KF5 ?

Story: KDE's Semantic Desktop: Nepomuk vs. BalooTotal Replies: 25
Author Content
Ridcully

Jul 23, 2014
6:19 PM EDT
I'm afraid that as soon as I saw this acronym in connection with the KDE semantic desktop, my very cynical mind instantly jumped to the phrase: "Kentucky Fried (Recipe) #5" - or perhaps "K(DE) Fried (Recipe) #5". However, with wide eyes, I read Ferdinand's first sentence:

Quoting:One of the most disliked features of the early KDE SC 4 releases was the developers' attempt to establish the semantic desktop.


My immediate comment is simply that Ferdinand only got that partly right. On another LXer thread, I have placed a link to an actual KDE4 forum blog:

https://dot.kde.org/2014/02/24/kdes-next-generation-semantic...

And in that blog are comments that give the complete lie to Ferdinand's statement quoted above......Akonadi was STILL making an absolute hash of KDE in February this year. Who needs a Baloo upgrade ? Akonadi can collapse KDE4 all by itself. "Early KDE4" Ferdinand ? Try "almost latest versions" instead.

What is gratifying to me about this article is that Ferdinand's first paragraph virtually uses my earlier descriptions of how the semantic desktop software operates, and so we finally get the truth despite the attempts by KDE4 supporters to attack my operational summations in my earlier published LXer feature articles. Another aspect that is also pleasing to me in the sense it verifies once more what I had been saying in my articles: KDE is no longer a window manager for a computer with limited memory and computing power......you need real "grunt", as they say, to run it. The last paragraph from Ferdinand says it all, and so a particular user base is now removed from KDE4 use - quite deliberately in the sense that the semantic desktop is now an embedded feature of KDE4.

As for Baloo replacing Nepomuk.......I once remarked it was a case of swapping a flat tyre for one with a slow leak......they both halt the car eventually.

I always come back to it: Operation of the semantic desktop should be wholly optional at the hands of the user. KDE4 should offer a traditional Unix based KDE-PIM package as well as the semantic "enhanced" package. Only then will it begin to put the power of choice back into the user base. But given Ferdinand's general thrust in his article, it ain't agonna happen. And KDE4 is written off as a useful DE for many users .....again.

Thankyou, thankyou, thankyou KDE4 developers.....Big Network will love you.
cr

Jul 23, 2014
8:36 PM EDT
Just call it the Symantec Desktop, because Norton good will come of it. It's like one-stop shopping for Stasi like the NSA; now all it needs is for it to phone home.
mbaehrlxer

Jul 24, 2014
12:09 AM EDT
i don't remember KDE having a reputation of being lightweight. was that KDE2 or before? i remember not liking KDE3 because it was not lightweight, but it could just have been my personal feeling whereas the general reputation might have been different. not that it mattered much, my main gripe with KDE3 was to much configurability that cluttered the UI.

greetings, eMBee.
Ridcully

Jul 24, 2014
12:25 AM EDT
Put it this way mbaehrixer, KDE was always "chubby" and a little slower compared to some of the other DE's....but for me the KDE3 series was a joy to use. In the KDE4 series and up to KDE4.6, the package remained "chubbier" but manipulation and careful choice allowed you to "diet the package" back to being merely "chubby". After KDE4.6, the various versions can only be described as "obese" and you lost control over the excess fat.

Apart from the embedded semantic desktop, most of the configurability can be turned off......or ignored. No matter what you do, if you want KMail, the Akonadi section of the semantic desktop MUST be running, likewise KWallet. And that system burns CPU usage and power. KDE4 is now a high power server, network DE.....fine, but put it on a low powered personal computer and you are asking for trouble.

I often wonder, truly, just how many people use all the various "views" that are available. Personally, I think that there are only two that are worth considering: the plain uncluttered desktop and the "folder view" desktop which allows icons on it. So much of the "stuff" that has now been crammed into KDE is valueless as far as I am concerned. When you really get down to it, if KDE4 was trimmed down to the sort of DE that Xfce offers, you'd have one heck of a good DE........in my opinion. What you have now is an obese "Swiss Army Knife" of DEs......tries to do everything and is now so complex and huge that parts of it fail and obstruct other bits.....or at least that KDE4 blog seems to indicate that is the case.
JaseP

Jul 24, 2014
1:12 AM EDT
With KDE 4.8 and up, if you just tell nepomuk not to index anything, the DE isn't that bad (not really so, prior to 4.8,... there you had to FORCE it off, aggressively). Akonadi still technically runs,... but doesn't have much to do, so you don't notice the drag on resources. Apparently, the developers managed to make it play (more) nicely with thread scheduling, as well.

I don't notice any issues with desktop slowdown in 4.8. Granted, it's not as slim as XFCE or even Mate,... and there are more bugs (like DPMS turning itself back on, when using VLC or Handrake, when it's told not to,... unless you set a local user cron job "killing" [not a kill or killall command, hence quotes] it with xset commands). However, I tend to use 'buntu derivatives because of all the 3rd party developer activity traditionally associated with them. And Xubuntu LTS is 2 yrs shy of support compared to Kubuntu (Kubuntu 12.04 runs out Apr. `17, Xubuntu in Apr. '15).

I, too, am relatively unimpressed with the extra "Activity" settings in KDE. I wanted to try the plasma media center one, but that's not really available without going to experimental builds on Kubuntu 12.04. However, I like all the other bells and whistles on the KDE desktop... So,... to each his own...
tuxchick

Jul 24, 2014
1:33 AM EDT
Why, y'all are too hard on KDE. It runs like a cheetah on my little old 8-core Intel i7-4770K 3.50GHz CPU. With 16GB uberfast RAM.
JaseP

Jul 24, 2014
1:35 AM EDT
Liquid cooled???
tuxchick

Jul 24, 2014
1:39 AM EDT
Only when I laugh too hard and milk goes up my nose and sprays all over.
Ridcully

Jul 24, 2014
2:30 AM EDT
Tuxshchick......I am putting in a protesht to the LXsher Board of Directorsh (ashsoon as I can find them)......milk ish one thing - shoothing. You ever tried doing the same thing with a good doshe of high velocity Schotch in your mouth.... and your poshts did it to me. I musht protesht vehemently......well........in between laughter anyhow.

