Anyone else using KDE4 full time?

[jayson.rowe]

I'm running Hardy Beta w/ KDE 4 full time now - I don't think I could go back to KDE 3.5.x now!

I know most peeps either love or hate KDE 4, but I'm definitely a lover.

BTW, if you are like me and prefer to browse the web w/ Firefox (I can't get flash working in Konqueror w/ my AMD64 system under KDE 4), I have found a nice Firefox theme that will make Firefox 3 look a little better under KDE 4:

Classic Compact
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3699

It's a nice compact theme w/ small icons, and it fits well into the default Oxygen style.

[dibl]

Re: Anyone else using KDE4 full time?

Yep -- trying to, anyway LOL.

It is starting to hang together better since the recent update to kdm-kde4 (I just got it this morning).

I think the KDE4 KMenu introduced more mouse-clicking that the previous KMenu -- I don't see that as an improvement. But, I park my frequently-used apps on the panel anyway, so that mitigates the loss of efficiency somewhat. Otherwise it's all good -- little adjustment required to desktop behavior and icons on the desktop and things like that, but it works fine and it just takes a little getting used to.

[jayson.rowe]

Re: Anyone else using KDE4 full time?

BTW, here is a screenshot of that Firefox skin running under KDE 4 if you are interested:

[jayson.rowe]

Re: Anyone else using KDE4 full time?

dibl - I kind of like the new menu - it just takes some getting used to...There is an "Application Launcher Menu" you can add to the panel instead of the new menu, which switches to a more "Traditional" K-menu.

[dibl]

Re: Anyone else using KDE4 full time?

BTW, here is a screenshot of that Firefox skin running under KDE 4 if you are interested:

That looks good -- I may just give it a spin. I left my FF 3 set on defaults, but these teeny-tiny fonts are hard on my old eyes -- thanks!

[mafitzpatrick]

Re: Anyone else using KDE4 full time?

Not yet, but I tried it and it wasn't anywhere near as bad as I'd imagined. The big problems for me were

a) Fugly Firefox (I spend most of my time looking at it)
You've fixed this: I'm pretty sure there weren't any Firefox 3 themes when I looked 2 days ago! Thanks for the tip.

b) No dual panels
I have my desktop setup with a taskbar along the bottom (with additional Desktop (left) and Media Devices, Printer, Trash (right) buttons) and everything else along the top along with app launchers etc. (I did use the MacOS topbar for a while... I like the idea but ran out of space) ....Trying to create new panels editing the config files killed plasma, which because it does everything now left me with not a very functional desktop and I promptly gave up

c) I find the new Launcher/Start Menu/thing horrible to use.
I don't think its the section breakdown but the fact the *menu* has a *scrollbar* in it... It seems insane to use a scrollbar when you have a whole screen of space to expand into. I found that if the menu is big it was a case of click, move to scrollbar, click, scroll, move to list, click application, out pops a side bit, move to scrollbar, drag down, click. Sigh.... just seems a really bad design decision and makes very frustrating. Fiddly stuff like this gives me the rage I know there is the alternate one which is fine: I think part of the frustration is that the new menu is clearly "better" in every respect but navigation!

It was tricky adding stuff to the panel & dragging desktop>panel didn't work (although I've read elsewhere that it should). Also annoying that it didn't seem possible to drag things around the panel... but these are all minor (rarely done) things.

Anyway I tried, failed, and went and installed 64bit Kubuntu/KDE3 instead (got to have *something* to play with right).

I think if a&b were fixed I'd do it... Overall it just needs some interface work and plasma will make that easier to achieve.

[Monster_user]

Re: Anyone else using KDE4 full time?

I run KDE4 from time to time. Unfortunately, a recent update broke my gadgets/widgets. I also seem to have regained that Nvidia black screen bug. Which means I have to run Compiz in order to regain any of the functionality.

Since the 4.02 update, I plan on running KDE4 more often, as it has fixed many of my complaints regarding the earlier releases.

[Bongo5HH]

Re: Anyone else using KDE4 full time?

I run KDE4 full time, with one slight exception. I have to use the KDE3 version of Dolphin to reach my second internal HDD. Something about system policies don't allow for automatic mounting of internal drives.

Kev

[MatheoDJ]

Re: Anyone else using KDE4 full time?

