YaKR (Yet another KDE4 Review)

Since the release of KDE 4.0 beta 3 there’s been a lot of talk about KDE4, it even got mentioned in Danish mainstream computer media. So I thought I’d share my thoughts too.

I installed KDE 4.0 beta 3 on openSUSE 10.3 using the packages provided by the openSUSE KDE maintainers. Here’s the screenshot.

Stephan “Beineri” Binner’s openSUSE based LiveCD KDE Four Live is also available witk KDE4 beta 3+.

Besides testing beta3 I’ve also been following KDE4 pretty closely as users go – not following svn or devel mailinglists, but trying to keep up with the goings on. And I have also tried out some earlier builds.

Expectations
The first thing you need to understand about KDE4 is that it uses a little unconventional versioning scheme. It’s similar to the one Microsoft uses for Windows, so most people should be fairly familiar with the style. “Beta3″ actually means “early alpha” by usual standards, and 4.0 “final” will mean it’s actually a “tech preview” for the avantgarde to try out in real life. After a “service pack” or two, we can finally really judge the product (KDE 4.1/4.2).

This is actually not meant to be a rant against KDE, I believe in “release early, release often”, and I think it’s very important to get a release out there, to really get some traction going for KDE4 – but it’s also very important to adjust people’s expectations, or a lot of people will be extremely disappointed by KDE 4.0. Beineri already explained about KDE4 != KDE4.0 long ago, but I think it doesn’t hurt to remind people. Now that expectations are hopefully aligned with reality, let’s continue.

Platform
Most of the KDE4 development so far has been in the libraries. Not very visible to the user in the short term, but in the mid to long term I’m convinced that Solid (hardware), Phonon (multimedia), Sonnet (spellcheck), Akonadi (pim), Decibel (chat) and so on will help the creation of great applications to the immense pleasure of users and application developers alike. Considering that KDE3 is already excellent in this respect, the implications of a much improved KDE4 is almost scary. Not to mention all the goodness of Qt4 – such as great svg. Oxygen (icons, window decoration, widgets), will be a huge improvement. Note that my screenshot does not have oxygen widgets nor windeco, and the icon theme is not yet complete. While this all leads to very high expectations, in many ways it’s too soon to judge.

“User experience”
Some things are visible already though, and disappoint me. I thought that the most common complaints about KDE3 would be taken care of, but judging by beta3 this is not the case, au contraire. I noted at least three issues that I think are disastrous, no less.

Common complaint 1: “KDE gets in my way, it’s obtrusive, there’s too much going on”
What does KDE4 do about it? Well, it puts sound notifications on kwin events like opening, maximizing and minimizing windows. Konsole spews popup notifications left and right. Of course these things are configurable, but defaults are immensely important. The rule should be to “disturb” the user as little as possible, unless he asks for it.

Common complaint 2: “The panel takes up too much of the screen”
What does KDE4 do? It makes the panel even bigger (I didn’t pull out kruler to measure, but it’s certainly not smaller).

Common complaint 3: “KDE(3) is too much like Windows (XP)”
What does KDE4 do to combat this widespread misconception? It makes the panel look very much like the panel in Windows Vista. I know the artist says it’s purely coincidental that he happens to share tastes with Microsoft artists. But it’s still a bad idea – I think so partly for selfish reasons, I’m sick of hearing people say KDE is Windows-like, and now it looks like I’ll have to listen to it for years to come.

Apps
Not many of the applications are really anywhere near ready yet, but the few that are usable are mostly very nice. I was never a fan of the decision to replace Konqueror with Dolphin as the default file manager, but maybe it makes sense from a strategic point of view, maybe Konqueror is pearls for swine. But Konq in beta3 seems rather limited, having only one viewmode (dolphin-part), I think I have around 10 different view modes in KDE3-Konq. I hope this is a temporary situation, and that Konq will return to at least KDE3 level in 4.1 or 4.2. On a positive note the default toolbar setup for web browsing in Konq seemed very neat. The KDE4 games are very nice looking, always been a fan of kmines, and it’s great – though I miss the smiley face that was there in earlier KDE4 versions.