Thanks JaseP....like you said .......each to his own. I may just sit on KDE4.6 for as long as I can......It's a marvellous version and even though Akonadi is apparently running.......it is not empowered and Nepomuk is off. So the semantic desktop just "idles" and KDE-PIM is still in Unix mode. Your experience reflects what I saw elsewhere. The blankety thing is now so complex that bits of it are interfering with the operations of other bits. I can seriously do without that.
nmset

Jul 24, 2014
7:35 AM EDT
KDE 4.6 is like 1980's cars, KDE 4.13 lets you configure anything, even disable baloo, and this has been around since long, KF5 will leave behind nostalgic users unfortunately, younger generations will find it great and natural.
Ridcully

Jul 24, 2014
7:52 AM EDT
The beauty of Linux, nmset, is that each of us can drive our own "cars" in the way we wish. Xfce (and KDE4.6 for that matter) are Ferraris compared to the KDE4.13 double decker bus.
Bob_Robertson

Jul 24, 2014
9:11 AM EDT
While I drive Trinity-DE, the Volkswagon Thing of desktops.
nmset

Jul 24, 2014
10:14 AM EDT
But beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder, Trinity or KDE 4.6 are just so primitive to me ! Even with things completely foreign to software or computers, I find so many people that still hang to old stuff, passed away paradigms and so on, while there are so many new ideas to explore, this continues to puzzle me. Some student in sociology or psycho-sociology must research this phenomenon as a thesis, let it be !
TxtEdMacs

Jul 24, 2014
10:38 AM EDT
Yes let's all jump to the next nonworking paradigm, because that's what our betters tell us is right.

That's Right, time for a Reset ...

[Techno music buzz now]

Hey you bloody fools now

Go with what's best ... (for you now)

Let the enlightened lead you

Though there will be pain (for you now)

No more facts from Mr. Ridiculous sources (for you now)

... and the beating goes on ...

Oh what a wondrous future you propose that will be here someday. If only these trashy people would only understand the gifts you bestow.

Right?

YBT
cr

Jul 24, 2014
10:44 AM EDT
Thanks for the offer, nmset, but I'll pass on the Flavor-Aid.
nmset

Jul 24, 2014
10:45 AM EDT
Right. That's how things move on, it's always painful, and there's always a price to pay.
cr

Jul 24, 2014
1:48 PM EDT
I accept that you've got a Jones for the current KDE vision; good luck with that. We'll just have to agree to disagree.
tuxchick

Jul 24, 2014
3:00 PM EDT
Quoting: Tuxshchick......I am putting in a protesht to the LXsher Board of Directorsh (ashsoon as I can find them)......milk ish one thing - shoothing. You ever tried doing the same thing with a good doshe of high velocity Schotch in your mouth.... and your poshts did it to me. I musht protesht vehemently......well........in between laughter anyhow.


I love how you knew that 'milk' was code for 'booze'.
tuxchick

Jul 24, 2014
3:05 PM EDT
Despite the semantic desktop stuff, which has the potential to be uber useful if they ever figure out how to make it work right without being annoying, I still like KDE best. It's pretty and efficient for me.
gus3

Jul 24, 2014
6:37 PM EDT
A liquid-cooled Raspberry Pi:

http://mindplusplus.wordpress.com/2012/05/14/the-raspberry-p...
Ridcully

Jul 24, 2014
6:43 PM EDT
Quoting:I love how you knew that 'milk' was code for 'booze'.


Tuxchick......I hang my head in shame.....I didn't. My usually astute mind didn't pick up the implications, purely because I actually HAVE been known, at about 10pm, to get a biscuit and a glass of milk while doing something at the computer.....so naturally, I assumed you were the same. "Mother's milk" indeed......Leibfraumilch......I used to love that white wine - haven't seen it in years; or thought of it even. You're bringing back loooooooong lost memories of uni student days, scrumpy and open fires in the tavern in Armidale. Thankyou.
Ridcully

Jul 24, 2014
6:45 PM EDT
Tuxchick, re the potential of the semantic desktop, I agree totally. And I also agree that KDE is definitely my first choice.......if one can make it behave in the way one wants. But Xfce seems to be beckoning.
Bob_Robertson

Jul 25, 2014
9:59 AM EDT
When the Singularity occurs, what "desktop" you use will be a matter of your interface adapting to how you use it. There will be no KDE, no GNOME, other than as starting frameworks, because maintenance will be irrelevant.

The Singularity as expressed in the movie "Her" really annoyed me. What an opportunity wasted! What a lack of imagination on the part of the humans! Argh!
mbaehrlxer

Jul 25, 2014
11:01 AM EDT
tuxchick: ridcully used the semantic desktop. he searched for booze and milk came up.

now for someone who really doesn't drink alcohol, this is a total disaster. how can i be a positive role-model when non-alcoholic beverages are just misused as code for alcohol and people may just assume i am hiding my alcohol consumption?

semantic desktop fail!

greetings, eMBee.
DrGeoffrey

Jul 25, 2014
11:16 AM EDT
I dunno. If people start assuming I drink, it would *help* my reputation.
gus3

Jul 25, 2014
3:05 PM EDT
The Singularity has already arrived. We were just too distracted by it to notice.

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