On Saturday 05 July 2008, Larry Stotler wrote:

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in this story which speaks of dissatisfaction among the developers so strong .that some were speaking of a fork to get back to the usability of KDE3: http://practical-tech.com/operating-system/kde-developer-quits/

What usability problem might that be? The guy asking for a fork complains about plasma in specific, I imagine that it would have been far easier for someone to simply port kicker, desktop etc from KDE3 to KDE4 instead of forking the entire codebase. I doubt he really knew what he was talking about.

If the current situation doesn't improve, I would probably support a fork. Look what happened to Xfree86. They made a "small" change in their license, and people moved away fast and forked it to Xorg. Now, the development of X has come very far in a short time. Anytime a "radical" change is made to an established project without any real justification or compelling reason for the changes, you risk alienating your user base. That's what makes open source work. The only real problem with a fork is that other parts of qt are commercial, so there could be compatitibity problems. This is no different from the FSF trying to force the GPL v3 on everyone when a lot of people feel GPL v2 is just fine.

I've been using KDE 4.0.85 here for 5 days, yet cannot see what all this fuss is about. You want a fork for what reason? Because it has bugs? Because it looks different? Because of plasma?

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There are lots of good links in those articles which reveal the mindset and inner workings of the KDE developers, and its clear they knew going in that 4.0 and even 4.1 were and remain BETA, the fact that two distros pushed them out into the world early has probably done more damage to KDE than any other single event.

I don't know if I can agree with that. While I don't care for it, the devs did a good job of getting it to work as well as they could. Of course, that effort could have went to making a KDE3 liveCD, but we can see where the devs are planning to take openSUSE. If things continue, I doubt that KDE3 will survive past 11.1.

KDE4 works for most purposes at the moment, I see no reason to waste resources supporting 3 desktops instead of 2.

Honestly, considering how much different KDE4 is from KDE3, it's almost like they have forked it anyway. Maybe we will end up with just another desktop choice. Gnome, the KDE3 branch, or the KDE4 branch.

Could you please explain how you perceive this difference? In what way is KDE3 functionally different to KDE4?

openSUSE has forced so many of the KDE4 programs in the KDE3 system that you have to go in and select the KDE3 versions to keep your desktop consistent. I don't care for the look and feel of most of the KDE4 programs, much less that way KDE4 works.

Are you talking about opensuse-updater? Are you implying that the main difference between KDE3 and KDE4 is the appearance?

Not everyone wants there desktop to be flashy and stuff. After recently installing SuSE v8.1 on an old laptop, I miss the "eye candy o'meter" they had. It was amazing how much faster and more responsive your system was by turning off all that garbage.

You can use KDE4 without the desktop effects and it is faster than KDE3 at many things.

When you get right down to it, not everyone uses the newest and fastest hardware. So long as I can make use of my P3/500 Thinkpad, I will. If that means I have to move to a distro that has less bloat, then that's a decision I will have to make.

Could you specify what functionality that was added in KDE4 consists "bloat"? If you don't like desktop effects, don't use them, it's simple. KDE4 is reported to be faster than KDE3 in most aspects, so it should run better on old machines.

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"Ubuntu" is an African word meaning "Suse is too hard for me".

As much as I don't understand the Ubuntu hype, I'm not sure that this helps any. As long as different projects snipe at each other, that keeps new users from being interested in using a better alternative.

I don't understand it either and agree with the latter part. Kind regards -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Basically because of the entire look and feel besides the slow down due to the unwanted(at least on my part) effects. But I have to say that the color palette definately doesn't agree with anything I care for. It's look and feel is very Vista like, and that's enough of a killer for me.

So change the colors. It's a couple clicks on the widgets... I hate the openSUSE default KDE3 color scheme... so I change it there too. There is a much much larger color palette selection available in KDE4 than in KDE3.

I'm not going to go over what a lot of people have posted. Basically, the fact that you can't do everything that KDE3 does is bad enough.

What can't you do? I am doing everything in KDE4 that i used to do in KDE4. I have KMail, I have all the usual things.. what exactly is it that is missing? I haven't noticed anything at all that is critical to the operation of a desktop. A few things are weak, but improving literally by the hour.

In many ways, yes. The KDE4 programs have a radically different look. Even the games, like Magghong, look too glitzy.

