I must be doing something wrong

Story: Why is Ubuntu’s KDE 4 so bait – No really why?Total Replies: 21
Author Content
zenarcher

Jun 29, 2009
8:09 AM EDT
Reading many articles with this same basic theme....KDE4 is just plain broken....makes me feel like I'm doing something wrong around here. I'm running Kubuntu Jaunty on four computers here....and Kubuntu Karmic Alpha 2 on my test system. Currently on Jaunty I'm running KDE 4.2.90 and for whatever reason, I just don't find all this "broken" stuff. Networking works fine. Pretty much everything else I use of KDE works fine. Oh, I take that back. The plasma widget for comics doesn't seem to work, although it works fine in Karmic.

So, since I don't seem to have all these issues here, I must be doing something real wrong. KDE has come so far since the initial release of KDE4. It's taken some time, for sure but I'm looking forward to KDE4.3. Meanwhile, I'm more than satisfied with KDE 4.2.90. It just makes me wonder what I'm doing wrong.
Sander_Marechal

Jun 29, 2009
9:20 AM EDT
It's probably a matter of expectations. I've noticed that people who loved KDE 3.5 don't like KDE 4 much.
behavedave

Jun 29, 2009
9:53 AM EDT
I like KDE4, I really do and no I don't think he is trying to say "KDE4 is just plain broken" he is actually trying to say that Kubuntu is broken. I would like to know if you have few problem then please tell me how you got the strigi search function to work please? The package maintainers say its a wide gaping gash themselves but don't just fix it (and it dioesn't work because of Kubuntu as others have it working)
alegrand77

Jun 29, 2009
10:03 AM EDT
sorry but I just don't get it, really. I have Kubuntu for a while now and it works flawlessly. I don't get these complaints, really. Everything just worked out of the box except my noname webcam, but that's a different thing. I like Ubuntu and KDE. Gnome is really a gnome for me if you know what I mean. It's the 21st century so you can't just say that "it's eye candy" anymore. GUIs have to look good - and for me Gnome is not enough and is far behind KDE. Some people like "plain, logical" interfaces but KDE looks good and is easy to use imo. Plus everything works for me - I don't need a plain, broken down interface. If someone doesn't like a distro then why using it? Ask other on forums, use google (or anything else) - maybe it's hw related. But really, if you don't like a distro they why don't you start looking for another one? I had all the problems with Fedora but I won't start writing about how bad, and broken Fedora is. It's just not for me, that's it.
tuxchick

Jun 29, 2009
10:12 AM EDT
I'm not sure what the point of this article is anyway, it's pretty vague. It sounds like the author was coming out of anesthesia when it was written.
Sander_Marechal

Jun 29, 2009
10:35 AM EDT
Trust me Tuxchick, I tripple checked the date on that article to make sure it wasn't a piece about KDE 4.0 :-)
tuxchick

Jun 29, 2009
10:38 AM EDT
haha sander :)

The current Kubuntu seems OK, I haven't hit any major problems yet. I sure wouldn't call it 'bait', whatever that means.
zenarcher

Jun 29, 2009
1:00 PM EDT
I think maybe the article was "bait." :) I agree, if he thinks the problem is Kubuntu, perhaps he should try another distro. As alegrand77 stated, he had problems with Fedora....I had numerous problems with Fedora, myself, so just moved to something that worked well for me and with my hardware. I've used OpenSUSE and Mandriva in the past and when I encounter problems I can't seem to resolve, I know it's time to look around. I'm not a big power user or anything, but for my normal day to day use, KDE4 is working fine. I'm sure familiarity has something to do with it, as well. I know there are many GNOME users, but GNOME is confusing to me in some respects. That's not the fault of GNOME nor any distro, it's merely my perception of how to use it.
softwarejanitor

Jun 29, 2009
1:08 PM EDT
I've been a long time KDE user, but I'm not liking 4.x as well as 3.x so I've actually found myself using Gnome some, especially on my Netbook. It isn't as much that things are broken as that some things just aren't as convenient as they used to be.
Libervis

Jun 29, 2009
1:11 PM EDT
If I were still on my old Radeon X800 card I would probably be saying KDE4 is broken as well, because it was. AMD no longer offers drivers for the new Xorg which is in Jaunty and the free drivers, in addition to still being fairly incomplete, do not play well with KDE4 at all, especially if desktop effects are on.

And I've even heard complaints from ATI users whose cards still are supported by AMD's fglrx drivers.

But I got a new card recently, Nvidia 9600, and it works so much better, far from broken. So it's quite possible that when it comes to KDE4, ATI users are finding it broken while Nvidia users wonder like zenarcher, what's the fuss about, because it works well on Nvidia.
wolfen69

Jun 29, 2009
1:11 PM EDT
I still refuse to install any KDE4 based distro for any of my customers. Maybe in a couple years. Until then, I'll stick with the rock solid gnome.
jdixon

Jun 29, 2009
1:14 PM EDT
> ...if he thinks the problem is Kubuntu, perhaps he should try another distro.

I think the fairly uniform consensus is that as KDE distos go, Kubuntu is poor at best*. So yes, if you want KDE, I'd recommend another distro. OpenSuSE, Mandriva, PCLinuxOS, Mepis, and Slackware are all options.

