[opensuse-kde] to activities or not to activities
Hi, KDE 4.7's plasma is now centered around activities - breaking once more the way many of us work with KDE. Many on IRC voiced the oppinion that the activity manager shouldn't be part of the default plasma - including me. But this would be a major divergence with upstream's default, so I would like to discuss more widely first. What's your oppinion? Do you prefer virtual desktops or plasma activities? Greetings, Stephan -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-kde+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-kde+owner@opensuse.org
[ Comments below, in line ] On Thursday, October 06, 2011 at 05:56 AM, Stephan Kulow penned about [opensuse-kde] to activities or not to activities
Do you prefer virtual desktops or plasma activities?
Hi Stephan, I prefer virtual desktops. Probably because I haven't dug in to `plasma activities' It's possible `activities' gives me a whole whack of nice features but I'm quite accustomed to `desktops' Cheers, --- Pablo Sanchez - Blueoak Database Engineering, Inc Ph: 819.459.1926 Fax: 760.860.5225 (US) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-kde+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-kde+owner@opensuse.org
On 06/10/11 10:59, Pablo Sanchez wrote:
[ Comments below, in line ]
On Thursday, October 06, 2011 at 05:56 AM, Stephan Kulow penned about [opensuse-kde] to activities or not to activities
Do you prefer virtual desktops or plasma activities?
Hi Stephan,
I prefer virtual desktops. Probably because I haven't dug in to `plasma activities' It's possible `activities' gives me a whole whack of nice features but I'm quite accustomed to `desktops'
Cheers, --- Pablo Sanchez - Blueoak Database Engineering, Inc Ph: 819.459.1926 Fax: 760.860.5225 (US)
I also prefer virtual desktops. To me they are far simpler to use, more reliable, and more intuitive than activities. Every time I tried to use activities, my desktop got completely messed up, and got frequently followed by a plasma crash. One thing I could never understand was why all the new "attributes" of activities could not be simply made attributes of virtual desktops (or at least activities be presented as virtual desktops) ... The fact that there are both virtual desktops and activities is probably the most confusing aspect of this thing. -- Regards, Vadym -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-kde+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-kde+owner@opensuse.org
Am Donnerstag, 6. Oktober 2011 schrieb Stephan Kulow:
Hi,
KDE 4.7's plasma is now centered around activities - breaking once more the way many of us work with KDE.
Many on IRC voiced the oppinion that the activity manager shouldn't be part of the default plasma - including me.
But this would be a major divergence with upstream's default, so I would like to discuss more widely first. What's your oppinion?
Do you prefer virtual desktops or plasma activities?
Greetings, Stephan
I don't even know how to try out "activities" mainly because all I've found on google were other people asking the same question... "What are activities". bye, MH -- gpg key fingerprint: 5F64 4C92 9B77 DE37 D184 C5F9 B013 44E7 27BD 763C () ascii ribbon campaign against HTML e-mail /\ www.asciiribbon.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-kde+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-kde+owner@opensuse.org
Am Donnerstag, 6. Oktober 2011 schrieb Mathias Homann:
Am Donnerstag, 6. Oktober 2011 schrieb Stephan Kulow:
Hi,
KDE 4.7's plasma is now centered around activities - breaking once more the way many of us work with KDE.
Many on IRC voiced the oppinion that the activity manager shouldn't be part of the default plasma - including me.
But this would be a major divergence with upstream's default, so I would like to discuss more widely first. What's your oppinion?
Do you prefer virtual desktops or plasma activities?
Greetings, Stephan
I don't even know how to try out "activities" mainly because all I've found on google were other people asking the same question... "What are activities".
And I guess that's KDE's reasoning behind forcing it upon everyone. So that everyone knows: activities are annoying Greetings, Stephan -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-kde+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-kde+owner@opensuse.org
Hi On 06.10.2011 12:07, Mathias Homann wrote:
I don't even know how to try out "activities" mainly because all I've found on google were other people asking the same question... "What are activities".
Compared to real life i would say that virtual desktops are several desks in one room, whereas KDE activities are seperate rooms. In real life i don't want to work, sleep, recreate, make sports, ... in the same room, except i financially have no other choice and have to live in a one room appartment. KDE activities cost nearly nothing (except familiarisation), so i use them. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-kde+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-kde+owner@opensuse.org
On 26 November 2011 21:44, Jan Kolarik <kormoran@justmail.de> wrote:
Hi
On 06.10.2011 12:07, Mathias Homann wrote:
I don't even know how to try out "activities" mainly because all I've found on google were other people asking the same question... "What are activities".
Take a look at http://userbase.kde.org/Plasma#Activities -- Steven Sroka (lin-unix) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-kde+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-kde+owner@opensuse.org
Torsdag den 6. oktober 2011 11:56:56 skrev Stephan Kulow:
KDE 4.7's plasma is now centered around activities - breaking once more the way many of us work with KDE.
Many on IRC voiced the oppinion that the activity manager shouldn't be part of the default plasma - including me.
But this would be a major divergence with upstream's default, so I would like to discuss more widely first. What's your oppinion?
Do you prefer virtual desktops or plasma activities?
It's a tough call. Ol' time Linux users will obviously prefer virtual desktops because that's what they know and have adapted to. Enthusiasts will like the activities because it's new and exiting and a bit more powerful and flexible than virtual desktops. As for the vast majority of casual users, I think they won't use neither activities nor virtual desktops - they'll just use one single desktop/activity all the time like they're used to on other platforms. It's also possible to do some form of compromise. E.g. have virtual desktops with different widgets (acitivity) per desktop as the default and remove the activity manager. Or to have two or four virtual desktops by default _and_ the activities manager too at the same time. Conclusion: My vote is to keep the activity manager, BUT: * Increase the default number of virtual desktops to 2 or 4 (if 2, then tell the pager to use 2 rows, to make the pager narrower) * Add a folderview widget showing ~/Desktop to the "Desktop" acitivity That way everyone should be pretty happy. Upstream get to strut their exiting new stuff and users get a fairly familiar and recognizable experience. I did some brief testing, and afaict virtual desktops and activities coexist quite well. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-kde+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-kde+owner@opensuse.org
On Thursday 06 Oct 2011 12:29:37 Martin Schlander wrote:
My vote is to keep the activity manager, BUT: * Increase the default number of virtual desktops to 2 or 4 (if 2, then tell the pager to use 2 rows, to make the pager narrower)
+1
* Add a folderview widget showing ~/Desktop to the "Desktop" acitivity
This would mean there would be two pretty much identical activities by default since it seems the only difference between "Desktop" and "Desktop Icons" activities is the folder view widget. Add a folder view widget to "Desktop", increase virtual desktops to 4, add a pager with 2 rows (like we used to have anyway even in kde3), remove "Desktop Icons" activity as it's now duplicated by "Desktop". Now we have the best of all worlds. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-kde+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-kde+owner@opensuse.org
Torsdag den 6. oktober 2011 12:45:58 skrev Graham Anderson:
On Thursday 06 Oct 2011 12:29:37 Martin Schlander wrote:
* Add a folderview widget showing ~/Desktop to the "Desktop" acitivity
This would mean there would be two pretty much identical activities by default since it seems the only difference between "Desktop" and "Desktop Icons" activities is the folder view widget.
Not quite :-) The "Desktop Icons" activity has icons directly on the desktop ("folder view" activity), like KDE3 etc. That is a bit different than having a "folder view" widget. (A lot different judging by the drama the introduction of the folder view widget created back in the day ;-) But I wouldn't get worked up about deleting "desktop icons" acitivity or not. But I think it might be good to have it, as a proof of concept: "See, you _can_ have your icons directly on the desktop if you want" :-) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-kde+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-kde+owner@opensuse.org
Graham Anderson said the following on 10/06/2011 06:45 AM:
On Thursday 06 Oct 2011 12:29:37 Martin Schlander wrote:
My vote is to keep the activity manager, BUT: * Increase the default number of virtual desktops to 2 or 4 (if 2, then tell the pager to use 2 rows, to make the pager narrower)
+1
* Add a folderview widget showing ~/Desktop to the "Desktop" acitivity
This would mean there would be two pretty much identical activities by default since it seems the only difference between "Desktop" and "Desktop Icons" activities is the folder view widget.