You're kidding right? You don't like KDE4 because the games are too glitzy? That's your best example? You've mentioned the games at least twice now... but nothing else.

That's the claim. I will have to look into that. But, if I have to do a bunch of work to configure KDE4 to work like KDE3, doesn't that basically defeat the purpose of using KDE4?

What work? You point to colors... and glitzy games. That is personal preferences for aesthetics... not functionality. What doesn't work? Seriously... I'd like to actually find the bits that are so badly broken or critical things that are missing. Some works slightly differently.. and yes you cannot yet drag drop files easily to and from the desktpop... but what needs to be tweaked beyond recognition to make it work the old way? C. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Saturday 05 July 2008 08:21:04 pm John Andersen wrote:

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I'm not going to go over what a lot of people have posted. Basically, the fact that you can't do everything that KDE3 does is bad enough.

What can't you do?

http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/osrc/article.php/3757241/KDE+4.1+Beta+2:+T wo+Steps+Forward,+One+Step+Back.htm

Read the articel. Note that its about KDE 4.1 Beta 2, not 4.0

I saw that on /. as well - seems like a lot of integration is needing to be done. I'm downloading the KDE 4.1 Live image right now. http://home.kde.org/~binner/kde-four-live/

"Ubuntu" is an African word meaning "Suse is too hard for me".

ROTFL! -- kai www.filesite.org || www.4thedadz.com || www.perfectreign.com remember - a turn signal is a statement, not a request -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Sat, Jul 5, 2008 at 8:50 PM, Jerry Houston wrote:

Kai Ponte wrote:

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"Ubuntu" is an African word meaning "Suse is too hard for me".

ROTFL!

Apparently being "easy" is working out well for them. According to the stats in the new August issue of Linux Journal (p. 20), they're #1 right now, and SuSE is #4.

Maybe making things a little less hard wouldn't be such a bad idea. There's a lot to be said for "it just works." --

Guys: Its JUST a sig line. Get over it. Its not even original, I stole it from somewhere. Lets PLEASE not start threads about sig lines. -- ----------JSA--------- Sig line deleted for the humor impaired. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Sunday 06 July 2008, John Andersen wrote:

On Sat, Jul 5, 2008 at 3:47 PM, Clayton wrote:

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So change the colors. It's a couple clicks on the widgets... I hate the openSUSE default KDE3 color scheme... so I change it there too. There is a much much larger color palette selection available in KDE4 than in KDE3.

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I'm not going to go over what a lot of people have posted. Basically, the fact that you can't do everything that KDE3 does is bad enough.

What can't you do?

http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/osrc/article.php/3757241/KDE+4.1+Beta+2:+T wo+Steps+Forward,+One+Step+Back.htm

Read the articel. Note that its about KDE 4.1 Beta 2, not 4.0

According to this article, the main KDE4 problems are: 1. A rumour that KDE4 would eliminate desktop icons (this was a joke by a developer, while he was demonstrating desktop icons!) 2. Automatic desktop positioning of icons and wallpaper customization 3. Widget icons that appear when the widget has focus 4. The main menu is based on kickoff rather than the classic KDE menu 5. Drag and drop between the panel and the desktop doesn't work 1. was just a rumour, my experience proves otherwise. 2. this is scheduled for 4.2, hardly a showstopper for me or anyone I can think of. I have changed the wallpaper here. 3. you can avoid this by locking the widgets. 4. you may switch to the classic menu. In my opinion kickoff (and derivative) is much more usable than the alternatives. 5. have patience? According to this article, major KDE4 problems are minor usability deficiencies (2,3,4,5) and a rumour (1). This doesn't make sense to me. By the way, I launch all applications from kickoff and never use the desktop for temporary file storage. My desktop contains 3 rarely used icons, is this why I don't understand what all this fuss is about? Kind regards -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Sunday 06 July 2008, Larry Stotler wrote:

On Sat, Jul 5, 2008 at 1:11 PM, wrote:

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I've been using KDE 4.0.85 here for 5 days, yet cannot see what all this fuss is about. You want a fork for what reason? Because it has bugs? Because it looks different? Because of plasma?

Basically because of the entire look and feel besides the slow down due to the unwanted(at least on my part) effects. But I have to say that the color palette definately doesn't agree with anything I care for. It's look and feel is very Vista like, and that's enough of a killer for me.

