Okay, this is alright

[danzer]

After being tormented by my (fedora) buddy for the longest time to give Linux a shot, researching (and finding this forum) for a long while too in making Kubuntu my distro, and asking what flavour of Kubuntu (GG,HH, KDE3,KDE4) here in past post. I downloaded the live cd of GG and also the HH with KDE4 beta cd. ( I didn't know you could do that )
So I'm posting this from the HH KDE4 cd, AND WOW. This is freaking cool. Now I don't know what the heck I'm doing, I'm just mouse clicking on everything I see, but I'm impressed. I never seen vista, as I'm a Xp user, but this HH with KDE4 looks nice. Good thing the K (start button) was in the usual place. So now I'm going to try the GG cd and see how that goes.

[dibl]

Re: Okay, this is alright

Yep, it is pretty nice!

Now, take a look at the screenshots in the Image Gallery above, and see what you think.

[danzer]

Re: Okay, this is alright

Okay I'm back with GG, and it is different. So I'm guessing the desktop is different because of KDE. GG and HH is the OS (what you can't see) and KDE is the GUI.
Screen resolution is higher on the GG than on the HH, or should I be saying KDE3 and KDE4. K button is like Xp, so I'm more used to this setup, but I liked the KDE4 way of accessing the programs. So what are the other differences between KDE3 and KDE4? What are the bad bugs in KDE4 that are scaring people away from KDE4? What else should I be playing around with in these two cds to make a good decision on which KDE version I should use?

Wow, those are some nice screenshots in the gallery. I have a lot to learn
I've read some stuff on compiz-fuzion, but what is beryl?
Only 22 more days to go.
Thanks

[mafitzpatrick]

Re: Okay, this is alright

danzer: I think the "bad bugs" are more annoyances and weird things. I'm not sure, but in some ways I think they probably affect 'power users' more than people just getting on with using the computer - if you have very specific needs it takes a while to get everything set up properly, and some parts of KDE4 aren't configurable enough just yet.

Of course, there's breakage too When I first installed KDE4 it crashed 4 times in a row as I tried to get it set up... but I've gradually been removing the KDE3 apps and it seems to be improving the situation. It shouldn't be that way, but it's not finished.

The desktop affects you can do from within System Settings (KDE 4 or 3). Go to Desktop and click the "Enable all desktop effects" button and *bam* it'll happen ...If you click on the All Effects tab you can activate/deactivate them at will also. This might not work - this is the first release where it did for me, and video is still a bit funky - but it's worth seeing if it does... I think it adds to the usability a little, less jarring.

Beryl is now Compiz (which is what is used for Desktop Effects). Originally there was Compiz, then the Beryl project split off because they wanted to experiment more, then after a bit they recombined. If you think it's confusing, you should have seen what it was like while it was happening Basically... you don't need (or want) to install it as it's no longer developed ...just stick with the desktop-effects packages and you'll be fine.

Hope that helps!

[danzer]

Re: Okay, this is alright

Thanks for the info Mafitpatrick