By Andrew Min
Recently, Gnome’s been gaining a lot of ground on its KDE counterpart in the desktop environment wars. The KDE developers were hoping to change this with KDE 4, the new radical release of KDE, but it was not to be. KDE 4.0 was buggy and unstable, leaving everyone except the hard-core KDE lovers unsatisfied. Mainly, this was because it just didn’t work most of the time. However, the developers were not without hope. They promised that KDE 4.1 would be more stable and fix all the holes and problems with KDE 4.0. That time is coming soon: in just four days, K Desktop Environment 4.1 will be released to the Linux masses.
What is KDE, KDE 4, and KDE 4.1?
For this question, Wikipedia is our best friend. According to the universal repository of all things, KDE is:
a free software project which aims to be a powerful system for an easy-to-use desktop environment. The goal of the project is to provide basic desktop functions and applications for daily needs as well as tools and documentation for developers to write stand-alone applications for the system. In this regard, the KDE project serves as an umbrella project for many standalone applications and smaller projects that are based on KDE technology. These include KOffice, KDevelop, Amarok, K3b and many others.
As stated above, KDE 4 is the latest cutting edge version of KDE. However, the 4.0 release and many of the subsequent releases were very unstable and not recommended for public consumption. KDE 4.1 is supposed to be the stabilized version of KDE 4. Let’s take a closer look to see what exactly has changed.
Changes from KDE 3.5 to KDE 4.0
Arguably the biggest change in KDE 4 was the move to platform independence. Previously, KDE applications would only run on UNIX-based systems, leaving Macintosh and Windows users out of the loop. Now though, the KDE 4 applications will run on any platform (assuming the developer ports it). Already, applications like Amarok, KOffice, and Konqueror are being ported.
There are lots of other features as well. There’s a new multimedia system called Phonon. There’s a wonderful new theme known as Oxygen that’s arguably even better than the old Crystal theme (which means a lot coming from me). There’s also a radically new user interface tool known as Plasma that handles widgets, the desktop, the taskbar, and much more. The old K Menu is replaced by Novell’s Kickoff Menu, which I have mixed feelings about. And the wonderful old Konqueror file browser has been replaced by Dolphin, though Konqueror is still the default web browser.
Changes from KDE 4.0 to KDE 4.1
KDE 4.1’s main feature is stability. 4.0 had a ton of problems with stability. Those problems are no more. Almost all the instability should be gone by the time it is released (or so, at least, say the KDE developers).
There were also huge gaps in KDE 4.0 software-wise. For example, most of KDE-PIM isn’t available in 4.0. Other missing programs include the popular Amarok media player and the KDE CD Player. Luckily, most of these applications are going to be ready by the time KDE 4.1 is available. That way, you won’t have to resort to using the old-school unattractive and oddly out-of-place KDE 3.5 applications.
KDE 4.1 ships with a bevy of new applications. The old Noatun player is finally retired (good riddance!) in favor of the new Dragon Player, a Phonon-based media player that just works. My favorite PDF reader KPDF has been replaced by Okular, a reader with support for much more formats and many more features. A bunch of new games are included, including KDiamond (a Bejeweled clone) and Kubrick (a Rubik’s Cube game). And the old Control Center is sadly replaced by the new Mac-like System Settings tool.
Many applications also receive updates in KDE 4.1. The first pieces of a Semantic Desktop made their way into the Dolphin file manager. The Plasma widget engine has a few major upgrades, among them support for Macintosh Dashboard widgets (and support for Google Gadgets coming soon) and a bunch of new widgets. Dolphin finally gets tabs, which might actually convince me to use it instead of Konqueror.
One of my biggest envies of GTK/Gnome users was the fact that they could use Compiz Fusion. Sure, Compiz Fusion works on KDE, but not as well as on GTK-based environments. My envy is now completely gone with the introduction of KDE 4.1’s new KWin bling. Effects include “Cover Switch” (Alt-Tab similar to Apple’s CoverFlow), “Present Windows” (similar to Apple’s Exposé), “Wobbly Windows” (pretty self-explanatory, a clone of the famed Compiz Fusion wobbly windows), “Cube” (the clone of the famous Compiz Fusion virtual desktop cube), and many opening and closing effects like “Explosion”.