Add a folder view widget to "Desktop", increase virtual desktops to 4, add a pager with 2 rows (like we used to have anyway even in kde3), remove "Desktop Icons" activity as it's now duplicated by "Desktop". Now we have the best of all worlds.
All this seems to have been the default when I installed Fedora 15 on another machine. -- There are 10 kinds of people in the world, those that understand trinary, those that don't, and those that confuse it with binary. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-kde+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-kde+owner@opensuse.org
On donderdag 6 oktober 2011 12:29:37 Martin Schlander wrote:
Torsdag den 6. oktober 2011 11:56:56 skrev Stephan Kulow:
KDE 4.7's plasma is now centered around activities - breaking once more the way many of us work with KDE.
Many on IRC voiced the oppinion that the activity manager shouldn't be part of the default plasma - including me.
But this would be a major divergence with upstream's default, so I would like to discuss more widely first. What's your oppinion?
Do you prefer virtual desktops or plasma activities?
It's a tough call.
Ol' time Linux users will obviously prefer virtual desktops because that's what they know and have adapted to.
Enthusiasts will like the activities because it's new and exiting and a bit more powerful and flexible than virtual desktops.
As for the vast majority of casual users, I think they won't use neither activities nor virtual desktops - they'll just use one single desktop/activity all the time like they're used to on other platforms.
It's also possible to do some form of compromise. E.g. have virtual desktops with different widgets (acitivity) per desktop as the default and remove the activity manager. Or to have two or four virtual desktops by default _and_ the activities manager too at the same time.
Conclusion:
My vote is to keep the activity manager, BUT: * Increase the default number of virtual desktops to 2 or 4 (if 2, then tell the pager to use 2 rows, to make the pager narrower) * Add a folderview widget showing ~/Desktop to the "Desktop" acitivity
That way everyone should be pretty happy. Upstream get to strut their exiting new stuff and users get a fairly familiar and recognizable experience.
I did some brief testing, and afaict virtual desktops and activities coexist quite well.
I second this view. -- fr.gr. Freek de Kruijf -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-kde+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-kde+owner@opensuse.org
El Jueves, 6 de Octubre de 2011 12:29:37 Martin Schlander escribió: [...]
My vote is to keep the activity manager, BUT: * Increase the default number of virtual desktops to 2 or 4 (if 2, then tell the pager to use 2 rows, to make the pager narrower) * Add a folderview widget showing ~/Desktop to the "Desktop" acitivity
+1
That way everyone should be pretty happy. Upstream get to strut their exiting new stuff and users get a fairly familiar and recognizable experience.
I did some brief testing, and afaict virtual desktops and activities coexist quite well.
-- Javier Llorente
Stephan Kulow wrote:
Hi,
KDE 4.7's plasma is now centered around activities - breaking once more the way many of us work with KDE.
Many on IRC voiced the oppinion that the activity manager shouldn't be part of the default plasma - including me.
But this would be a major divergence with upstream's default, so I would like to discuss more widely first. What's your oppinion?
Do you prefer virtual desktops or plasma activities?
I much prefer virtual desktops. For me it has always been one main raison d'etre of why I like/prefer KDE so much. This carries with it the fact that most computing I do, whether at work or at home, is primarily on a fixed machine. I might very well consider venturing into the 'Activities' realm should I find myself in a situation where I was utilizing mobile computing more. If I spent enough time using a laptop in coffee shops, I might try it out for separation between work-related sysadmin functions and off-work personal stuff. My thoughts are that 'Activities' is potentially more oriented to a mobile platform environment. Should the majority of those using KDE be doing so in this mobile environment I might see the argument tilting in that direction. Whatever the largest number of people want is probably where the default should go, I just prefer not to get hit by a bus because my attention is fixated on some gadget, but that's just me... -Mike -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-kde+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-kde+owner@opensuse.org
On Thursday 06 Oct 2011 11:56:56 Stephan Kulow wrote:
Do you prefer virtual desktops or plasma activities?
Activities, by a significant amount. Took a week or so of using and tweaking, but now I just can't go back to virtual desktops which I now find lacking in features I am now accustom to. A bit like how I would find it horrible to back to using the traditional kicker tree style menu instead of the Slab style. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-kde+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-kde+owner@opensuse.org
On Thu, Oct 6, 2011 at 12:41 PM, Graham Anderson <graham.anderson@gmail.com> wrote:
On Thursday 06 Oct 2011 11:56:56 Stephan Kulow wrote:
Do you prefer virtual desktops or plasma activities?
Activities, by a significant amount.
Took a week or so of using and tweaking, but now I just can't go back to virtual desktops which I now find lacking in features I am now accustom to. A bit like how I would find it horrible to back to using the traditional kicker tree style menu instead of the Slab style.
Same here, I have totally switched over to activities myself. -Todd -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-kde+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-kde+owner@opensuse.org
On 06/10/11 11:41, Graham Anderson wrote:
On Thursday 06 Oct 2011 11:56:56 Stephan Kulow wrote:
Do you prefer virtual desktops or plasma activities?
Activities, by a significant amount.
Took a week or so of using and tweaking, but now I just can't go back to virtual desktops which I now find lacking in features I am now accustom to. A bit like how I would find it horrible to back to using the traditional kicker tree style menu instead of the Slab style.
I too like Activities, I have eight set up here. But I'm greedy so I also have multiple desktops as well. It provides a good way of separating graphics work from office work from games from music/entertainment etc, while also having lots of screen real estate. That's on my desktop machine, but even on my laptop, I have three activity areas. OTOH, I much prefer the old, tree style kicker menu, and hate the slab menu. Mileages vary. Bob -- Registered Linux User #463880 FSFE Member #1300 GPG-FP: A6C1 457C 6DBA B13E 5524 F703 D12A FB79 926B 994E openSUSE 11.4 64-bit, Kernel 2.6.37.6-0.5-desktop, KDE 4.6.5 Intel Core2 Quad Q9400 2.66GHz, 8GB DDR RAM, nVidia GeForce 9600GT -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-kde+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-kde+owner@opensuse.org
On 06/10/11 20:56, Stephan Kulow wrote:
Hi,
KDE 4.7's plasma is now centered around activities - breaking once more the way many of us work with KDE.
Many on IRC voiced the oppinion that the activity manager shouldn't be part of the default plasma - including me.
But this would be a major divergence with upstream's default, so I would like to discuss more widely first. What's your oppinion?
Do you prefer virtual desktops or plasma activities?
Greetings, Stephan
Virtual workspaces/desktops please. BC -- The truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is. Sir Winston Churchill -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-kde+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-kde+owner@opensuse.org
On Thu, Oct 6, 2011 at 11:56, Stephan Kulow <coolo@suse.de> wrote:
KDE 4.7's plasma is now centered around activities - breaking once more the way many of us work with KDE.
Many on IRC voiced the oppinion that the activity manager shouldn't be part of the default plasma - including me.
But this would be a major divergence with upstream's default, so I would like to discuss more widely first. What's your oppinion?
Do you prefer virtual desktops or plasma activities?
I primarily use Virtual Desktops, not Activites, but... not out of any hate of the Activities concept... it's just that up until recently, Activities were not very usable. Every time I tried them odd things would happen.. even in 4.7 I've bumped into issues (although I haven't tried it out on the12.1 Beta1 yet). For example, on my 4.7 install on 11.4, if I drop into the Activites interface (where you can add/edit Activities), my CPU load skyrockets, and the fans switch to high speed. I'm definitely willing to give them a go again, but there's a part of me, and I assume others here too, that's gunshy about using them given our quite negative past experiences. C. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-kde+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-kde+owner@opensuse.org
On Thursday 06 Oct 2011 13:14:38 C wrote:
I primarily use Virtual Desktops, not Activites, but... not out of any hate of the Activities concept... it's just that up until recently, Activities were not very usable. Every time I tried them odd things would happen.. even in 4.7 I've bumped into issues (although I haven't tried it out on the12.1 Beta1 yet).
For example, on my 4.7 install on 11.4, if I drop into the Activites interface (where you can add/edit Activities), my CPU load skyrockets, and the fans switch to high speed.
