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Quick review of KDE4
There's a new release of the KDE desktop environment out, and in particular there's a test repository with packages for Kubuntu. It's apparently not just a point-zero release but the KDE maintainers are pretty unapologetic about it being a relatively raw point-zero release; "KDE 3 is fully supported and even under reasonable development, but nobody's really using a 'beta' KDE 4 and we need field bug reports."
KDE has gone in the "shiny" direction I had been hoping some mainstream Linux desktop environment would. The Compiz/Beryl/XGL/whatever X-over-OpenGL desktop effort has been pretty but it fundamentally is a concept demo that's Different From What You're Using Now. So KDE 4 has translucent-window support, some neat abilities to dim windows that have active modal dialog boxes, and some of the Mac-ish desktop effects like a window switcher that shows the current state of every open window.
The flip side of this is, well, that a lot of "normal-user" functionality isn't entirely there. I can't find the Debian app menu (which tends to be more complete than KDE's); I can't successfully log out; I can't add keybindings for "switch to desktop #5"; I can't change any characteristic of the panel; adding applets to the panel is non-intuitive. KDE 4's version of the Konqueror Web browser won't import bookmarks from the KDE 3 Konqueror and seems to find infinite loops no other browser does reading Livejournal.
Conclusion? It's definitely shiny, and if you're a bleeding-edge person and a KDE person it's probably worth playing with. But overall KDE 3 a lot more intrinsically usable than KDE 4 is at this point.
KDE has gone in the "shiny" direction I had been hoping some mainstream Linux desktop environment would. The Compiz/Beryl/XGL/whatever X-over-OpenGL desktop effort has been pretty but it fundamentally is a concept demo that's Different From What You're Using Now. So KDE 4 has translucent-window support, some neat abilities to dim windows that have active modal dialog boxes, and some of the Mac-ish desktop effects like a window switcher that shows the current state of every open window.
The flip side of this is, well, that a lot of "normal-user" functionality isn't entirely there. I can't find the Debian app menu (which tends to be more complete than KDE's); I can't successfully log out; I can't add keybindings for "switch to desktop #5"; I can't change any characteristic of the panel; adding applets to the panel is non-intuitive. KDE 4's version of the Konqueror Web browser won't import bookmarks from the KDE 3 Konqueror and seems to find infinite loops no other browser does reading Livejournal.
Conclusion? It's definitely shiny, and if you're a bleeding-edge person and a KDE person it's probably worth playing with. But overall KDE 3 a lot more intrinsically usable than KDE 4 is at this point.