Conclusion
KDE 4.1 is going to be a very exciting release. I personally opted not to use KDE 4 when it was first released, since it was way too buggy and was missing far too many features. This could change in a few days.
26 comments ↓
“KDE 4.0 was buggy and unstable, leaving everyone except the hard-core KDE lovers.” is not a complete sentence.
“unstability” isn’t a word. You mean instability.
In “support for much more formats and much more features” change much to many.
looking forward to the release. I’m running an SVN snapshot of it and it is MUCH more stable than 4.0
Can’t wait!
You and me both. I’m really happy KDE decided to release it in July. Gave me something to look forward to between Kubuntu 8.04 and 8.10
But did they fix the busted stuff that used to work in 3.5 but broke in 4.0? For example “system Settings” in 4 never worked. How could they do a “major release” in which one of the fundamental utilities was broken? Wasn’t anyone testing it? Does system settings in 4.1 actually work?
I remain skeptical…
MR, I’m still skeptical myself. I had read that 4.0 was never meant to be more than an RC. According to one story,
Apparently, that’s what they said from the beginning, though they never really iterated it on the site. I still believe they should have just called 4.0 another RC, or at least cautioned ordinary users not to download it.
I’m running the Opensuse 11.0 KDE 4.1 RC1 and it is much more stable than any 4.x I’ve used previously. Due to multiple monitors and a severely strained video card, I’ve not been able to do much with 4.1 until now, even with moderate effects enabled I’m running 40-50 FPS (thanks to the nifty “Display FPS” option). I can’t wait to see whats in store for the stable release.
You’d figure after 10 years KDE of imitating whatever Microsoft was doing, they would realize that imitating a flop would result in a flop.
Finally an objective post, there has been enough bashing towards KDE. First of all, I’m very happy that KWin bypasses Compiz Fusion, Compiz makes the OS boot slower, and I’ts buggy sometimes. And about Dolphin, I’d give it a try, but I don’t know if it will replace Konqueror, maybe it will because the development energy is focused more on Dolphin.
Can’t wait to switch from KDE 3.5.9 to 4.1.X
BTW Congrats for being slashdotted
Does this mean I can launch programs with a click of an icon on my desktop again? Has the time consuming click-to-scroll application menus feature been neutered?
4.0 was a step backwards in usability as far as I’m concerned.
ZOwe, me neither!
Norman, I think they have. They’ve reinvented the desktop, have some hot new effects, and Plasma is just plain awesome.
moondowner, I definitely agree with Compiz Fusion. It crashes way too much for me (no chance I’ll use Compiz, either).
The KDE developers indeed had made a mistake. They should have named KDE 4.0 as: “Not for n00b release” or “Only for developers”.
@criticism: you’re right that “unstability” is wrong, but that word didn’t appear on this page until you added it through the comments.
Re: criticism
Note that the article says “unstable” not “unstability” as you seem to be implying. Unstable is certainly an English word. If you’re going to be so picky, at least be accurate!
Plasma is ugly and bulky, kwin is pointless eye-crap as is compiz, beryl, and compiz fusion.
Compiz doesn’t make the operating system boot slower, because it doesn’t load until the desktop environment/window manager is loaded, which, if you’re a sane person, you do AFTER the system is booted up.
Why would dolphin replace konqueror? dolphin is a file manager, konqueror is a file manager and web browser.
Thanks, this is 5 minutes of my life I’ll never get back.
Don’t blame KDE for the 4.0 mess, they clearly defined that 4.0 was a developer targeted release from the beginning. It was the various distributions that wanted to include the newest KDE in their latest releases and then made it the default install that screwed the pooch.
I’ve been a happy KDE user for years and I’m more than certain that 4.1 and up will be well worth the wait. Even if you don’t like it, keep using 3.5, nobody’s forcing you to upgrade, and isn’t that supposed to be one of the reasons we use Open Source?
