KDE 4 Preview [rev 723381]
[ Friday, 12 October 2007, Bastion ]
KDE 4 is coming. It’s starting to look and behave in a mature enough manner to use it on a normal desktop. This article is a little introduction as to what you should expect from the brand new KDE that is due out later this year.
Author: Korneliusz Jarzebski
It’s been an entire month since I’ve investigated the new K Desktop Environment, labeled called KDE 4. Honestly, I wanted to wait until “Beta 3″, which should have appeared on 5th October, but as you all can see, that never happened. On the IRC channel, #kde4-devel, I was informed that “Beta 3″ should have been tagged yesterday, but unfortunately it didn’t turn out that way: not waiting for more time to pass, I made up my mind and have updated the SVN, having run already run cmake.
First glance
Right after running the latest KDE, you can tell at once that the new wallpaper is far more beautiful than the old grey one, making the marvelous contrasting flower well matched on the bottom bar: unfortunately it does nothing more than display the clock. The taskbar, despite the fact it was on the bar, didn’t display processes and all the effort I made to add any applets or the pager was in vain, resulting with a complete crash of the bar: succession was only met with the placement the Kickoff menubar.
Kickoff - the new KDE menu
The first appearance of Kickoff was in SUSE Linux 10.2 as a new menu for KDE. The icons were arranged in five categories: Favorite, Applications, My Computer, Recently used, and Leave. There is nothing more than the search box that helps you find applications and documents. It’s too early to discuss the new KDE menu or even commenting on the appearance. IMHO, I wish that the search engine wouldn’t be based on Nepomuk or Strigi: I would like to mention that it is only the initial version of this menu in KDE.
Kget - is still surprising
I’ve talked about this program a lot so far. Quite a bit of the offerings and selections have changed, not only in the appearance but also in the functionality. I’ll briefly remind that the reader that Kget is the download accelerator that provides you queuing, placing files in a specific directory chosen by some criteria. This version is enriched with the transfer graph applet, which displays, in graph form, the download speed of current file. It’s the third applet like this, the first two being a pie graph and a bar chart.
Plasma - new applets
I’m used to some sort of nice rules. While I check the state of KDE 4, I meet new plasmoids. The first one is the old well-known Network Monitor, which has transformed from the two flushing monitors to the graph that displays the traffic flow.
The next two applets are quite new. The first one is the System Monitor. The intention of this applet is to inform you about the state of the main parts of your PC. In the future, you can expect it to read and display ACPI information such as temperature and fan speed. Unfortunately at the moment, this applet tries to perform only on the usage of the disc space.
Today the best applet I’ve tried was the Color Picker. It helps you to “pick” the color of any pixel to use on the screen. Using the standard tool, the “pipette”, you are provided with the color in a few color formats. This is a very interesting feature as it seems to be the probe and display the history that shows a few earlier tries.
KWin Composite - enabled by default
It seems that KWin Composite effects are enabled by default. You can notice shadows under windows and the animated windows’ minimization. Available features from Compiz Fusion allow one to point at the left top corner of the screen you are starting, or something similar, and to use the Scale plugin. Switching between windows using Alt+Tab displays thumbs of the windows. Quite interesting is the fact that KRunner looks different from when the Composite effects are disabled.
KSysGuard - the system guard
The System Guard has also changed its appearance using the new background under the graphs.
KStyle / KWin - styles and decorations
It is a rule that I always look very carefully at: the appearance in comparing Oxygen with Bespin (the unoffical style). IMHO, Oxygen still seems to offer far less contrast. I believe that the authors are deserving of credit for continuous improvement, as they improved from the last version in appearance of tabs and the highlighting of elements and buttons. However, the scrollbar turns to green under the mouse point. and it still seems that it is far from mockups on the Internet.
The last the buttons have tooltips. Now you don’t have to think which button closes the window 
Dolphin and Kate - the new appearance
It is high time to see how some applications that look like those in Oxygen. I’ve tried the Dolphin file manager and the text editor, Kate.
Amarok - at least there is some noise!
At the end I’ve checked my favourite audio player. The best way to describe it is to say “sometimes better - sometimes worse”. This time, however, I couldn’t manage to make a collection, not even play one mp3 :/ But instead, I could connect to Jamendo and listen to their songs. Thanks to that, you can see what Amarok looks like.
This article is a direct translation of text published on author’s blog: KDE 4 rev 723381
Translated by titter, proof-read by fgibbs
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67 Comments
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I too have been waiting so as not to get TOO excited about KDE4 before it is available to me… but your article really needed a reading from me, and I am glad I did! But yes now I am excited, but really have no plans to compile KDE4 from source… so, I will have to continue waiting…
A very nice review, thanks a lot!
