Finally made the switch to KDE on 1 of my laptops

tlmiller

Studio 15, updated sidux to KDE4, and installed Kubuntu 8.10, which of course uses KDE4.

Overall, it's usable. Many issues, such as anything that uses alt+shift doesn't work on sidux (the button you have pushed is not recognized by QT), which is a known and open bug from what I've found. Of course, it works just fine on Kubuntu. Desktops can't have their own individual wallpapers, so every desktop looks the same and the only way you can tell which one you're on is through the pager (always thought that was dumb...IMO the whole point would be to have different wallpapers so you can tell which desktop you're on at a glance).

There are a FEW things that are done MUCH better on KDE4 I will admit, although they are by far fewer than the annoyances.

In the end, IMO, KDE4 is usable as long as you don't want to set up a multi-monitor setup with each monitor being a whole individual desktop (which, IMO, is the only logical way to do multi-monitor, I hate the "extended" desktop like Windows uses)

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Debian Squeeze, Arch, Kubuntu mostly. Some Mandriva. Some Windows.
Desktops: shadowdragon, medusa
Laptops: bluedrake, banelord, sandwyrm, aardvark.

masinick

I think the whole KDE redesign was a huge, massive effort. It wasn't merely a redesign of the appearance, it was a redo of the entire infrastructure, so everything literally had to be created again. In the case of the applications it meant calling the new API, which was significant for a few apps, not too big a deal for others, but with some core KDE functionality getting completed much later than intended, a few apps have had little time for the full rewrite, so some apps are not yet well implemented. Having to redo everything also means having to implement core features in the main desktop.

When XFCE moved to Gtk 2+ with its Version 4 rewrite, it took a long time for them to get stuff in place, too, and XFCE is not of the size and scope of KDE. By the way, XFCE just might be the oldest free desktop. The first implementation was kind of a free CDE replacement. CDE, the Common Desktop Environment, was the UNIX "answer" for the desktop in the nineties. I worked on localization of CDE for Digital Equipment as my last job before I left them. CDE was ugly, incomplete in features even compared to the MOTIF window manager, but by today's standards, it was much smaller and faster than our desktops today. XFCE when it first started was really ugly like CDE, too, but it evolved. Some still don't like the default appearance, but XFCE is now getting like KDE and GNOME in having "Looks" sites, where you can modify just about anything you can think of with respect to appearance and behavior.

Will KDE get it together? Well, it looks like they have come a long way already, so I'd say that yes they will. The question is whether what they come up with will be appealing to us, and how much effort will it take to get it to do what we want it to do? I suspect that certain features will get implemented; for instance, the multi headed display issues are known, have been worked on, and I think some of that is a matter of getting the fixes implemented in various systems, then further debug and get them right. Other features will only get implemented if enough people complain about them. I think that the spring and late spring releases of KDE on the upcoming distros will address most of the issues. With more users actually using KDE 4, more of the reported issues will be addressed, and by this fall more of them will be taken care of. By next year at this time, we will either have adjusted to KDE 4 or chosen some other alternative for good. I personally think that KDE 4 by that time will be pretty solid and in widespread use. It has taken a hit, though; once the favored desktop; now with Ubuntu, I think that GNOME has improved a lot. I am still not a GNOME fan; I use KDE 3 most of the time, KDE 4 for testing, and a variety of window and desktop environments as alternatives for testing and specific uses.

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Brian Masinick
Distros: SimplyMEPIS
sidux - no CAPS!, antiX, Debian

tlmiller · Posted: Wed Apr 15, 2024 4:44 pm Post subject:

I still use KDE3 for anything important...since all my important desktops have dual monitors!!

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Debian Squeeze, Arch, Kubuntu mostly. Some Mandriva. Some Windows.
Desktops: shadowdragon, medusa
Laptops: bluedrake, banelord, sandwyrm, aardvark.

anticapitalista · Member Joined: 13 Jan 2024 Posts: 185 Location: Greece

We'll soon see (or maybe not) how well kde4 will work on old hardware and low ram boxes.
I read a claim that kde4 would be less ram intensive than kde3.5, but I don't believe it myself.

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antiX
sidux

tlmiller · Posted: Wed Apr 15, 2024 11:08 pm Post subject:

I'm not sure if I believe it myself. However, it is fast. Definitely as fast on this laptop than KDE 3.5 was. And a bit smoother running, so that makes it FEEL like it's faster.

Although this laptop isn't really alll that half bad as far as specs are concerned. T7500 (2.2 GHz 4 MB l2), 2 GB ram, 250 GB hdd. So hardly old hardware, although far from the newest stuff made.

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Debian Squeeze, Arch, Kubuntu mostly. Some Mandriva. Some Windows.
Desktops: shadowdragon, medusa
Laptops: bluedrake, banelord, sandwyrm, aardvark.

anticapitalista · Member Joined: 13 Jan 2024 Posts: 185 Location: Greece

Yeah, I'd like to see how kde4 runs on a PIII with lets say 700Mhhz and up to 512MB RAM.
kde3.5 on that sort of box runs ok (obviously fluxbox or icewm or any light wm/de runs better)

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antiX
sidux

bdquick · Posted: Thu Apr 16, 2024 1:44 am Post subject:

I can say that the KDE4 on a P3 1ghz with 512mb of ram and an old nvidia tnt2 card with 16mb of video ram, was rather slow and choppy. Seemed to me it was because every time your cursor goes over something on the desktop it tried to pop out the little handles around it. That machine now has an nvidia 5200 card, and that made kde4 more useable. No longer have a kde4 install on it though. I have a partition to install one one though, but I need to get energized about it.

KDE3 has always been quite useable to me on that machine.