@moondowner: Dolphin was never meant to be a replacement for konqueror.Konqueror just looks for file type and loads the desired application for that type of file inside itself.In kde3, Konqueror was his own ‘file’ type provider.now its dolphin.dolphin loads in konqueror when you try to view files.As Dolphin improves, Konqueror improves.
Thanks for the update - I loved the theory behind KDE4.0 but it was just too buggy for me to use for even an hour! Hopefully KDE4.1 will woo me back to using it… I used to use KDE a few years ago, but jumped to Gnome when they released a major upgrade, and haven’t gone back… yet…
I am using _beautifully_ packaged KDE 4.0.99 pkgs for Arch64.
And I find it so stable that I ‘ve already switched from 3.5.9 to kde 4.1.
After givin dolphin a look, I deleted it immediately. It’s a filemanager for dummies, made for that gnome guys to feel at home. Konqueror is really one of the most important pieces of kde software.
> There’s a wonderful new theme known as Oxygen that’s arguably even better than the old Crystal theme
Here I started laughing, but…
> Control Center is sadly replaced by the new **Mac-like** System Settings tool
> Effects include “Cover Switch” (Alt-Tab similar to Apple’s CoverFlow), “Present Windows” (similar to Apple’s Exposé), “Wobbly Windows”
Now I’m just disgusted.
That’s the reason I switched from KDE 3.5.x to Xfce. What the hell do you see in this whole Fuck OS X crap? It doesn’t even look good, and it’s slow and not really useful
hatard, I’d argue about Plasma. It’s extremely useful, not to mention pretty cool. Compiz/Kwin eye candy is mostly useless, but I’ve heard rave reviews of the cube and I love the Expose feature. Dolphin technically won’t replace Konqueror, just the file manager part. Konqi is still the default web browser.
Donald, they did, just not well enough. I can’t find any clear “Do not touch” signs at the release announcement.
Emil, that’s true, you can keep on using Konqueror will the Dolphin part.
robegue, I’d agree to a certain extent but the latest version I tried is pretty dang good. I’m still using Konqueror in 3.5.9, however.
D4rky, the Expose feature is very handy. And you don’t really need to use it if you don’t want anyway. That’s why I’m happy that they didn’t make it a requirement.
I hope the Microsoft IP has been completly removed from this release.
Andrew,
That last bit you hit right on the nose. The extra “fluff” (effects, eye-candy, gimmicks, smoke & mirrors… etc) is not forced on you in any way shape or form. Don’t like it, turn it off. Want a classic look and feel, have a classic look and feel. I tested one of the alpha’s for 4.0 and I swore I would never use it. It was buggy and foreign (why can’t I make my app panel smaller? Where’s my menu editor? Why can’t I ‘drag n’ drop’ files/shortcuts on the desktop?), 3.5.x was for me.
After the first official release of 4.x I tried it again after reading the changelog, reluctantly, and most of my complaints were fixed, and since then the majority of the remaining have been addressed. 4.1 should finish the rest off. It has been stable and fine for me, hasn’t crashed once on my 64bit box.
There are two main reasons for me switching.
1) I hated aRts with a passion with it’s little annoyances
2) Fully customizable desktop
Don’t like the taskbar? remove it
Don’t want your App Launcher menu on the taskbar? Put it on your desktop
Move anything and everything around your desktop until you’ve made your own, unique, highly efficient desktop tailored to your own personal taste
Does Dolphin finally have a tree/list split view? Everyone in the world uses that view, since it displays the most information in the most efficient way. I can’t believe they designed a file manager that doesn’t include that view!!
SIR, I actually also swore that I’d never use 4.0 either. And yeah, I hated aRts too. A lot.
3.x, I’m not sure. I’d have to look into that.
Well, I tried KDE 4.0.5 and it is not that good. I will roll back to 3.5.9 and wait for something better. I hope 4.2.1 will be good enough, at least for me.
Well, desktop calculator looks interesting.
I heard I can DL more desktop applets using built-in tool, but I did not understand where is it.
Leave a Comment