What's the offending process? virtuoso-t? Do you have Nepomuk enabled or not? Will -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-kde+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-kde+owner@opensuse.org
Will Stephenson wrote:
On Thursday 06 Oct 2011 13:14:38 C wrote:
I primarily use Virtual Desktops, not Activites, but... not out of any hate of the Activities concept... it's just that up until recently, Activities were not very usable. Every time I tried them odd things would happen.. even in 4.7 I've bumped into issues (although I haven't tried it out on the12.1 Beta1 yet).
For example, on my 4.7 install on 11.4, if I drop into the Activites interface (where you can add/edit Activities), my CPU load skyrockets, and the fans switch to high speed.
What's the offending process? virtuoso-t? Do you have Nepomuk enabled or not?
Another telltale related symptom is .xsession-errors will balloon, even to the point of filling a hard drive. I only had it happen once. My main OS install partition on primary drive (SSD) is only 30GB. .xsesssion-errors filled up the empty space with a 22GB file in about a day. -Mike -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-kde+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-kde+owner@opensuse.org
Am Samstag, 8. Oktober 2011, 23:17:24 schrieb Will Stephenson:
On Thursday 06 Oct 2011 13:14:38 C wrote:
I primarily use Virtual Desktops, not Activites, but... not out of any hate of the Activities concept... it's just that up until recently, Activities were not very usable. Every time I tried them odd things would happen.. even in 4.7 I've bumped into issues (although I haven't tried it out on the12.1 Beta1 yet).
For example, on my 4.7 install on 11.4, if I drop into the Activites interface (where you can add/edit Activities), my CPU load skyrockets, and the fans switch to high speed.
What's the offending process? virtuoso-t? Do you have Nepomuk enabled or not?
If there is no virtuoso-t process but nepomuk active it will easily fill-up your .xsession-errors file so it could also explain the other symptom he mentioned. BTW I have virtuoso-t as offending process on one of my machines and I try to debug it but the isql command does not work for me. Does anybody know why? http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-kde/2011-08/msg00241.html Sven -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-kde+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-kde+owner@opensuse.org
* Stephan Kulow <coolo@suse.de> [10-06-11 05:58]:
Do you prefer virtual desktops or plasma activities?
I prefer virtual desktops but possibly because I still haven't grasped the usage of ?activities?...... I have 12.1b1 in a vb but switching between activities is cumbersom (to put it mildly). -- (paka)Patrick Shanahan Plainfield, Indiana, USA HOG # US1244711 http://wahoo.no-ip.org Photo Album: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/gallery2 http://en.opensuse.org openSUSE Community Member Registered Linux User #207535 @ http://linuxcounter.net -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-kde+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-kde+owner@opensuse.org
Stephan Kulow <coolo@suse.de> 6.10.2011 11:56 >>> ...
Do you prefer virtual desktops or plasma activities? ... So far I never worked with activities (except one small try in 4.5 days) but I would be very careful to deviate too much from upstream - this has the potential to make much work long term . And I think the ressources for KDE are not to plenty anyway. But the compromise suggestion from Martin Schlander sounds good to me. An with 12.2 it can be reevaluated . Stefan -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-kde+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-kde+owner@opensuse.org
Am Donnerstag, 6. Oktober 2011, 11:56:56 schrieb Stephan Kulow:
Do you prefer virtual desktops or plasma activities?
http://chakra-project.org/wiki/index.php/Advanced_Plasma_Desktop_Features Has some info for those who did not try activities yet. And isn't it the way that the decision only affects new users?, i.e. somebody moving from 11.4 to 12.1 with his .kde4-folder will not see any changes but only creating a new user will have different defaults than in 11.4? If the latter is true I would opt for activities simply because it's upstream default and new users should get the new stuff while old users will not be affected anyway when moving along their old configs. Sven -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-kde+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-kde+owner@opensuse.org
On Thu, 06 Oct 2011 18:51:52 +0530, Sven Burmeister <sven.burmeister@gmx.net> wrote:
Do you prefer virtual desktops or plasma activities? http://chakra-project.org/wiki/index.php/Advanced_Plasma_Desktop_Features Has some info for those who did not try activities yet. And isn't it the way that the decision only affects new users?, i.e. somebody moving from 11.4 to 12.1 with his .kde4-folder will not see any changes but only creating a new user will have different defaults than in 11.4? If the latter is true I would opt for activities simply because it's upstream default and new users should get the new stuff while old users will not be affected anyway when moving along their old configs.
+1 adding activities doesn't break any workflow that excludes them; nobody's forced to actually use activities, and they don't eat up resources and next to no disk space. i've tried using activities several times, and at this moment (KDE 4.7.2, KDF) they're usable, i.e., don't break the whole plasma configuration when playing around with them, as they used to earlier. there's still a lot of integration lacking, like sending applications to activities via keyboard shortcuts, windows behavior, or scripts, so i'll stick with virt. desktops for now, but in general i like the idea and see no point excluding the concept. -- phani. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-kde+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-kde+owner@opensuse.org
On Thursday 06 Oct 2011 11:56:56 Stephan Kulow wrote:
Hi,
KDE 4.7's plasma is now centered around activities - breaking once more the way many of us work with KDE.
Can you be more specific in how this breaks existing setups?
Many on IRC voiced the oppinion that the activity manager shouldn't be part of the default plasma - including me.
Please give the reasons for those of us who were not party to the IRC discussion. Will -- Will Stephenson, openSUSE Team SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Jeff Hawn, Jennifer Guild, Felix Imendörffer, HRB 21284 (AG Nürnberg) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-kde+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-kde+owner@opensuse.org
Fredag den 7. oktober 2011 14:45:59 skrev Will Stephenson:
On Thursday 06 Oct 2011 11:56:56 Stephan Kulow wrote:
KDE 4.7's plasma is now centered around activities - breaking once more the way many of us work with KDE.
Can you be more specific in how this breaks existing setups?
It doesn't break anything for upgraded systems. But old users doing fresh installs, and who wish to use virtual desktops, would need to figure out how and where to increase the number of virtuel desktops in systemsettings. I'm afraid that'd be a challenge and "turn-off" even for many long-time users. 90% of users or so, never change any darn default setting. So the defaults need to be good.
Many on IRC voiced the oppinion that the activity manager shouldn't be part of the default plasma - including me.
Please give the reasons for those of us who were not party to the IRC discussion.
Many of the reasons were already mentioned in this thread. Activities are "confusing", advanced stuff, and their impact on Plasma crashiness is still a bit questionable. But the way I read this thread, most people favour a default setup where the Activity Manager stays in the panel, but the default number of desktops is increased above just one. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-kde+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-kde+owner@opensuse.org
Martin Schlander said the following on 10/07/2011 09:54 AM:
But the way I read this thread, most people favour a default setup where the Activity Manager stays in the panel, but the default number of desktops is increased above just one.
+1 (hey, why not 4 as a 2x2 which makes it very obvious) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-kde+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-kde+owner@opensuse.org
On 2011/10/07 10:06 (GMT-0400) Anton Aylward composed:
Martin Schlander said the following on 10/07/2011 09:54 AM:
But the way I read this thread, most people favour a default setup where the Activity Manager stays in the panel, but the default number of desktops is increased above just one.
+1
(hey, why not 4 as a 2x2 which makes it very obvious)
Like KDE3? I can't believe KDE4 devs would allow that. It wouldn't be different enough from what users are used to. They might think KDE4 was an upgrade from KDE3 instead of new and improved. :-p -- "The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation) Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks! Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-kde+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-kde+owner@opensuse.org
Felix Miata said the following on 10/07/2011 10:19 AM:
On 2011/10/07 10:06 (GMT-0400) Anton Aylward composed:
Martin Schlander said the following on 10/07/2011 09:54 AM:
But the way I read this thread, most people favour a default setup where the Activity Manager stays in the panel, but the default number of desktops is increased above just one.
+1
(hey, why not 4 as a 2x2 which makes it very obvious)
Like KDE3? I can't believe KDE4 devs would allow that. It wouldn't be different enough from what users are used to. They might think KDE4 was an upgrade from KDE3 instead of new and improved. :-p
I wonder who is responsible for that? On another machine I've installed Fedora 15 and that has (along with systemd and ext4 as the installation default FS) a KDE4 that is very smooth and snappy and yes, new users get a desktop manager pager with four desktops, and the basic desktop has Folder View that shows the Desktop Folder. Is "upstream" responsible for this? Is the reduced capability something Suse is doing to differentiate from Fedora? Heck, if they want to be different they could have 6 or 8 desktops! -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-kde+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-kde+owner@opensuse.org
Fredag den 7. oktober 2011 17:44:06 skrev Anton Aylward:
I wonder who is responsible for that? On another machine I've installed Fedora 15 and that has (along with systemd and ext4 as the installation default FS) a KDE4 that is very smooth and snappy and yes, new users get a desktop manager pager with four desktops, and the basic desktop has Folder View that shows the Desktop Folder.
