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**dibl** · May 10, 2008, 07:08 AM

Re: My Initial experience with Heron/KDE4

Good review! I'd call it "fair and balanced".

I've been using KDE4 only, for about 6 or 8 weeks now, and so my opinion is a little more positive about it, but your reaction is probably about right for the first experience with it.

The crashing Konqueror and MC suggest to me that something isn't quite right in the basic setup -- I dunno if it's an almost-full partition that you're using there, or memory resources, or what, but Konq should not crash like that -- I have not seen any such instability.

I agree the new menu seems "fluffy" and is not obviously superior in functionality to the KDE3 menu. But, you can get used to it. I park my most commonly-used progs on the menu bar in order to avoid chasing them down in the menu.

Alt-F2 still works on the desktop to run any package that you have installed, as far as I can tell, including kmenuedit. I just tried it and confirmed that it is kmenuedit 4.0.3.

"System Settings" was a pretty weak and ineffective utility in KDE3, IMO, and it still is in KDE4. I've learned the "old Linux" way to do most of the things that it purports to offer, and I get better results this way.

Thanks!

**Qqmike** · May 10, 2008, 07:28 AM

Re: My Initial experience with Heron/KDE4

Yes, nice review.

But what I really noticed was the link to your how-to:
" ... check out my partition backup and multi-boot guide here...
http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/index.php?topic=13735.0 ..."

There's been so many posts recently about making back-ups and specifically Partimage, and a quick scan of your how-to reveals you've done some of that. We need to refer people to it, along with any other references we might have. Nice job, IgnorantGuru.

**IgnorantGuru** · May 10, 2008, 08:34 AM

Re: My Initial experience with Heron/KDE4

Originally posted by dibl

I've been using KDE4 only, for about 6 or 8 weeks now, and so my opinion is a little more positive about it, but your reaction is probably about right for the first experience with it.

Sounds promising.

The crashing Konqueror and MC suggest to me that something isn't quite right in the basic setup -- I dunno if it's an almost-full partition that you're using there, or memory resources, or what, but Konq should not crash like that -- I have not seen any such instability.

Partition is 5GB with 38% full and 3.1GB free. I have 1G of RAM in this system and have not had any resource issues, but I can look at that. It's encouraging that you find such a crash rare. Maybe I will dig through the bug report system and/or submit one. IIRC, it crashed when loading *any* view profile, from the menu or command line, including preset ones, a custom one I created, and ones I modified. That was kind of a show stopper because I don't think I could live comfortably with Dolphin. I've tried other FMs and have always come back to Konqueror.

Alt-F2 still works on the desktop to run any package...

Ahh, good thought. I use Run... so rarely that I didn't remember the shortcut.

"System Settings" was a pretty weak and ineffective utility in KDE3, IMO, and it still is in KDE4. I've learned the "old Linux" way to do most of the things that it purports to offer, and I get better results this way.

I have too, out of necessity, with a few exceptions. Thanks for your comments. If I play with it some more I'll report any fix I find.

And I meant to thank the KDE and Kubuntu developers. I like to give honest feedback but I do appreciate their work. Overall I think it's going to be good once the users demand more control.

**IgnorantGuru** · May 10, 2008, 08:39 AM

Re: My Initial experience with Heron/KDE4

Originally posted by Qqmike

There's been so many posts recently about making back-ups and specifically Partimage, and a quick scan of your how-to reveals you've done some of that. We need to refer people to it, along with any other references we might have. Nice job, IgnorantGuru.

Thanks - that method has served me very reliably for a long time. I've been away from the forum for a bit so I hadn't noticed the partimage discussions. Thanks for pointing them out.

**IgnorantGuru** · May 10, 2008, 10:42 AM

Re: My Initial experience with Heron/KDE4

I have reported the konqueror bug here FWIW...
http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=161911

There were some similar reports dating all the way back to 2000, but I didn't see any open ones.