Great review! Thanks!
seriously, where’s the functionality
seriously, where’s the functionality, I like to see things work not pretty grafixs
Yeah, down with clean, organized, attractive interfaces! Show me some good old-fashioned functionality any day!
we’ve been talking about the functionality for a couple years now. as the look is starting to emerge (still lots to go, of course) people are beginning to take note of that.
but don’t worry, there’s even more substance (function) that look (style) in this release =)
try ion/dwm/awesome/larswm then
Quite impressive!!!
Looks really matured, can’t wait to get my hands on it
KDE4 is great! The KDE team has finally innovated the desktop, as they said they would. Once KDE4 is out, we will start seeing the effect it will have on other DEs: they will either try to copy it, or invent something new. Anyway, this is a huge step forward!
Wow. In which distro can I get KDE 4 ? I’m using Ubuntu right now which has Gnome. In your opinion, which is better ?
There’s a version of Ubuntu that uses KDE instead of Gnome, but you can have both. Here’s what you do, load up a terminal and paste this
sudo aptitude update && sudo aptitude install kubuntu-desktop
then it will begin a lengthy download and install process, when it’s done installing log out and in the bottom right under session manager select your gui or whatever, I tried out KDE it’s alright. Be warned, you’ll have a mix of KDE programs and Gnome programs if you do this, don’t get confused.
you can use kde 4 beta 2 on kubuntu!
http://kubuntu.org/announcements/kde4-beta2.php
also: i saw this today
http://pinderkent.blogsavy.com/archives/135 that says that maybe ubuntu should just switch right away to kde 4 instead of using gnome.
“Honestly I wanted to wait till “Beta 3″, which should have appeared on 5th October. But as you all can see it has never happened.”
According to http://techbase.kde.org/Schedules/KDE4/4.0_Release_Schedule
“Beta 3 is prepared, initially tested and released on October 15.”, not October 5 !
As i can see from the site, beta3 was scheduled for 8th October. 15th hasn’t been so far.
Another wallpaper-centered review.
Windows 2000 UI works better, and it is more consistent and more stable for me. In Kubuntu I can’t use ctrl-c/ctrl-v in all applications if I change keyboard layout from default (i have three). Firefox integration is miserable. There are multiple problems with input widgets focusing. Sound events are late. Changing keyboard layout takes about a second. System tray can’t display more than 1 line of icons, and can’t scale the icons. Stability after hibernate/restore is awful.
Instead of improving functionality and stability those guys invent better wallpapers and uberc00l transparency effects.
“Another wallpaper-centered review.”
If you read past the first paragraph you’d see stuff about Plasmoids, themes, applications etc…
But I suppose you only need the first paragraph to troll.
“System tray can’t display more than 1 line of icons, and can’t scale the icons.”
Well I’ve seen dozens of KDE computers that can, but never seen a Windows computer with two rows in system tray.
Paul: sorry actually it can. Just changed the size from Tiny to Custom, see 2 rows in systray. Still buggy, though.
One-row taskbar two-row systray, no, not by default.
X-row taskbar X-row systray, yes, Windows definitely can.
I find usually that if you can fit a two-row systray with a single-row taskbar (on any OS), however, you’ve either got a taskbar that renders fairly largely, or you’ve got some fairly squished* icons.
* In terms of proportional visual size - I’m not referring to pixelation or similar effects.
If you’re trying to make a point, you’ve successfully told us you can’t. Firstly, hibernation/restoration have nothing to do with KDE or any DE.
Then, Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V work fine for me everywhere, though occasionally I have to select exactly what I want from Klipper. I use Selection/Mid-clicking more often anyways. Firefox works in KDE, and that’s the main point. I haven’t ever had focus problems. Sound is late? Get a faster processor, more RAM, or a lighter distro. The systray can display more than one line of icons, I just did it. As for scaling, I cannot say. I’d like to see windoze do it.
And finally, WHAT DO YOU THINK THEY ARE DOING?????? If all they were working on was ‘uberc00l transparency effects’ then they wouldn’t even have mockups to show you.
Natan: try to use ctrl-c/ctrl-v on non-English keyboard layout. OpenOffice performs OK, firefox ignores it.
I don’t want to use Selection/midclicking, I want to use keyboard shortcuts. Why should I switch to english layout in order to use copy-paste?
Try to “Open containing folder” from Downloads dialog on Kubuntu. Try to navigate in address url: on Windoze Ctrl-left, Ctrl-right clicks from slash to slash, on Linux we’re without this feature. File Save dialog is not a native KDE dialog (tried several options from ubuntu forums, nothing helped).