Is "upstream" responsible for this?
Is the reduced capability something Suse is doing to differentiate from Fedora?
Heck, if they want to be different they could have 6 or 8 desktops!
F15 would have KDE SC 4.6 like openSUSE 11.4 (out of the box at least, it might have 4.7 available as an update). The change was introduced upstream in KDE SC 4.7. But it would actually be interesting to see if F16 and Kubuntu 11.10 will stick with the vanilla KDE SC 4.7 setup. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-kde+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-kde+owner@opensuse.org
Martin Schlander said the following on 10/07/2011 12:28 PM:
Fredag den 7. oktober 2011 17:44:06 skrev Anton Aylward:
I wonder who is responsible for that? On another machine I've installed Fedora 15 and that has (along with systemd and ext4 as the installation default FS) a KDE4 that is very smooth and snappy and yes, new users get a desktop manager pager with four desktops, and the basic desktop has Folder View that shows the Desktop Folder.
Is "upstream" responsible for this?
Is the reduced capability something Suse is doing to differentiate from Fedora?
Heck, if they want to be different they could have 6 or 8 desktops!
F15 would have KDE SC 4.6 like openSUSE 11.4 (out of the box at least, it might have 4.7 available as an update).
The change was introduced upstream in KDE SC 4.7. But it would actually be interesting to see if F16 and Kubuntu 11.10 will stick with the vanilla KDE SC 4.7 setup.
The update on F15 was last to 4.6.5 But then I've not added an "factory"-like repositories. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-kde+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-kde+owner@opensuse.org
Am Freitag, 7. Oktober 2011, 10:19:54 schrieb Felix Miata:
On 2011/10/07 10:06 (GMT-0400) Anton Aylward composed:
Martin Schlander said the following on 10/07/2011 09:54 AM:
But the way I read this thread, most people favour a default setup where the Activity Manager stays in the panel, but the default number of desktops is increased above just one.
+1
(hey, why not 4 as a 2x2 which makes it very obvious)
Like KDE3? I can't believe KDE4 devs would allow that. It wouldn't be different enough from what users are used to. They might think KDE4 was an upgrade from KDE3 instead of new and improved. :-p
SUSE's KDE had 2 virtual desktops for years. Greetings, Stephan -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-kde+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-kde+owner@opensuse.org
Am Freitag, 7. Oktober 2011, 15:54:36 schrieb Martin Schlander:
It doesn't break anything for upgraded systems. But old users doing fresh installs, and who wish to use virtual desktops, would need to figure out how and where to increase the number of virtuel desktops in systemsettings.
I'm afraid that'd be a challenge and "turn-off" even for many long-time users. 90% of users or so, never change any darn default setting. So the defaults need to be good.
Since the default number of virtual desktops was apparently one, i.e. none, and 90% of the people do not change defaults this means that 90% do not use virtual desktops. Those that did use virtual desktops and do a fresh install must accordingly know how to change defaults but represent only 10%. To me that does not sound like activities would break anything for those that want to use virtual desktops. Sven -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-kde+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-kde+owner@opensuse.org
Fredag den 7. oktober 2011 16:28:29 skrev Sven Burmeister:
Am Freitag, 7. Oktober 2011, 15:54:36 schrieb Martin Schlander:
It doesn't break anything for upgraded systems. But old users doing fresh installs, and who wish to use virtual desktops, would need to figure out how and where to increase the number of virtuel desktops in systemsettings.
I'm afraid that'd be a challenge and "turn-off" even for many long-time users. 90% of users or so, never change any darn default setting. So the defaults need to be good.
Since the default number of virtual desktops was apparently one, i.e. none, and 90% of the people do not change defaults this means that 90% do not use virtual desktops.
What are you talking about? In every single KDE (and openSUSE) release since the dawn of time, there was more than one virtual desktop by default and a visible pager in the panel giving easy access to the virtual desktop settings. This will change for the first time in history (well, at least since SUSE 9.2 I can personaly vouch) if 12.1 will stick with upstream defaults of SC 4.7.
To me that does not sound like activities would break anything for those that want to use virtual desktops.
The activity manager doesn't break anything for people who want to use virtual desktops. Defaulting to only one virtual desktop _does_. That is why most people here are arguing to have the activity manager _and_ the pager in the panel by default. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-kde+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-kde+owner@opensuse.org
Am Freitag, 7. Oktober 2011, 16:37:23 schrieb Martin Schlander:
Fredag den 7. oktober 2011 16:28:29 skrev Sven Burmeister:
Am Freitag, 7. Oktober 2011, 15:54:36 schrieb Martin Schlander:
It doesn't break anything for upgraded systems. But old users doing fresh installs, and who wish to use virtual desktops, would need to figure out how and where to increase the number of virtuel desktops in systemsettings.
I'm afraid that'd be a challenge and "turn-off" even for many long-time users. 90% of users or so, never change any darn default setting. So the defaults need to be good.
Since the default number of virtual desktops was apparently one, i.e. none, and 90% of the people do not change defaults this means that 90% do not use virtual desktops.
What are you talking about?
About your sentence: "But the way I read this thread, most people favour a default setup where the Activity Manager stays in the panel, but the default number of desktops is increased above just one." "increased above just one" means to me that you state that there was only one by default and now it should be increased above just one. I guess you related this to the new upstream default.
In every single KDE (and openSUSE) release since the dawn of time, there was more than one virtual desktop by default and a visible pager in the panel giving easy access to the virtual desktop settings.
I thought so too and I know hardly anyone using them. n>10 So I would claim that those that use them know how to change it and that the majority does not use them at all since they are unknown in other OSs.
To me that does not sound like activities would break anything for those that want to use virtual desktops.
The activity manager doesn't break anything for people who want to use virtual desktops. Defaulting to only one virtual desktop _does_.
That is why most people here are arguing to have the activity manager _and_ the pager in the panel by default.
I'm fine with that, you can remove any of those easily. Sven -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-kde+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-kde+owner@opensuse.org
On Friday, October 07, 2011 5:28:23 PM you wrote: Activities in 4.7.2 is quite nice. Check it out. You might like it. personally i think it works well with virtual desktops. So I for one vote on enabling activities.
Am Freitag, 7. Oktober 2011, 16:37:23 schrieb Martin Schlander:
Fredag den 7. oktober 2011 16:28:29 skrev Sven Burmeister:
Am Freitag, 7. Oktober 2011, 15:54:36 schrieb Martin Schlander:
It doesn't break anything for upgraded systems. But old users doing fresh installs, and who wish to use virtual desktops, would need to figure out how and where to increase the number of virtuel desktops in systemsettings.
I'm afraid that'd be a challenge and "turn-off" even for many long-time users. 90% of users or so, never change any darn default setting. So the defaults need to be good.
Since the default number of virtual desktops was apparently one, i.e. none, and 90% of the people do not change defaults this means that 90% do not use virtual desktops.
What are you talking about?
About your sentence: "But the way I read this thread, most people favour a default setup where the Activity Manager stays in the panel, but the default number of desktops is increased above just one."
"increased above just one" means to me that you state that there was only one by default and now it should be increased above just one. I guess you related this to the new upstream default.
In every single KDE (and openSUSE) release since the dawn of time, there was more than one virtual desktop by default and a visible pager in the panel giving easy access to the virtual desktop settings.
I thought so too and I know hardly anyone using them. n>10 So I would claim that those that use them know how to change it and that the majority does not use them at all since they are unknown in other OSs.
To me that does not sound like activities would break anything for those that want to use virtual desktops.
The activity manager doesn't break anything for people who want to use virtual desktops. Defaulting to only one virtual desktop _does_.
That is why most people here are arguing to have the activity manager _and_ the pager in the panel by default.
I'm fine with that, you can remove any of those easily.
