This is a discussion on KDE: It’s time for a fork within the Open Source and Linux forums, part of the Software Zone category; KDE: It’s time for a fork
June 28th, 2008 ·
OK, I’ve now tried KDE 4.1 . I’d been assured ...
OK, I’ve now tried KDE 4.1. I’d been assured that it would be better than KDE 4.0x. It is. That’s the good news. The bad news is that I still find KDE 4.1 to be inferior to KDE 3.5x.
KDE’s developers believe that KDE 4.1 “can fully replace KDE 3 for end users.” I don’t see it.
There are some fundamental changes for the better. Qt4, the cross-platform application framework, which underlies KDE 4 takes up less memory and should result in faster performance. I haven’t seen the promised performance benefits, but then KDE 4.1 is still in beta, whatever ‘beta’ means. So, in this setting—Kubuntu 8.04 and openSUSE 11 on Intel dual-core systems with two gigabytes of RAM—I’ll let KDE 4.1’s poor performance go by without additional comment.
My real problems with KDE 4.1 is far more fundamental. The developers believe that they have a better way of handling the desktop. For them, I’m sure they do. For users, this user anyway, the new desktop fails at a desktop’s main job: enabling the user to get their work done as easily as possible.
I agree the changes are quite radical indeed but I still think that I like 4.1 better than 3.x in my opinion. yes it might not be as stable but then again theres a reason they use the beta word besides it .
.
Although I can't reproduce most of the stability problems he complains about, his frustration with the environment is understandable. KDE 4.0.4 is still relatively incomplete and there are a lot of nice goodies in the latest 4.1 beta that offer a much better experience. Several readers encouraged him to take a look. He was apparently so disappointed with what he saw that he is now calling for a fork. His initial critique could have been the starting point for some meaningful open dialog about interface design and the technical direction of KDE 4, but bitterness on both sides has made that difficult.
This is exactly why i tell anyone I know to try out 4.1 Beta rather than KDE 4.