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OpenSuse 11.1 11, 10.2
Arch Linux

masinick · Posted: Thu Apr 16, 2024 5:37 am Post subject:

I have KDE 4.2.2 on two sidux systems and both of them run well. One is a 1.6 GHz Duo Core Lenovo 3000 series Model Y410 laptop and the other is an older 2.7 GHz Compaq/HP D530 desktop. Both have at least a Gig of RAM; Lenovo has 2.

Will now update my Gateway, since it worked out well on both test systems. I do have many small window managers and alternate distros, JUST IN CASE! Wink

BTW, a sid based antiX upgrade also went really well earlier today.

_________________
Brian Masinick
Distros: SimplyMEPIS
sidux - no CAPS!, antiX, Debian

jada

tlmiller · Posted: Thu Apr 16, 2024 10:00 pm Post subject:

Nope, KDE only shows 1.

Now, I have an X session on monitor 2, that I get the black crosshairs mouse cursor. But no KDE, it doesn't see a second monitor at all. Funny thing is it works with both monitors (to a small extent) if I put it in the extended desktop mode.

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Debian Squeeze, Arch, Kubuntu mostly. Some Mandriva. Some Windows.
Desktops: shadowdragon, medusa
Laptops: bluedrake, banelord, sandwyrm, aardvark.

masinick

I now have KDE 4.2.2 on three of my systems - the Compaq/HP D530, the Lenovo Y410, and now the Gateway PA6A running sidux. I've used KDE 4 quite a bit since it was first introduced, and even tried it while KDE 4 was in testing, so I have a couple of years of using it, but only recently has it had the kind of features I was looking for to use it on a daily basis. The one feature that I just HAD to have was to be able to invoke applications from the task bar.

That was a feature I first got used to using in CDE, the Common Desktop Environment, WAY back in 1995-1998 when I was doing internationalization and localization for Digital's UNIX CDE implementation. Ever since then, using the task bar to invoke programs has, at least for me, been the most convenient (and fast) method - one click. IceWM has it, GNOME has it, XFCE has it, and the old KDE had it, and now the new one does too, at least in sidux. It works great!

However, XFCE 4.6.1 has just been introduced as well, and XFCE 4.6 was introduced not very long ago. It has some significant performance improvements. For a while, it was getting to be nearly as slow as KDE and therefore offered little over KDE, but with the current release, XFCE is definitely worth using again, and on my Gateway, a full desktop in XFCE is up within a few seconds - not much longer than a fast window manager. XFCE deserves a new look.

Speaking of that, if you want an even lighter desktop manager that has very little of the heaviness of typical desktops, but at least brings the conveniences of a desktop, look at LXDE. It is well worth using, and it utilizes the fast Openbox window manager, the LXTerminal, and several other relatively light resource apps. I like LXDE, too. One criticism of LXDE has been lack of stability, but I have not personally run into any issues with it at all.

So in the spirit of the overall "Window Manager" category, all of these desktop and window managers are worth a fresh look, but I am particularly impressed with the sidux implementation of KDE 4.2.2, to the point that I can now use it on an every day basis at last.

_________________
Brian Masinick
Distros: SimplyMEPIS
sidux - no CAPS!, antiX, Debian

tlmiller · Posted: Mon Apr 20, 2024 7:25 pm Post subject:

I'm actually running xfce on a test laptop I have to make sure that there are no issues before I sell it (D610, no surprises).

Dream 3.5 xfce w/ engage dock. VERY sexy desktop.

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Debian Squeeze, Arch, Kubuntu mostly. Some Mandriva. Some Windows.
Desktops: shadowdragon, medusa
Laptops: bluedrake, banelord, sandwyrm, aardvark.

masinick

How ya doin', eh? Dat be a good lookin' picture you have over on that there TV - can you get Kojak on that thing? Smile

Ya, sure, you betcha, this thing can bake your pastie, cook your eggs, and warm your hands after you've been out there on Hougton Avenue. Ya, dis ting be good! Smile

Funny, now that I have KDE 4.2.2 installed, happy as I am with it, the whole topic got me going on one of the other areas where Debian really excels, and that is in the choices of a great number of desktop and window managers. When my sidux upgrade took place, it not only updated KDE from a mix of 3.5.9 and 3.5.10 packages to a full KDE 4.2.2 desktop, it also upgraded XFCE from an earlier release to 4.6. I had not used XFCE in a while, so I gave it a whirl, and WOW, what an improvement! Any of you Xubuntu users out there will want to get Xubuntu 9.04 because not only have the Ubuntu bits been honed, but XFCE is way better too.

I noticed that IceWM had been updated as well, so I gave that a go. Very fast on my Gateway and just as simple as ever. Tried jwm, the window manager used by Puppy. In Debian, on the sidux implementation in particular, there has been no art work for it, so Jwm looks terrible on sidux, but it runs like a race horse, so if you just want to start something up and go, Jwm will do it as well as anything.

I also took a look at both Openbox and the desktop used with it, LXDE. You can use Openbox as a window manager with KDE or GNOME, too, and believe me, it speeds them up, especially GNOME. LXDE is nearly as light as a desktop manager, arguably the fastest environment that can be categorized as a desktop environment, though Enlightenment won't be far off.

Then I took a forray off into the world of fvwm, which is where I got my Linux start. Fvwm plain is about the same as it was. You can super extend it, though, and fvwm-Crystal is a setup that the sidux smxi tool offers. The window manager pops up immediately, but the icon boxes, panels, and menu navigation tools take a few seconds to come up in fvwm-crystal. Once up though, it is quite fast.

Here I have KDE 4.2.2 up and running, working, and I've been off exploring other stuff since. I am really liking fvwm-Crystal right now, but I will go back to KDE 4.2.2 soon now! Wink

_________________
Brian Masinick
Distros: SimplyMEPIS
sidux - no CAPS!, antiX, Debian

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