Sven -- Cameron Seader Premium Services Engineer 1800 South Novell Place Provo, UT 84606 Office: 801-349-2661 Cell: 208-420-2167 cs@novell.com Novell | SUSE
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Am Freitag, 7. Oktober 2011, 15:54:36 schrieb Martin Schlander:
Fredag den 7. oktober 2011 14:45:59 skrev Will Stephenson:
On Thursday 06 Oct 2011 11:56:56 Stephan Kulow wrote:
KDE 4.7's plasma is now centered around activities - breaking once more the way many of us work with KDE.
Can you be more specific in how this breaks existing setups?
It doesn't break anything for upgraded systems. But old users doing fresh installs, and who wish to use virtual desktops, would need to figure out how and where to increase the number of virtuel desktops in systemsettings.
I'm afraid that'd be a challenge and "turn-off" even for many long-time users. 90% of users or so, never change any darn default setting. So the defaults need to be good.
Just to underline this. There was already one bug report, about the pager not working/not getting correctly added to the panel, because of the new behaviour that the pager is automatically hidden if only one virtual desktop is used. So there is no way to change the number of virtual desktops from the pager if your configuration at the moment is only one virtual desktop. You have to know that you can also change it via systemsettings. Because of this I would also vote for having the activity manager and two or four virtual desktops in a fresh installation. Christian -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-kde+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-kde+owner@opensuse.org
On Friday 07 Oct 2011 15:54:36 Martin Schlander wrote:
Fredag den 7. oktober 2011 14:45:59 skrev Will Stephenson:
On Thursday 06 Oct 2011 11:56:56 Stephan Kulow wrote:
KDE 4.7's plasma is now centered around activities - breaking once more the way many of us work with KDE.
Can you be more specific in how this breaks existing setups?
It doesn't break anything for upgraded systems. But old users doing fresh installs, and who wish to use virtual desktops, would need to figure out how and where to increase the number of virtuel desktops in systemsettings.
That's a bug then (the pager hiding itself when there is no non-systemsettings way to add a new virtual desktop, and Desktop Grid is not assigned to a screen corner - let alone the non-composited case).
I'm afraid that'd be a challenge and "turn-off" even for many long-time users. 90% of users or so, never change any darn default setting. So the defaults need to be good.
Many on IRC voiced the oppinion that the activity manager shouldn't be part of the default plasma - including me.
Please give the reasons for those of us who were not party to the IRC discussion.
Many of the reasons were already mentioned in this thread.
I wanted to hear Coolo's take on it actually, since he's qualified to give a better description of the problems he has with Activities than "are annoying". Will -- Will Stephenson, openSUSE Team SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Jeff Hawn, Jennifer Guild, Felix Imendörffer, HRB 21284 (AG Nürnberg) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-kde+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-kde+owner@opensuse.org
On Fri, 07 Oct 2011 23:27:23 +0530, Will Stephenson <wstephenson@suse.de> wrote:
That's a bug then (the pager hiding itself when there is no non-systemsettings way to add a new virtual desktop, and Desktop Grid is not assigned to a screen corner - let alone the non-composited case).
right-clicking on any pager allows you to add or remove virt. desktops. -- phani. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-kde+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-kde+owner@opensuse.org
* phanisvara das <listmail@phanisvara.com> [10-07-11 15:38]:
On Fri, 07 Oct 2011 23:27:23 +0530, Will Stephenson <wstephenson@suse.de> wrote:
That's a bug then (the pager hiding itself when there is no non-systemsettings way to add a new virtual desktop, and Desktop Grid is not assigned to a screen corner - let alone the non-composited case).
right-clicking on any pager allows you to add or remove virt. desktops.
Yes, on a *visible* pager. No pager appears on 12.1b1 as virtual desktops default to "1". -- (paka)Patrick Shanahan Plainfield, Indiana, USA HOG # US1244711 http://wahoo.no-ip.org Photo Album: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/gallery2 http://en.opensuse.org openSUSE Community Member Registered Linux User #207535 @ http://linuxcounter.net -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-kde+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-kde+owner@opensuse.org
On Thursday 06 Oct 2011 11:56:56 Stephan Kulow wrote:
But this would be a major divergence with upstream's default, so I would like to discuss more widely first. What's your oppinion?
Do you prefer virtual desktops or plasma activities?
This is an oversimplified choice, since you can, if you want, use virtual desktops inside Activities. My opinion (slightly subject to what you actually feel are wrong with activities, but going with the "are annoying" you posted later in the thread) is that we should not go configuring upstream's flagship features out because Statler and Waldorf find them annoying. 1) That way lies stagnation and death - you might as well stop shipping new versions of KDE after 4.4, or fork the damn thing. 2) This sends a terrible message to upstream that we just consider their features unfixably broken, when instead we should be actively working with them to communicate problems and suggest fixes. 3) Upstream app authors will be coding against new features and we will get bug reports that people can't find the Activities switcher when they try to use apps which use Activities. Don't expect them to code their apps to hide Activity features when the panel does not contain an activity switcher either. For an example, see the Activity-specific power management options mentioned in this screencast: http://drfav.wordpress.com/2011/10/04/power-management-a- new-screencast/ 4) Extra overhead 1: we'll have to document how we are changing upstream's defaults 5) Extra overhead 2: The KDE:Release:* projects, which stick to upstream defaults, will have to take care that they don't inadvertently ship our changes. So I think we should identify what's wrong with Activities and see what is needed to make them work first. Will -- Will Stephenson, openSUSE Team SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Jeff Hawn, Jennifer Guild, Felix Imendörffer, HRB 21284 (AG Nürnberg) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-kde+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-kde+owner@opensuse.org
Am Freitag, 7. Oktober 2011, 20:17:58 schrieb Will Stephenson: > On Thursday 06 Oct 2011 11:56:56 Stephan Kulow wrote: > > But this would be a major divergence with upstream's default, > > so I would like to discuss more widely first. What's your oppinion? > > > > Do you prefer virtual desktops or plasma activities? > > This is an oversimplified choice, since you can, if you want, use virtual > desktops inside Activities. > > My opinion (slightly subject to what you actually feel are wrong with > activities, but going with the "are annoying" you posted later in the - they make the icons smaller - the default is no deskto icons whatsoever - when you try to switch to "Photo" you get two broken frames and a popup, which is all very confusing. I'm not saying activities can't give people who think in activities a good way to organize their work. What I question is if we need to force the default user onto activities. > thread) is that we should not go configuring upstream's flagship features > out because Statler and Waldorf find them annoying. That's why I raised it to wide audience and didn't create a patch. > > 1) That way lies stagnation and death - you might as well stop shipping new > versions of KDE after 4.4, or fork the damn thing. Sorry, but that doesn't appear right to me. KDE clearly moves towards a broader scope with mobile and the like, while openSUSE may not prefer to go there by default. So I see it clearly as openSUSE's target to verify if KDE's direction is still ours or if we need to adopt it. > > 2) This sends a terrible message to upstream that we just consider their > features unfixably broken, when instead we should be actively working with > them to communicate problems and suggest fixes. As I said: if openSUSE would move 100% in the direction of where KDE is heading, it would be all clear. But I question that openly. It's just a config option after all. I never said I want to hide the feature, I just want my virtual desktops back per default and have a the firefox icon where it belongs: in full size and not as part of a "Desktop Icons" activitiy. > > 3) Upstream app authors will be coding against new features and we will get > bug reports that people can't find the Activities switcher when they try to > use apps which use Activities. Don't expect them to code their apps to hide > Activity features when the panel does not contain an activity switcher > either. For an example, see the Activity-specific power management options > mentioned in this screencast: > http://drfav.wordpress.com/2011/10/04/power-management-a- new-screencast/ You're aware that you can remove the switcher easily, right? If we remove it or the user does, doesn't matter. there has to be a way to get it back. > > 4) Extra overhead 1: we'll have to document how we are changing upstream's > defaults Did we ever? > > 5) Extra overhead 2: The KDE:Release:* projects, which stick to upstream > defaults, will have to take care that they don't inadvertently ship our > changes. Tss. Not a single :Release: project patched out the "show desktop", dolphin and firefox icon that someone added as part of "SUSE brand" in the default plasma config. So why start worrying now? > > So I think we should identify what's wrong with Activities and see what is > needed to make them work first. Read the thread. Greetings, Stephan -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-kde+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-kde+owner@opensuse.org
Will Stephenson wrote:
On Thursday 06 Oct 2011 11:56:56 Stephan Kulow wrote:
But this would be a major divergence with upstream's default, so I would like to discuss more widely first. What's your oppinion?
