoutbox.com> · Sat, 18 Oct 2008 03:23:56 -0400

On Thursday 16 October 2008, Casey Bralla wrote:
> I'm very happy with 3.5, and have heard some ominous things about KDE 4.0,
> but not much about the more recent releases.    I generally enjoy living on
> the bleeding edge, so I don't mind having to put up with some minor
> annoyances.

4.0 was just plain BAD, and KDE got a lot of negative press about it.  Their 
rationale was to tag it as .0 since they had not seen enough users testing the 
alphas/betas/RCs, which I believed was a serious lapse of judgement.
The later 4.0.x releases fixed many of the problems with 4.0, but still 
weren't something I cared to use.

However, I've been using 4.1 full-time since the betas and I find it an 
excellent, if still a bit quirky, desktop.  I'm currently running KDE 4.1.2 
from the Debian experimental repository.

> But I'm wondering how the KDE 4 experience is.

If you used KDE 3, you'll probably like KDE 4.  There are some features that 
haven't made it over and many "non-core" apps still not updated, but also new 
features and apps.

> Does it still have the multiple desktops that I use so much?

Yes, they're almost identical to those in 3.5.

> Does it integrate compiz into the window manager? (I always had trouble
> making compiz work)

It doesn't integrate compiz, since compiz is a totally separate piece of 
software.  Since kwin was already a very powerful window manager, they instead 
added compositing to kwin.  It works very well, though it doesn't have the 
sort of "bling" compiz has accumulated.  I use it primarily to slightly dim 
and make transparent unfocused windows, so I have a better grasp of what's 
happening.

> Is it too "weird"?

It shouldn't be foreign to anyone familiar with KDE.  With 4.1, the plumbing 
for the new Plasma desktop was finished, so they haven't had time to do much 
wild stuff with it yet.

> I'd appreciate any comments from early adopters.

I'd recommend trying out a live distro with it before moving your system.  Try 
finding the settings that you're most comfortable with and use a copy of some 
of your actual data in the various apps.