How a “Welded-to KDE 3.5 User” Began a Move to KDE 4.4 - Part 2

Thankyou everybody. I am going to have a go providing a couple of comments to each person, but the simplest way to start is to thank you all for the helpful and constructive comments. I very much appreciate them.

Since the weather has come up, here's my tuppence. Most days at the moment here, I am in light shirt and shorts in a "foothills" area 1300 feet in altitude - we call these things mountains.....We're supposed to be leading up to midsummer here but current daily temp ranges are 15-27 degrees celsius.......ummm.......59 - 81 Fahrenheit so we consider that the weather here is very balmy, not the scorchers we can get where the temperature at about 2pm reaches 105 (circa 40 Celsius) coupled with high humidity where the perspiration drops from your fingers onto the keyboard. We are on solar power and are not equipped for normal air conditioning.

For Bob_Robertson: I hope the write up helps anybody contemplating the same move cut a few corners. It's over a week now since I wrote part II and KDE4.4 has remained rock solid and just works. I am getting more and more comfortable with it, but have absolutely no desire to trial anything more complex - if it ain't broke, why fix it? This "simple KDE4 format" is so useful, I'd recommend it to the KDE4 team as something that seems to be a recognised need in the KDE user base. Perhaps a "one button click" to get to this position ? But no, I have already noted the additional complexity they are pouring into KDE4.6 beta. The entire software package is now moving to a complexity that is well above my experience here.

For azerthoth and dinotrac: I keep hoping that this article and its debate may somehow intrude on the consciousness of the KDE4 team and make them seriously consider what they have done to the package and whether or not they might provide a "simpler, cut-down version". Look, no "ifs buts or maybes", the effort they are making is wonderful and I have nothing but admiration for their dedication and integrity. But, but, I am minded of some story I read somewhere in which the story relates how well meaning people who loved a child showered it with lots of expensive and complex toys and were then puzzled by the lack of appreciation shown. It turned out that the people had forgotten the basic rule: ask the child what it personally wants ~ and that turned out to be a very simple, brightly coloured, bouncing ball.

For Helios: My experience with Dolphin gives me the impression that it is a file manager with limited abilities. In fact, I'd give it KDE2 status. It works, but only provides the simplest abilities. The icon selection down the left hand side does NOT equate to the directory tree structure that was present in Konqueror. Quite honestly I remain confounded that the KDE4 team has chosen to put such a limited software package in a DE that is supposed to be the "latest and greatest". I found that the two column mode (when you can copy things easily from one Dolphin column to the other) is very useful, but I cannot see yet how to get the same flexibility as Konqueror had. The settings problem drove me crazy......it would NOT accept permanent settings. Perhaps I am trying to make a square peg fit in a round hole. Of course, others may find it perfect and I agree that my experience is "my" experience.

Lastly, (because he did comment) I again acknowledge Scott's enormous help with the production of this article set. I have published books through editorial staff but never a web article. It's thanks to Scott and his team that a draft in .odt format became what it is now and his encouragement was marvellous. As I noted in the article, I am more than interested in the Trininty project and hope to put it on a test drive for serious examination in a few days.

Tony: Many thanks, might have done it in 3 parts though! I only briefly read the article, since the snow over here requires me to get up early tomorrow.

I share the concerns about Dolphin, I only use it as a "mounter of portable media". At first, I had difficulties displaying the address bar, though it isn't that hard (just click with the mouse). In column view, it seems you can't change the columns width. In my opinion, it's really cumbersome. Hence I still use Bash for file management.

However, I've been pretty impressed with Krusader. I think anyone dissatisfied with Dolphin ought to try it. As far as I understand, it supports many protocols. Recently, I've successfully been using it with the 'fish' protocol (transfer files to a remote server using scp). For anyone accustomed to Midnight / Windows / Total commander, it will be pretty familiar. It's also able to use tons of other useful programs, like kdiff, Gwenview, kget, kdesu, kmail, 7zip, checksum utilities and so on. It's pretty easy to use with keyboard only as well, once you're used to the keys. Most important to Konqueror lovers probably, is it's very configurable and can do plenty of advanced things. It has abilities which I don't even grasp as of yet! Very comprehensive, comes with everything including the kitchen sink.

Quoting:Too bad that it doesn't snow

Sure? The first day of nation-wide snow just caused the worst 'evening traffic jam' in this countries history, today. Even if it was only a 3cm! Having seen two small and one big accident (all within 50km) I'm glad I just returned home in "one piece".

People on the radio were jealous of someone who goes to Australia for two months tomorrow, because that's where summer starts!