Do you prefer virtual desktops or plasma activities?
This is an oversimplified choice, since you can, if you want, use virtual desktops inside Activities.
My opinion (slightly subject to what you actually feel are wrong with activities, but going with the "are annoying" you posted later in the thread) is that we should not go configuring upstream's flagship features out because Statler and Waldorf find them annoying.
1) That way lies stagnation and death - you might as well stop shipping new versions of KDE after 4.4, or fork the damn thing.
2) This sends a terrible message to upstream that we just consider their features unfixably broken, when instead we should be actively working with them to communicate problems and suggest fixes.
3) Upstream app authors will be coding against new features and we will get bug reports that people can't find the Activities switcher when they try to use apps which use Activities. Don't expect them to code their apps to hide Activity features when the panel does not contain an activity switcher either. For an example, see the Activity-specific power management options mentioned in this screencast: http://drfav.wordpress.com/2011/10/04/power-management-a- new-screencast/
4) Extra overhead 1: we'll have to document how we are changing upstream's defaults
5) Extra overhead 2: The KDE:Release:* projects, which stick to upstream defaults, will have to take care that they don't inadvertently ship our changes.
So I think we should identify what's wrong with Activities and see what is needed to make them work first.
As a user I agree with everything here. I began using KDE circa sometime around KDE 1.45 (something like that) on FreeBSD. Used it many years as it evolved. FreeBSD only patches the source to get it to build, install, and run so it is very plain-vanilla pure upstream. While my servers are still FreeBSD I made the move to openSUSE as a desktop aprox 2 1/2 years ago. I tried Kubuntu about three times and always returned to openSUSE because I found it so annoying that they would dumb down their KDE to the point I had to undo all their meddling. But then I am used to having everything "on" out of the box and I'll config it the way I want it, thank you very much. I despise having half of what KDE can do turned off just because some distro thinks "oh - it's too complicated for our user audience and we know better....". I've used KDE for so long I'll take it anyway it comes. I prefer plain- vanilla upstream actually. However, this may not be a representative attitude relative to newcomers who may be seeing KDE for the first time. I like the idea of Activities _and_ virtual desktops, especially since there can be virtual desktops _inside_ Activities. In the end I will ultimately config it the way I want it, but I do like to see the 'state-of-the-art' move forward. Just my $.02 from someone who has used KDE since before many even knew of its existance. -Mike -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-kde+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-kde+owner@opensuse.org
Am Freitag, 7. Oktober 2011, 20:17:58 schrieb Will Stephenson:
My opinion (slightly subject to what you actually feel are wrong with activities, but going with the "are annoying" you posted later in the thread) is that we should not go configuring upstream's flagship features out because Statler and Waldorf find them annoying.
1) That way lies stagnation and death - you might as well stop shipping new versions of KDE after 4.4, or fork the damn thing.
2) This sends a terrible message to upstream that we just consider their features unfixably broken, when instead we should be actively working with them to communicate problems and suggest fixes.
3) Upstream app authors will be coding against new features and we will get bug reports that people can't find the Activities switcher when they try to use apps which use Activities. Don't expect them to code their apps to hide Activity features when the panel does not contain an activity switcher either. For an example, see the Activity-specific power management options mentioned in this screencast: http://drfav.wordpress.com/2011/10/04/power-management-a- new-screencast/
4) Extra overhead 1: we'll have to document how we are changing upstream's defaults
5) Extra overhead 2: The KDE:Release:* projects, which stick to upstream defaults, will have to take care that they don't inadvertently ship our changes.
So I think we should identify what's wrong with Activities and see what is needed to make them work first.
I agree with this. I got the impression that over the last few weeks, maybe months, KDE within openSUSE lost a bit of focus and momentum. I guess that's simply because there is no time or maybe the need to work on other non-KDE stuff within openSUSE. Examples are the UpdatedApps repo which does not have an official openSUSE maintainer anymore, KR47 being very late until it worked, still no solution for the potential 11.4 VUL regarding kpackagekit never showing updates and the new kssl one https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=721974 . It's not meant as an accusation but just my impression which leads me to think that given these low resources, for 12.1 there should be only one thing to focus on and that's KDEPIM. To configure virtual desktops might be annoying but since most people move their profile along, I do not think that this or anything else comes close to a not working KDEPIM or its migration. KDEPIM works ok for me, there are still issues which are supposedly fixed in master (e.g. filtering blocking UI) but kdepim will be the culprit with this release even if I think that "this kdepim is unusable" is a polemic exaggeration. Unless there is some data loss bug I am not aware off I think that not shipping kdepim 4.7 but e.g. 4.4 is no good. 4.4 had its issues and since nepomuk is disabled for openSUSE by default anyway kdepim 4.7.2 works ok even speed-wise. Sven -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-kde+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-kde+owner@opensuse.org
Lørdag den 8. oktober 2011 12:17:32 skrev Sven Burmeister:
I agree with this. I got the impression that over the last few weeks, maybe months, KDE within openSUSE lost a bit of focus and momentum. I guess that's simply because there is no time or maybe the need to work on other non-KDE stuff within openSUSE. Examples are the UpdatedApps repo which does not have an official openSUSE maintainer anymore,
We're trying to kill this distinction between employed an non-employed contributors. It shouldn't matter of the work is done by Will or Raymond or me or someone else. Of course it would be great if we could have full-time employed rockstar developers maintaining links on the OBS, but that's not an effective use of resources.
KR47 being very late until it worked
However I do very much agree that there's a lack of focus/prioritization and too much stuff going on, which adds limited value to the distro and project. That's also why I objected e.g. to the creation of the KR4x repos to begin with.
It's not meant as an accusation but just my impression which leads me to think that given these low resources, for 12.1 there should be only one thing to focus on and that's KDEPIM.
To configure virtual desktops might be annoying
KDEPIM should definitely be a very high priority and will probably be the major achilles heel of 12.1. But: * only say 25-33% of KDE users use KDEPIM (most people use web-based mail/calendar or Thunderbird, some use textbased or even Evolution). While 100% of users will use the default desktop at least temporarily (probably 90% of users will never change anything other than the wallpaper). * KDEPIM can be patched later, the default desktop can't. * Fixing KDEPIM is extremely expensive (actually impossible for 12.1 timeframe, the best we can hope for is "damage control"), fixing the default desktop configuration is "low-hanging fruits" (little effort, high gain). -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-kde+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-kde+owner@opensuse.org
Am Samstag, 8. Oktober 2011, 13:09:15 schrieb Martin Schlander:
Lørdag den 8. oktober 2011 12:17:32 skrev Sven Burmeister:
I agree with this. I got the impression that over the last few weeks, maybe months, KDE within openSUSE lost a bit of focus and momentum. I guess that's simply because there is no time or maybe the need to work on other non-KDE stuff within openSUSE. Examples are the UpdatedApps repo which does not have an official openSUSE maintainer anymore,
We're trying to kill this distinction between employed an non-employed contributors. It shouldn't matter of the work is done by Will or Raymond or me or someone else.
"Should" – but it does, digikam is one example that skill-wise there was a better maintainer. No offence, but that's just how it is. There is no official update for digikam thus people are stuck with the version the distro ships and which crashes (let's face it, even if the crash would be reported in bugzilla there would be no update, so UpdatedApps is the "cheap" way for official updates). But one cannot recommend UpdatedApps to them since 11.3 and 11.4 versions from that repo are not working as they should (see email forwarded from the digikam mailinglist a few days ago.)
Of course it would be great if we could have full-time employed rockstar developers maintaining links on the OBS, but that's not an effective use of resources.
Whatever results in working packages is effective and even efficient. And they save users who suffer from bugs the official packages will never fix because no update is shipped.
KR47 being very late until it worked
However I do very much agree that there's a lack of focus/prioritization and too much stuff going on, which adds limited value to the distro and project. That's also why I objected e.g. to the creation of the KR4x repos to begin with.