“I haven’t ever had focus problems. Sound is late? Get a faster processor, more RAM” — sounds like a Microsoft rhetorics to me.
In other words, you have problems with OO and firefox. Well, that makes sense, they are non-kde apps, and most non-kde apps aren’t as consistent and logical. Esp firefox and OO.o, which won’t work as well on linux as they do on Windows (because ff spends most of its resources on windows).
I use firefox as well as OO, have a non-english keyboard and DO NOT have any problem with copy&paste …
So it’s probably your setup which is causing this problem.
Use suse?
Hi
To have shortcuts in non-English layouts, go to SystemSettings->Reginal and Language->Keyboard Layout
then click on your layout and check the ‘Include latin layout’
about showing more than one line of system tray you just need to adjust the Panel size.
Firefox isnt intergrated into KDE because its not a KDE Application…KDE has nothing with this
most of your problems are not really problem or they are not related to KDE
haha “wallpaper-centered review” truuue, i guess i’m not the only one tired of reading those
Of course it looks great, even though i think it’s trying to imitate vistas look! But to be honest, i also fall back to windows 2000 UI all the time, no matter how many fancy things i try.
“Windows 2000 UI works better, and it is more consistent and more stable for me. In Kubuntu I can’t use ctrl-c/ctrl-v in all applications if I change keyboard layout from default (i have three). Firefox integration is miserable. There are multiple problems with input widgets focusing. Sound events are late. Changing keyboard layout takes about a second. System tray can’t display more than 1 line of icons, and can’t scale the icons. Stability after hibernate/restore is awful.”
So… have you filed bug reports for Kubuntu? Is it a KDE-specific thing or only within Kubuntu? (test some other distros with KDE to help find that out).
GNU/Linux is a lot larger than any one software project or distro release…
And, IMHO, KDE is much more fun than Gnome.
Lastly, I really do like the wallpaper — can anyone tell me where to find it?
lefty.crupps: I’ve never filed one report to Microsoft, yet their UI works better.
So why are you using Linux? If you like Windows, by all means, use it. If I were you, I wouldn’t put up with that. Luckily for me, the KDE UI works so much better than the windows UI, there is no point even comparing the two.
Why would we want to ctrl-c ctrl-v? It’s a gui - it’s mouse driven, hence highlight and middle click? What’s the problem here?
Really, just because you’re used to having things work one way, doesn’t mean that’s the best way. If you’re a gui person then the mouse makes sense, if you’re a keyboard person then you don’t need a gui, or a mouse.
*shrug*
Because keyboard is much faster. But Ctrl-C/V works fine in for me in KDE.
ctr-c and ctr-v works fine me too from Firefox to OO.o in KDE in Suse 10.3
I not understand wath probem is it?
Mouse only:
1. Select Text
2. Middle click on the place where you want to copy the text
Using the keyboard:
1. Select Text
2. Ctrl+C
3. Left click on the place where you want to copy the text
4. Ctrl+V
Uh?? I don’t see how using the keyboard shortcuts can be faster.
Probably you thought he meant using right click -> select from menu. Althought some argue that the latter is only perceived as slower, compared to Ctrl+C/V.
Why does this have to be an OR question? What if I want to click, paste, then move on?
I don’t mean to be rude, but I still have both my hands. If you don’t, that’s fine and I can understand why you’d have to use one or the other… but unless that’s the case, mouse and keyboard operation doesn’t have to be an OR question.
(And no, I’m not being sarcastic. Honest!)
Slight additional detail. I meant:
“…click with one hand, paste with the other, then move on?”
Because you see, it goes faster that way.
i’m sorry to be the one who has to point this out, but doesn’t it look a lot like vista?
At first I was getting the impression ‘Hmm, Vista-like’. Later on, ‘Hmm, Mac-like’*.
* Though admittedly, my Mac exposure has been sparse. Please don’t flame me for that
@Stefan > yes i think so, it looks a lot much like Vista… And will there be any day where they’re going to change that unreadable clock ??
Sorry, things depicted will only attract geeks. Once again, 2007 nor 2008 will be the “year of the linux desktop”…
Personally I prefer the old fashion KDE Menu with all categories arranged in a single-layer point-and-click like GNOME.
The new style makes users do more clicking to look for available applications. To me it’s counter productive (take more time).
Sure, the user can type the name of the application in the search box, but the users must already know the name of the app. But would it be quicker to hit ALT-F2 then type in the name the user already know, for example, say kate?
I do hope KDE still gives the users the option to switch to old KDE style menu when they default to the new one in KDE4.
My favourite is the TastyMenu - love it much better than Kickoff or the old one. http://www.notmart.org/tastymenu/
Maybe you should actually try it out before complaining about it.
Hi, thanks for this review.
