Am i ready for KDE4 ( or me for it )?

[natman2007]

I am a current KDE3 8.04 user and love kde3 for it access to settings and performance. I have tried KDE4 on another computer ( only to see it working ) and it look brilliant, but since that computer is not my primary computer im still not sure if i will left not able to do stuff in 4 that i can in 3.
My question is, whats still missing in kde4 compared to 3, and is it worth getting it?

[mae]

Re: Am i ready for KDE4 ( or me for it )?

Maybe these will help:
http://forum.kde.org/showthread.php?tid=6271

http://techbase.kde.org/Schedules/Is_KDE_4.1_for_you%3F

[claydoh]

Re: Am i ready for KDE4 ( or me for it )?

Those are great links!

What it boils down to right now is defining what "can I do stuff" truly means.
Right now, the classic KDE lets-tweak-[i]everything[/] hasn't quite returned yet, though that is going to improve greatly in 4.2 (post-intrepid). So if that is your main desktop activity then KDE may not be ready for you right now.

However, there is nothing in KDE 4 that will prevent you from doing the usual tasks you do every day. From my usage, the only kde3 thing I miss is the autorun-on-insert capabilities. While I never tweaked that out too much in KDE3, I did like being able to set it to autorun DVD's for example without popups or other intervention for when when my wife uses my laptop as a training tool. Now, this isn't a major issue for her, but it sure helps keep strangers from having to handle our only computer

So it truly boils down to each individual's tastes right now, but the 'gap' in the tweakability area is going to decrease with each future version, and imo much faster than it took to get things into KDE3

[Snowhog]

Re: Am i ready for KDE4 ( or me for it )?

Issues with kdesudo exists in KDE 4 (4.1.2 at present on my system). The package kcontrol is absent. But as Claydoh has stated, you can still do (almost?) everything in KDE 4 that can be done in KDE 3.

[KeithZG]

Re: Am i ready for KDE4 ( or me for it )?

I'd warn you away from upgrading to Intrepid until you know for sure you'll like KDE4, but you can always try out KDE4 in Hardy without removing KDE3. My own /etc/apt/sources.list file has the following bit in it:

## Hey Hey KDE 4
deb [url]http://ppa.launchpad.net/kubuntu-members-kde4/ubuntu[/url] hardy main

Actual instructions can be found at http://www.kubuntu.org/news/kde-4.1.2

Right now AFAIK the hardy packages are at least vaguely as up to date as the Intrepid packages, which is how I'm using the KDE4 version of ktorrent on my 64-bit Hardy machine.

For my experience, the programs are definitely ready, the desktop environment not so much. By that I'm mainly referring to a million little things, like the lack of "put into run dialog" as an option on right-click in the kmenu, and also the serious bugginess of the overall system. I do suspect though that the bugs part is, for me, is the convergence of my 64-bit install and my dual-monitor display powered by Nvidia's TwinView function of their binary driver. So YMMV; certainly KDE4 seems far more stable on some of my other computers (albeit far from perfect).

I would definitely recommend trying it out, at very least because you're going to have to get used to it eventually But yes, the flipside is I'd warn you off of jumping entirely into it quite yet.