I've been running KDE4 full time for a couple weeks on 8.04 alpha. Tried FF3 alpha, but after a bit the bug or two I ran into (inability to run flash especially) became obnoxious... back to 2.0.0.12 for now.

I agree with mafitzpatrick, the new launcher causes waaaaay too many clicks. Simplicity, people! Why the panel lost most of it's functionality between KDE 3.5 and 4 is a mystery to me, I look forward to getting that back. To top it all off, since upgrading from Hardy Alpha 4 to Alpha 6 I can't delete anything from the panel anymore and can't move anything, the launcher is screwy (taking up 120% of the screen first click after boot up and then disappearing thereafter) and everything deleted from the desktop reappears after logging out and back in so I'm stuck with every widget I've ever tried... after upgrading to 8.04 beta today I'm going to purge and reinstall KDE 4 and see if that fixes it.

Other than that I really dig 4 over 3.5... the wireless functionality is much better, and I really like the feel of things. I'd like to see a lot more plasma widgets and compiz integration (I miss my cube!). The desktop effects run well but take a long time to load on boot-up - like 30-45 seconds - so I have them turned off. I like the themes. I'd like to have the 3.5 functionality of deleting something from the desktop and having it gone from my desktop folder, but I imagine this is an option I haven't found yet or functionality that's screwed up on my particular computer.

All in all, I give it 3 out of 4 stars... should be awesome by the next major revision. I'd give KDE 3.5 about 3.5 of 4 stars, but I like being on the bleeding edge

[Nate]

Re: Anyone else using KDE4 full time?

To mafitzpatrick: about your concern "c", you can actually set the height of your menu to be much larger, and get rid of some of the scrollbars. Right click on the K menu, choose "Application Launcher Settings" and then change the number of visible items to a larger number.

I really like the Favorites menu. It actually makes finding most programs much faster than the old kde 3 menu for me, and I don't have to stick them on my taskbar. And if you increase the size of your new K menu you can add a lot more programs to your favorites. For me this means less clicks than before.

[klerfayt]

Re: Anyone else using KDE4 full time?

BTW, if you are like me and prefer to browse the web w/ Firefox (I can't get flash working in Konqueror w/ my AMD64 system under KDE 4), I have found a nice Firefox theme that will make Firefox 3 look a little better under KDE 4

or you can install gtk-qt engine

[Guest]

Re: Anyone else using KDE4 full time?

I've been full time for a while now. here's my desktop ..

http://info.bluefrogcs.com/images/computer/kde4.png

[squirrel]

Re: Anyone else using KDE4 full time?

I intended to replace my 7.10 with the new 8.04 remix beta, but now I changed the boot-menu entries. I'm not sure whether it's the beta version of 8.04 or KDE4 itself, but

* My laptop (M1330) get's way hotter than under 7.10 => fans are all the time on and at higher speed
* I'm feeling somehow "limited", where are all the administration options (maybe a stupid newbie question)?
* Are the remaining KDE3x apps inflicting KDE4 at any time? What happens after an app gets ported?

While in many ways KDE4 looks way better and feels faster, there are unresolved things. Ie. the Adept Manager does just not fit in KDE4-theme anymore. As ordinary user my impression is that KDE4 is not yet ready. This may change until end of April, but I guess the ordinary user has to wait until KDE4.1...

Newbie question: How can I select and delete let's say 5 items on the desktop (directly, no terminal, no file-manager)?

[mafitzpatrick]

Re: Anyone else using KDE4 full time?

Nate
You can actually set the height of your menu to be much larger, and get rid of some of the scrollbars. Right click on the K menu, choose "Application Launcher Settings" and then change the number of visible items to a larger number.

Doh... I guess I should have looked for that... thanks for the tip! Going to give KDE4 another go when the next release comes around. It's good watching progress and will be even better once I can start helping out with bug fixes/etc.

Exciting times.

[MatheoDJ]

Re: Anyone else using KDE4 full time?

Yeah, as something of a n00b, I can say that KDE4 lacks a lot of the intuitiveness I felt immediately with KDE 3.x

As cool looking and great as it is, right now KDE4 feels like Vista to compared to KDE3's XP - awesome looking but not ready for prime time, difficult to use and not yet user friendly.

Still, I'm not gonna switch back. I know all of this stuff will get fixed soon enough... that's just my faith in Open Source and the great people working on the Ubuntu Linux and KDE projects - and of course the awesome folks doing Kubuntu.