That's debatable, for me they add great value. They replace the need to bugfix openSUSE's official packages for those that want bugfixes from upstream via the last minor release of a major release. All the old bugs annoy upstream which makes them even think about disabling bug reporting for all but the currently released version (minor) and leave the management of the potentially already fixed or distro-specific bugs to downstream. So my very provocative idea would be to concentrate on KRxy, ship whatever is in there when an oS release is due, continue working on that repo until the last minor upstream release was done and ship that state as an official update.
It's not meant as an accusation but just my impression which leads me to think that given these low resources, for 12.1 there should be only one thing to focus on and that's KDEPIM.
To configure virtual desktops might be annoying
KDEPIM should definitely be a very high priority and will probably be the major achilles heel of 12.1.
But:
* only say 25-33% of KDE users use KDEPIM (most people use web-based mail/calendar or Thunderbird, some use textbased or even Evolution). While 100% of users will use the default desktop at least temporarily (probably 90% of users will never change anything other than the wallpaper).
Where do you get your numbers from, just to make sure we are talking about the same audience.
* KDEPIM can be patched later, the default desktop can't.
This will not happen. Update-wise openSUSE's KDE sucks. Was there an update for the broken network-manager which pisses-off the upstream dev? That one would have been an easy one compared to kdepim. How many official KDE updates have there been over the last few months? Let's face it, most bugfixes are only shipped via KRxy, including kdepim 4.4 and kdepim 4.7.x after oS 12.1 will be released.
* Fixing KDEPIM is extremely expensive (actually impossible for 12.1 timeframe, the best we can hope for is "damage control"), fixing the default desktop configuration is "low-hanging fruits" (little effort, high gain).
The "fixing" is debatable and as Will stated it adds yet another difference to upstream and thus yet another patch to take care of. The "fix" can be applied by any user because it is a configuration issue. KDEPIM fixes cannot. Sven -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-kde+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-kde+owner@opensuse.org
Am Samstag, 8. Oktober 2011, 18:53:17 schrieb Sven Burmeister:
Am Samstag, 8. Oktober 2011, 13:09:15 schrieb Martin Schlander:
Lørdag den 8. oktober 2011 12:17:32 skrev Sven Burmeister:
I agree with this. I got the impression that over the last few weeks, maybe months, KDE within openSUSE lost a bit of focus and momentum. I guess that's simply because there is no time or maybe the need to work on other non-KDE stuff within openSUSE. Examples are the UpdatedApps repo which does not have an official openSUSE maintainer anymore,
We're trying to kill this distinction between employed an non-employed contributors. It shouldn't matter of the work is done by Will or Raymond or me or someone else.
"Should" – but it does, digikam is one example that skill-wise there was a better maintainer. No offence, but that's just how it is. There is no official update for digikam thus people are stuck with the version the distro ships and which crashes (let's face it, even if the crash would be reported in bugzilla there would be no update, so UpdatedApps is the "cheap" way for official updates). But one cannot recommend UpdatedApps to them since 11.3 and 11.4 versions from that repo are not working as they should (see email forwarded from the digikam mailinglist a few days ago.)
I don't think it would make much of a difference. From my experience UpdatedApps (or better the former Backports) worked similar. There sometimes were patches to make important things like digikam work also with older distributions but it mostly was, "let's see if the factory version builds". Maybe I am wrong here and in former days it was really different. But since Martin has taken over maintainership, at least this step happens again, which was not always the case before. So as there was only critic so far in the way he maintains KUA. I at least find it great that he has taken over the maintainership, because the situation has improved in my opinion.
KR47 being very late until it worked
However I do very much agree that there's a lack of focus/prioritization and too much stuff going on, which adds limited value to the distro and project. That's also why I objected e.g. to the creation of the KR4x repos to begin with.
That's debatable, for me they add great value. They replace the need to bugfix openSUSE's official packages for those that want bugfixes from upstream via the last minor release of a major release. All the old bugs annoy upstream which makes them even think about disabling bug reporting for all but the currently released version (minor) and leave the management of the potentially already fixed or distro-specific bugs to downstream.
So my very provocative idea would be to concentrate on KRxy, ship whatever is in there when an oS release is due, continue working on that repo until the last minor upstream release was done and ship that state as an official update.
I also would say that shipping the last minor upstream release as update might be a good /the best idea given the current resources. However I also would say that the work on the KRxy repos at least to some degree causes the bad update situation you describe below. To say it once more: There is no longer a strict update policy for openSUSE you even get an agreement for only more or less cosmetic bugs, so there is no reason to not do more updates (except resources).
It's not meant as an accusation but just my impression which leads me to think that given these low resources, for 12.1 there should be only one thing to focus on and that's KDEPIM.
To configure virtual desktops might be annoying
KDEPIM should definitely be a very high priority and will probably be the major achilles heel of 12.1.
But:
* only say 25-33% of KDE users use KDEPIM (most people use web-based mail/calendar or Thunderbird, some use textbased or even Evolution). While 100% of users will use the default desktop at least temporarily (probably 90% of users will never change anything other than the wallpaper). Where do you get your numbers from, just to make sure we are talking about the same audience.
* KDEPIM can be patched later, the default desktop can't.
This will not happen. Update-wise openSUSE's KDE sucks. Was there an update for the broken network-manager which pisses-off the upstream dev? That one would have been an easy one compared to kdepim. How many official KDE updates have there been over the last few months? Let's face it, most bugfixes are only shipped via KRxy, including kdepim 4.4 and kdepim 4.7.x after oS 12.1 will be released.
That is in my opinion the point where we have to change. I actually see no reason, why we do not do more updates, except that the people doing most of the work seem to prefer to work on the "inofficial repos" (or only on the next version instead of official updates). If this is really the case than probably the best solution is really to ship the (final) content from KRxy as an update. But here we should come to a clear policy. Because working on doing individual online updates for (small) bugs is not really useful, if a few weeks later there will be an update to a minor upstream release, which includes the fix. At least for 11.4 I can say that there was some discussion to go with 4.6.3? as an online update and in this situation I stopped looking for individual patches for online updates. Christian Ps: After writing the mail, I see that it has not much to do with the subject, so I am changing it. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-kde+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-kde+owner@opensuse.org
Lørdag den 8. oktober 2011 19:28:36 skrev Christian Trippe:
Am Samstag, 8. Oktober 2011, 18:53:17 schrieb Sven Burmeister:
This will not happen. Update-wise openSUSE's KDE sucks. Was there an update for the broken network-manager which pisses-off the upstream dev? That one would have been an easy one compared to kdepim. How many official KDE updates have there been over the last few months? Let's face it, most bugfixes are only shipped via KRxy, including kdepim 4.4 and kdepim 4.7.x after oS 12.1 will be released.
That is in my opinion the point where we have to change. I actually see no reason, why we do not do more updates, except that the people doing most of the work seem to prefer to work on the "inofficial repos" (or only on the next version instead of official updates). If this is really the case than probably the best solution is really to ship the (final) content from KRxy as an update.
All this complaining about the official updates is solely based on 11.4/the last few months. The situation has been special because of Will being on leave and cartman being "a new kid on the block". So that situation might improve for 12.1. It's probably very hard to find any volunteer contributors with the required skills, who'll care about patching stable releases. But anyway, I'm personally still using 11.4/4.6.0 on my main machine, and while it has plenty little buggers, I don't see any serious issues that aren't easy to avoid or work around. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-kde+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-kde+owner@opensuse.org
Am Samstag, 8. Oktober 2011, 19:28:36 schrieb Christian Trippe:
I don't think it would make much of a difference. From my experience UpdatedApps (or better the former Backports) worked similar. There sometimes were patches to make important things like digikam work also with older distributions but it mostly was, "let's see if the factory version builds". Maybe I am wrong here and in former days it was really different. But since Martin has taken over maintainership, at least this step happens again, which was not always the case before.
So as there was only critic so far in the way he maintains KUA. I at least find it great that he has taken over the maintainership, because the situation has improved in my opinion.
Absolutely! I'm not criticising him at all – just saying that he is not the ideal maintainer for that repo. The sad thing is that without him there would be none.
I also would say that shipping the last minor upstream release as update might be a good /the best idea given the current resources.
However I also would say that the work on the KRxy repos at least to some degree causes the bad update situation you describe below. To say it once more: There is no longer a strict update policy for openSUSE you even get an agreement for only more or less cosmetic bugs, so there is no reason to not do more updates (except resources).