When you ask to fork a project, people in general think that technical reasons are your motive. Considering that KDE has always been easy to configure any way you want, appearance that doesn't appeal to you isn't a reason for a fork. I don't like the default colour settings either, so I changed them. I've been doing this since KDE2.

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KDE4 works for most purposes at the moment, I see no reason to waste resources supporting 3 desktops instead of 2.

Considering that openSUSE also supports Xfce now, and I think there was another one installed as well, that's not really a big deal.

The main problem is that KDE4 is the future, KDE 3 support shouldn't take much developer time, otherwise KDE4 will achieve feature parity much later than users are patient enough to wait for, which causes aggravation.

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Could you please explain how you perceive this difference? In what way is KDE3 functionally different to KDE4?

I'm not going to go over what a lot of people have posted. Basically, the fact that you can't do everything that KDE3 does is bad enough. KDE4 isn't ready for prime time(at least compared to the KDE3 standard that it WILL be compared to) and the fact that the LiveCD is Only available with KDE4 and not KDE3 says a lot about where the devs are wanting to go.

KDE3 has been in development for over 5 years. Expecting KDE4 to have feature parity in 2 years is not realistic. That said, I have yet to find something that would prohibit someone from using KDE4. Basic desktop functionality is here, the rest will arrive sooner if people have patience and avoid demoralizing the developers.

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Are you talking about opensuse-updater? Are you implying that the main difference between KDE3 and KDE4 is the appearance?

In many ways, yes. The KDE4 programs have a radically different look. Even the games, like Magghong, look too glitzy. I can't give a lot of comparisions because I don't have my KDE4 system in front of me, and I removed most of the KDE4 versions from this one.

You can configure KDE4 to look like KDE 3, if you don't like the new appearance. That's hardly a reason for complaining. I don't have KDE4 games installed, so I don't know what they look like, yet most of them support themes, if I remember correctly, which means that you'll be able to change the way they look as well (typical KDE!).

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You can use KDE4 without the desktop effects and it is faster than KDE3 at many things.

That's the claim. I will have to look into that. But, if I have to do a bunch of work to configure KDE4 to work like KDE3, doesn't that basically defeat the purpose of using KDE4?

It is faster here (radeon 9200), Nvidia card users seem to have problems though. My point is that the difference between KDE4 and KDE3 is much more than appearance, if you judge it based on appearance only, you're missing what KDE offers. I use KDE because I can configure it to function the way I want and because it is the most featureful and integrated desktop I've used. This is still true in KDE4.

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Could you specify what functionality that was added in KDE4 consists "bloat"? If you don't like desktop effects, don't use them, it's simple. KDE4 is reported to be faster than KDE3 in most aspects, so it should run better on old machines.

Again, see above. It should be, but it wasn't. At least as a stock system. After installing SuSE 7.3(KDE2) & 8.1(KDE3) recently, I can vouch for the fact that there wasn't that much of a difference in the look and feel as compared to KDE3 to KDE4. (Of course, when I tried to update 7.3 to 8.1, it failed, which is probably why I have always re-installed a new version instead of upgrading.)

I've been using KDE since version 2, I agree that things look different, yet the basic functionality hasn't changed much throughout its history. If you use a desktop judging by its default appearance only, then you may ask someone to offer KDE4 packages that look exactly the same as KDE3, this wouldn't make much sense to me though.

As far as I am concerned, I will be pushing to make sure that KDE3 is included in 11.1 and later if I find that KDE4 doesn't offer a compelling upgrade. openSUSE v10.1 was definately not a compelling upgrade(broken packager, broken PPC support). v10.2 was better, but v10.3 wasn't. v11.0 is a definate improvement in many ways.

The argument isn't about KDE3 availability in later opensuse versions, it's about whether KDE3 should be offered as an installation option or from the buildservice. The installation option requires more support from Novell without adequate justification, in my opinion. I've been upgrading the same installation since suse 9.3, skipping 10.1. 11 seems to be the best so far. Kind regards -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

peter nikolic a écrit :

rubbish , But as i and many others have said before KDE4 is not ready for use as the PRIME mover in a distro yet give it a few more months then maybe

then stop trolling and use kde 3. nobody urge you to use kde4... jdd -- http://www.dodin.net -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org