I also tried the upgrade to KDE 4.0.4 using the Adept method described here... http://kubuntu.org/announcements/kde-4.0.4.php

However, after the apparently successful upgrade, KDE still reports itself as 4.0.3, so now I'm not sure which version I'm using. Next time I boot into it I'll look in the package versions - presumably it went to 4.0.4 but is misreported in the Help|About KDE windows. At any rate, konq bug persisted.

**dibl** · May 10, 2008, 12:06 PM

Re: My Initial experience with Heron/KDE4

Originally posted by IgnorantGuru

However, after the apparently successful upgrade, KDE still reports itself as 4.0.3

I'm fully upgraded here, and the KDE4 packages still report version 4.0.3. There's so much confusion on this -- I just opened Adept and started checking package versions. Here's what I see:

kde4 - 3.3
kde4-core - 3.3
kde4libs-bin - 4.0.3
kdebase-bin-kde4 - 4.0.3
kdebase-data-kde4 - 4.0.3
kdebase-kde4 - 4.0.3
kdm-kde4 - 4.0.3

So .....

**Bongo5HH** · May 13, 2008, 06:18 AM

Re: My Initial experience with Heron/KDE4

One thing that has been consistent with Kubuntu and KDE4 is multiple streams of packages... it's more than a little confusing trying to discuss issues or how to do things when everyone seems to have a different version of KDE4.

I think the review was pretty fair for a first experience. I've been using KDE4 almost exclusively since late feb early march (if I remember correctly) and yes the odd errors do get irritating... but overall I can't see myself going back to 3.

I haven't been stressing my system very much lately.. it gets used for research only now.

Kev

**IgnorantGuru** · May 13, 2008, 10:28 AM

Re: My Initial experience with Heron/KDE4

Thanks for your thoughts Bongo5HH and dibl. It does seem the packaging is a bit 'parallel' and mislabeled.

The konqueror bug I reported, and which only seems to be affecting me or a small subset of people, is kind of a show-stopper for me. I'm not inclined to invest time in setting up more of my stuff in KDE4 without the Konqueror FM working. I'm also not encouraged that the first real thing I tried to do failed, but sometimes that's the way it goes. I'm thinking of just reinstalling from scratch. My Windows training taught me to sometimes try the same thing two or three times, and unfortunately it sometimes applies to linux as well. After the fresh install I will try loading a view profile before making any other changes and see what happens. Either that or I may try Heron with KDE 3 - I'm still using Feisty. Then when KDE comes a little more of age I can give it another try.

**errol** · May 15, 2008, 05:20 AM

Re: My Initial experience with Heron/KDE4

My reason for almost giving up with KDE4 is outlined by me in this thread.

http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3094189.0

I cannot get KDE to perform simple commands that were obvious in KDE3.*. I say almost because if I understand things the great people who created KDE4 (which I DO like) surely understand the need to be able to (for example) type a command "sudo kate etc." and not have to find the path to kate. I CAN"T carry on working like that and hope for a speedy solution before throwing in the towel and returning to KDE3.
That's my first experience with Heron/KDE4.
Errol

**IgnorantGuru** · May 15, 2008, 08:21 AM

Re: My Initial experience with Heron/KDE4

Yeah errol, the little bit I played with it, it seemed to be a work in progress. And I think they admit that. Which is fine - you've got to start somewhere. But using it on a daily basis seems like it would be a lot of trouble.

FYI I reinstalled from scratch to test the konqueror bug and it exhibited some very odd behavior which I added to...
http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=161911

Of course, I also just tried Heron with KDE3, and Dolphin crashes whenever I try to set all folders to 'detailed view'. This experience is becoming a little too windows-like for me. I hope Ubuntu and KDE slow down and put quality higher on their list.

I also feel like KDE is going the way of Gnome - trying to make the interface 'easy' by robbing the user of ways to customize the workings. If that's the case, I guess I will have to shop for a new desktop and/or distribution. I jumped ship from SUSE when they became Microsoft wanna-bes and never looked back. Hard to tell which way KDE is actually going at this point, but I can't say I like the direction I see in KDE4.