It felt/I thought that KRxy was left pretty much alone for most of the time, e.g. after 4.7 was released upstream.
That is in my opinion the point where we have to change. I actually see no reason, why we do not do more updates, except that the people doing most of the work seem to prefer to work on the "inofficial repos" (or only on the next version instead of official updates). If this is really the case than probably the best solution is really to ship the (final) content from KRxy as an update.
But here we should come to a clear policy. Because working on doing individual online updates for (small) bugs is not really useful, if a few weeks later there will be an update to a minor upstream release, which includes the fix. At least for 11.4 I can say that there was some discussion to go with 4.6.3? as an online update and in this situation I stopped looking for individual patches for online updates.
IMHO only the last minor release makes sense. And I do agree that backporting patches from other minor releases is time that could be spent better, but you will get the "regressions" killer argument as response. Upstream devs might be willing to work on regressions more actively if one would save them the "old bugs" reports resulting from oS packages. IMHO only major, major, major bugfixes and security fixes should be backported (that's the current situation anyway) and the rest just updated as upstream releases minor releases. The same should be the case for apps like digikam but those should include major versions. If you mark it as optional update and write something like "this is the last upstream bugfix release and offered as is" users can still decide whether to use it or not. And it's not like they would get less bugfixes compared to now. And since the original packages are still in oss, users can always roll-back. Sven -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-kde+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-kde+owner@opensuse.org
Lørdag den 8. oktober 2011 20:15:40 skrev Sven Burmeister:
Am Samstag, 8. Oktober 2011, 19:28:36 schrieb Christian Trippe:
So as there was only critic so far in the way he maintains KUA. I at least find it great that he has taken over the maintainership, because the situation has improved in my opinion.
Absolutely! I'm not criticising him at all – just saying that he is not the ideal maintainer for that repo. The sad thing is that without him there would be none.
When some issue of some significance is brought to my attention, which I cannot fix myself, I'll make some noise and call in the cavalry. And it hasn't been very hard getting people to help. E.g. I got cartman to fix missing last.fm support in Amarok 2.4.3 after a user reported the issue and the other day tittiatcoke backported digikam 2.2 to 11.4 after some problems were reported on the mailing list (can't build on 11.3 cuz of marble dependency according to titti). So the state of KUA is not that bad imho. Unless of course users expect every single KDF package to be backported to old, old releases, but in that case it's them that have a problem, not KUA. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-kde+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-kde+owner@opensuse.org
Am Samstag, 8. Oktober 2011, 21:21:16 schrieb Martin Schlander:
When some issue of some significance is brought to my attention, which I cannot fix myself, I'll make some noise and call in the cavalry. And it hasn't been very hard getting people to help.
E.g. I got cartman to fix missing last.fm support in Amarok 2.4.3 after a user reported the issue and the other day tittiatcoke backported digikam 2.2 to 11.4 after some problems were reported on the mailing list (can't build on 11.3 cuz of marble dependency according to titti).
11.4 + 2.2 was reported to cause symbol lookup errors. I forwarded the email to this list and there was no answer yet. It was originally reported on the digikam-users list, so can I state there that this issue was fixed, i.e. it pulls-in whatever deps it needs?
So the state of KUA is not that bad imho. Unless of course users expect every single KDF package to be backported to old, old releases, but in that case it's them that have a problem, not KUA.
Yes and no. The latest version available makes sure that all bugs including security issues that are known upstream are also fixed downstream. So therefore yes. I think Cristian pointed this out elsewhere. Digikam for example bundles its libs, so there is no need to backport it. In case something really cannot be build the answer is obvious. Sven -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-kde+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-kde+owner@opensuse.org
On Saturday 08 Oct 2011 18:53:17 Sven Burmeister wrote:
"Should" – but it does, digikam is one example that skill-wise there was a better maintainer. No offence, but that's just how it is. There is no official update for digikam thus people are stuck with the version the distro ships and which crashes (let's face it, even if the crash would be reported in bugzilla there would be no update, so UpdatedApps is the "cheap" way for official updates). But one cannot recommend UpdatedApps to them since 11.3 and 11.4 versions from that repo are not working as they should (see email forwarded from the digikam mailinglist a few days ago.)
I'm not sure that Larry's crashing digikam is a valid example - see my response to that mail. Will -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-kde+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-kde+owner@opensuse.org
Am Samstag, 8. Oktober 2011, 22:17:13 schrieb Will Stephenson:
On Saturday 08 Oct 2011 18:53:17 Sven Burmeister wrote:
"Should" – but it does, digikam is one example that skill-wise there was a better maintainer. No offence, but that's just how it is. There is no official update for digikam thus people are stuck with the version the distro ships and which crashes (let's face it, even if the crash would be reported in bugzilla there would be no update, so UpdatedApps is the "cheap" way for official updates). But one cannot recommend UpdatedApps to them since 11.3 and 11.4 versions from that repo are not working as they should (see email forwarded from the digikam mailinglist a few days ago.)
I'm not sure that Larry's crashing digikam is a valid example - see my response to that mail.
That might very well be the case since I just listed issues that came to my mind and only those that I read about or encounter but the general concern I was trying to point to still holds true IMHO. If the problem was really the mixing of digikam from one repo with the libs from another then I'll add a warning to the wiki to remove UpdatedApps as soon as one uses KRxy. Shouldn't the package from KUA complain about its dependencies if it is installed with packages from KRxy? Sven -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-kde+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-kde+owner@opensuse.org
On Thursday, October 06, 2011, Stephan Kulow wrote:
Hi,
KDE 4.7's plasma is now centered around activities - breaking once more the way many of us work with KDE.
Many on IRC voiced the oppinion that the activity manager shouldn't be part of the default plasma - including me.
But this would be a major divergence with upstream's default, so I would like to discuss more widely first. What's your oppinion?
Do you prefer virtual desktops or plasma activities?
I use and enjoy both. I don't really see how activities affect anyone that just want to use Virtual Desktops. For my use, I now have 3 sets of 4 virtual desktops. I find Transparent menu's, panels and windows to be much more intrusive to getting things done. (as well as the change in the kickoff menu) See ya dh -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-kde+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-kde+owner@opensuse.org
On Thursday, October 06, 2011 11:56:56 Stephan Kulow wrote:
Hi,
KDE 4.7's plasma is now centered around activities - breaking once more the way many of us work with KDE.
Many on IRC voiced the oppinion that the activity manager shouldn't be part of the default plasma - including me.
But this would be a major divergence with upstream's default, so I would like to discuss more widely first. What's your oppinion?
Do you prefer virtual desktops or plasma activities?
I haven't used Activities yet since it was not intuitive switching to it. Is there a good tutorial somewhere? Then I give it another shot... Andreas -- Andreas Jaeger aj@{suse.com,opensuse.org} Twitter/Identica: jaegerandi SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Maxfeldstr. 5, 90409 Nürnberg, Germany GF: Jeff Hawn, Jennifer Guild, Felix Imendörffer, HRB 16746 (AG Nürnberg) GPG fingerprint = 93A3 365E CE47 B889 DF7F FED1 389A 563C C272 A126 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-kde+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-kde+owner@opensuse.org
On Wednesday 12 Oct 2011 09:08:10 Andreas Jaeger wrote:
I haven't used Activities yet since it was not intuitive switching to it.
Is there a good tutorial somewhere? Then I give it another shot...
Read the rest of the thread yet? http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-kde/2011-10/msg00085.html -- Will Stephenson, openSUSE Team SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Jeff Hawn, Jennifer Guild, Felix Imendörffer, HRB 21284 (AG Nürnberg) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-kde+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-kde+owner@opensuse.org
participants (26)
-
Andreas Jaeger -
Anton Aylward -
Basil Chupin -
Bob Williams -
C -
Cameron Seader -
Christian Trippe -
dh -
Felix Miata -
Freek de Kruijf -
Graham Anderson -
Jan Kolarik -
Javier Llorente -
Martin Schlander -
Mathias Homann -
Michael Powell -
Pablo Sanchez -
Patrick Shanahan -
phanisvara das -
Stefan Kunze -
Stephan Kulow -
Steven Sroka -
Sven Burmeister -
todd rme -
Vadym Krevs -
Will Stephenson