*From what I've read, this seems to be mostly because it doesn't really remove Gnome, merely buries it and adds KDE on top.
Libervis

Jun 29, 2009
1:49 PM EDT
jdixon, only if you install Ubuntu and then do "apt-get install kubuntu-desktop". If you actually download a kubuntu livecd there is no GNOME involved. As far as I know this is basically how it goes on other distros too. You can install KDE on top or you can install KDE clean from the start.
jdixon

Jun 29, 2009
3:33 PM EDT
> If you actually download a kubuntu livecd there is no GNOME involved.

My understanding was that's not the case, as a bunch of the base Ubuntu tools are Gnome centric and require a lot of the Gnome libraries. I could, of course, be misinformed.
Steven_Rosenber

Jun 29, 2009
8:12 PM EDT
There's a whole lot of GNOME in Kubuntu and Xubuntu. It makes for quite a bit of consistency across the Ubuntu flavors, but you don't get a "full" KDE experience as you would running KDE in Slackware or Debian.

The differences between the default KDE, Xfce and GNOME installs of Debian are way bigger than they are in U/K/X/ubuntu.

I think both approaches are valid. However, I used to run Xubuntu quite a bit, but after awhile realized that the experience was a bit better and not much slower in GNOME/Ubuntu.

On the other hand ... I did an Xfce installation of Debian Lenny, and I missed the GNOME tools enough that I started over with the regular "desktop" installation, which brings all that GNOME-ish ness in. I can still add Xfce, but having all that other junk does come in handy every once in awhile.
claydoh

Jun 30, 2009
12:39 AM EDT
A stock Kubuntu install does not have any Gnome apps or tools installed, and the only non-KDE/QT thing is Openoffice. There are a number of Ubuntu-created tools that have their own KDE counterparts, such as the live-cd installer and the restricted driver manager.
tuxtom

Jul 01, 2009
9:37 AM EDT
I gave up on Kubuntu 9.04 and KDE4. On two separate machines. This is not like me at all, but it became truly atrocious. I'm on vanilla Ubuntu 9.04 for the time being...until I find something else that "works". I just don't have the time and energy or willingness to keep tweaking my desktop to get it to "just work"...and a lot of multimedia still doesn't work. As a 10+ year Linux veteran this revelation is pretty damning to the state of the Linux Desktop. Anyone here who truly believes that Linux is ready for the masses on the desktop is severely misguided.

Mark my words...the Year of the Linux Desktop will be the year MS Linux is released...and they will release it. It is perfectly natural. Sad, but true.

jacog

Jul 01, 2009
9:50 AM EDT
*pat pat*
jdixon

Jul 01, 2009
9:58 AM EDT
> ...and they will release it.

Not with current management; but when a new management team takes over, all bets are off.
TxtEdMacs

Jul 01, 2009
10:04 AM EDT
Quoting:[T]he Year of the Linux Desktop will be the year MS Linux is released..
And to make it perfectly safe, the anti-malware will come preloaded, required NOT as an option.

My prediction.

YBT
rijelkentaurus

Jul 01, 2009
10:07 AM EDT
KDE4 on Fedora 11 is rocking...fast, stable, beautiful. I've liked KDE4 OK on all of the distros I've tried it on, including Kubuntu, OpenSuse and Mandriva, but Fedora 11 is the first time it's been on par with KDE 3.5 IMO. For me, the problems of the early KDE4s are gone, however, as always, YMMV.
hkwint

Jul 01, 2009
6:29 PM EDT
As of last week, I also switched to 'full' KDE4.2.3 (have been using some components before). As a note, I was using 'Windowmaker' before, not KDE3.

First of all, it's quite nice. Lots of features that I lacked before. I'm pleased even non-KDE stuff is indexed in my start menu, I can associate .exe-files to wine, I can search in the start menu, the launcher is (almost) OK, the widgets are nice, I can add 'shortcuts' to my desktop and probably some more. The feature-list is huge, I have not been able to test all functions I considered useful when reading about them.

On the other hand, it's a constant struggle. Probably because it's home-brewn (Gentoo) and I'm not used to KWin.

Not everything works out of the box. SIGTERM from time to time, especially after I set Krusader as default file manager. It hangs when I tried to browse to ~, until I reset the default browser to Konqueror. Installing widgets from the net doesn't work. Opening www-links from Kontact gives an error while it works allright? Have not been able to make the 'khotkeys' work. And after setting shortcut keys for previous / next desktop, the next time I log in those are not functioning anymore. media:/ no longer works (probably a feature?). I always accidentaly mess up my task/startbar. When I try clicking on icons on the desktop, it thinks I want to move those icons instead of opening the app they represent. Searching in the KDE-help center doesn't work as it is supposed too. k3b is not yet available (or should I say: Stable) for KDE4. I had to manually migrate my KDE3-settings to KDE4 (a bash-script could have solved that issue, or maybe there is a better way and I was ignorant). Akonadi wouldn't start and gave loads of errors until I completely removed my .kde4* dirs and started again. Not to mention Akonadi still needs MySQL, and that's not something you're pleased with if you have to compile it (I'm the one to blame, I know).

Most of these things however can be traced to being unfamiliar with KDE (needs time) and not using a KDE-distro (needs anothe distro). I forgot I had to learn all those things at Windows (and some of them on Windowmaker) too I guess.

Anyway, I guess KDE4 is not developed because users asked for it, but because developers needed it. What the user sees is only the tip of the iceberg, most complainers don't complain about the new frameworks. KDE4 comes with lots of these new frameworks. These are - even as of today - (still) not used by most KDE apps, though that's starting to change. After every existing app is migrated to those new frameworks (and Akonadi doesn't need MySQL anymore) and new apps start using these frameworks, things can only become better.

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