I too eagerly await the next generation in desktop environments, I have already installed Beta 2. It doesnt work, but gives me an idea of what to expect.
I have used KDE since I installed KDE 1.0 Beta 3 from source way back then. I’m glad I’ve seen the project grow over the last few years, it has matured faster than any other graphical environment on any platform.
Kudos to the developers!
I must say that I really hate scrollbars in the kickoff menu. Who in the world thought that was a good idea? I want to have immediate visual access to the items available.
The author of this article needs to take some basic English classes. It’s pathetic how many Linux users and developers cannot write a complete sentence in the English language. English is the standard language of the world, so learn to use it. It makes all Linux users look like stupid morons.
The English here isn’t that bad.
Wow. English is Common, eh? Actually, all this means is that there’s worldwide (by world, here, I mean all of Earth, not the U.S.) interest in Linux, and that’s a good thing. Do they not speak your language? Too bad… someone’ll eventually translate, if necessary.
It is POLISH Linux. Stupid.
The articles are usually written in Polish and then translated into English, so naturally some of the original meaning will be lost in translation along the way.
Maybe you should just stop bitching and enjoy this article. Be glad that somebody has made the effort to translate it from Polish, otherwise you wouldn’t have been able to read it at all, smartass.
Looks great, almost makes me sad I got a mac 5 weeks ago ;D
But I know KDE4 will come for it anyway and I still want commercial grade apps.
The file manager looks sweet, if only Apple could make a decent one aswell.
Directory Opus 4 would do! ;D
Mac is great if you need commercial apps not available fpr Linux. You can always install Linux on a second partition, in VMware Fusion, Parallels or VirtualBox. You can also run most Linux apps with X11, even install/remove them the Synaptic way via FinkCommander (Fink is a Mac port of Apt). You have many options on a mac, so no need to be sad.
Regarding the file manager: Finder (at least before Leopard) sucks; try PathFinder, or if you are looking for a good graphical orthodox file manager, try DiskOrder.
Just how OS agnostic is KDE? I see Linux distros mentioned often but does anyone have any experience with KDE 4 on any of the BSD’s or any other OS’s?
Hopefully this KDE 4.0 will be use many other linux distro, including “Linux for the Alien” AKA Ubuntu. I usually like to try new distro when:
- a new major version kenel out.
- a new KDE is out.
hehehhe. My first contact with linux is Redhat 5.2 and it’s still better than ubuntu 7.04 :D.
Long Life KDE.
Yep, yet another VISTA RIPOFF…
You’re going to be more specific than that. What exactly about it do you call ripping off Vista?
What should we say to these guys that only see what M$ does? A lot of these concepts have been already in use for a while, both in MAC OS and in composite
Hey Doug! The GUI designs for KDE 4 has been out years before Vista was released. So which do you think is a ripped off?
come on, there *are* things which have striking resemblance to the elements in vista (and mac os)
Well, Doug, feel free to enjoy your costly, resource-slurping, fairly unstable and totally overrated Microsoft-OS then, while we enjoy the speed, efficiency and looks of yet another successful Linux-project.
KDE 4 will rock the world. Hope they wont delay the release further.
Shit !!
Only for losers !!
“Once that the new wallpaper is far more beautiful than the old grey one!”
this is enough to know how is your evaluation !
this is just as flashy as an hysteric chrismas tree
Hey, thank you for the translation titter!
In regards to some previous posts: I don’t see why someone takes the time to half-read the article and then proceed to complain about programs unrelated to KDE. You have issues with Mozilla Firefox, then go complain to Mozilla. If you have issues with OpenOffice, then go complain to them. Realistically that is not likely to get you anywhere though, because they will just tell you to complain to your distribution maintainer[s]. So go ahead, go leave and start complaining in the proper place!
I would be interested to know more about the cross-platform capability for KDE 4. Looked around quite a bit, but nothing solid to be grokked about this. I’d like to see KDE 4 apps and hopefully even the entire desktop on ALL QT supported platforms (*nix, Windows, OSX, etc.)!
Thanks.
Very nice article, it was linked in a post on pro-linux.
I’m glad to see KDE4 is growing and I hope, it becomes stable real quick. Nice prictures too!
@ Anyone who find things, to complain about KDE 4 ore its features. Please keep in mind, it is totaly FREE for you. You don’t have to spend anything to get some nice new stuff for your desktop. Donate some money, at least the price of Vista HP and you can complain, if you think it’s helpfull.
I am excited about KDE 4 an I think, it will kick my Linux into a new dimension.
sry for my unproper english.
Very cool.
http://error1893.wordpress.com/
kde 4 is superb!! can’t wait until June in openSUSE 11