**dibl** · May 15, 2008, 09:57 AM

Re: My Initial experience with Heron/KDE4

That "D3lphin" that KDE3.5 has just sucks -- I wouldn't encourage anyone to use it, I'd rather use Krusader. But "Dolphin" in KDE4 is a very competent file manager, in my opinion, although folks who want tabs don't like it for that reason.

@IG, I just noticed that most of your issues seem to relate to filesystem and file handling -- Konqueror, MC, and Dolphin. Hmmmmmm -- is there a pattern there? Is everything copacetic with your disk drives and filesystem/fstab there? Done fsck lately? Are you using ext3, or doing goofy stuff like me with XFS?

**IgnorantGuru** · May 15, 2008, 10:27 AM

Re: My Initial experience with Heron/KDE4

dibl, I spend a lot of time in the file manager or the shell. So when I check out a new dist, that is the first thing I look at and get working. My comments here revolve around that because it was a show-stopper for me - both Konqueror and Dolphin were unusable. KDE4 would be a downgrade and a pain at this point, not a bonus.

I see potential in Dolphin, but I can't understand why they used split-view without tabs. Why not include tabs when it's so much more bang for the buck? Design decisions like that make me highly question whether it will be of use to me in general. I couldn't get by without at least 6 folders open at once.

Seems like a step backward and dumbed down. Seen a web browser lately without tabs?

Actually, now I find myself wandering the web looking for a new potential home. I have been disappointed with Ubuntu's quality-control lately - they're in too big of a hurry over things I don't care about, and they're getting sloppy. I also see KDE going in a Gnome direction. So... looking at Xfce, Rox, etc, and considering whether Debian would be better for me. Now that I know linux a bit better maybe it's time to move on?

I'm really not a mainstream user in many ways, so maybe it's time to go more fringe. I do like some KDE apps though, so it's a tough separation.

To answer your questions, I use reiser. fstab is happy and my filesystems are CLEAN, thank you. 0 transactions replayed.

**integr8e** · May 15, 2008, 10:45 AM

Re: My Initial experience with Heron/KDE4

Are you using ext3, or doing goofy stuff like me with XFS?

Ext3 is the default Linux fs in many distros, but I've found the XFS filesystem to be very dependable and certainly much faster than the former (i.e. I like it, a lot).

KDE 4.0.x is pretty cool, but, as I've read explained numerous times, is not KDE 4.  Fortunately for us, 4.1 is to be released in the very near future - around late July - bringing with it many awesome new features such as tabs in Dolphin (yay)!  I really hope 4.1's Dolphin includes Konqueror's KDE 3 service menus, though (which I haven't heard anything about in a while).

Another awesome feature KDE 4.1 will bring to the desktop is the Webkit engine for Konqueror.  I've read some reports that the current testing version of Konqueror + Webkit has passed the Acid 3 test ( http://acid3.acidtests.org/ ) with flying colors!

It will also bring most of the configuration options missing in 4.0, which will be greatly appreciated by everyone.  It's hard work recreating an awesome desktop environment from scratch; KDE's devs are doing a jam-up job.

From everything I've been reading, KDE is not going in the Gnome direction, as far as customizability is concerned.  The 4.0 series is meant mainly as a preview of things to come.  It definitely lacks many of KDE 3's features, but most of those will be implemented in 4.1, and any remaining in 4.2.  They are also pursuing a 6 month release cycle, so we won't have to wait forever and a half to get the features we wantneed.  It's looking good, we just have to be a little patient.

Edit: It's really a shame what happened to Hans Reiser, I was looking forward to Reiser4.

**IgnorantGuru** · May 15, 2008, 10:53 AM

Re: My Initial experience with Heron/KDE4

Thanks for the info, integr8e. Sounds promising! Especially the tabs in Dolphin. "Yay" indeed! And I concur on the very useful service menus.

I've also been reading about Enlightenment...
http://linux-blog.org/index.php?/arc...17-Review.html

Sounds interesting. Maybe while I'm waiting for KDE 4.1 or 4.2 I'll try Debian with Enlightenment. Haven't tried something really new in awhile.

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My Initial experience with Heron/KDE4

My Initial experience with Heron/KDE4

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