When KDE4 development began I was very worried about the prospects for KBabel which I more or less depend on for translation work, as it wasn’t maintained actively. Ironically, today it’s replacement KAider is one of the most usable KDE4 apps, and I’ve already used it for “production” a little bit.

KOffice2 released an alpha concurrently with KDE4 beta3. It also looks very promising. I especially enjoy that the KWord UI is starting to resemble Krita, making the suite more “uniform”, and simply making KWord look way cool. So far I haven’t tested the fruits of the Google Summer of Code ODF-project, but certainly ODF support, and compatibility with OOo must have improved significantly.

Conclusions

• KDE 4.0 might be nearing release, but KDE4 has a looong way to go
• With all the library work done and Qt4, there’s an amazing (unrivaled?) platform for desktop and application development available
• Developers need to be more careful about defaults. Do not let the default settings annoy people, for crying out loud
• Usable applications are still scarce, but many of them are looking very promising

SSLUG på Kulturnatten og diverse

På fredag er det den årlige Kulturnat i København. SSLUG holder et arrangement hvor vi demonstrerer lidt af mangfoldigheden og fleksibiliteten indefor for GNU/Linux samt fortæller interesserede om vores gode forening.

Så anskaf dig et kulturpas og kig forbi Blegdamsvej 17, 2100 Kbh. Ø mellem kl. 18-24.

Guide til openSUSE 10.3
Min guide til openSUSE 10.3 er online.

Fri software konference i Göteborg
En skandinavisk konference for fri software på IT-universitetet i Göteborg er under planlægning. Tilmelding er allerede åben.

LFLUG
Endnu engang gøres der et forsøg på at starte en Linux-brugergruppe på Lolland-Falster. På vegne af mig selv (jeg er stærkt lokalpatriotisk etnisk falstring), regionen og “Linux-Danmark” håber jeg det lykkes at få en aktiv, langtidsholdbar forening op at stå.

opensuse-xgl-settings and konvenientSUSE

opensuse-xgl-settings is now released for openSUSE 10.3. For those unfamiliar with it, it’s just a very crude Kommander-script for KDE users that automates the steps required to enable Xgl+Compiz, selecting which compiz plugins to load, install and enable Compiz Fusion, disable Xgl and such, in a graphical way.

I don’t exactly recommend Xgl/Compiz for daily use – but if you want to check it out it should be easy with opensuse-xgl-settings.

konvenientSUSE is another Kommander-script that I have done for openSUSE 10.1 and 10.2. It will not be updated for 10.3 since it’s obsoleted by some new YaST modules – namely Community Repositories and One-click-install.

Weather forecast: Lizard blizzard coming

Tomorrow openSUSE 10.3 will be released, and it’s a great release. I have installed almost every alpha, beta and rc and I have installed the final version since monday thanks to some negligent (or friendly?) mirror admins.

I’ve been using openSUSE (the distro formerly known as SUSE Linux) for about 2½ years, and all this time I’ve heard a few complaints repeated again and again:

• “I don’t want to download so much”
• “boot is slow”
• “package management start-up is slow”
• “adding 3rd party repos and installing multimedia playback packages is too much work”
• “#¤%”#&!” (this last complaint started with 10.1, it’s difficult to decipher but I believe it means something like “I’m not entirely convinced that this Libzypp/YaST/ZENworks-integration is a very good idea”).

After listening to those same complaints for a long period of time, it’s amazing that they are all obsoleted in one single release cycle.

• For openSUSE 10.3 you only need 1 (one!) CD for a full desktop installation (DVD is still available).
• Boot time is vastly improved.
• YaST Software Management/zypper are much faster and lighter on memory due to libzypp rewrite.
• A new YaST-module enables the user to add community software repositories including Packman with a couple of clicks, One-Click-Installer YaST-module also holds great possibilities for example for easy codec installation, and finally Amarok will play mp3 out of the box of a DVD installation with fluendo codecs.
• As for the huge amount of complaints related to the ZENworks Management Daemon (ZMD) and friends (zen-updater, rug), the best possible decision was made, it was dropped completely from openSUSE! It should have never been there in the first place.

With the most common grievances out of the way, I expect that a lot more people will appreciate the traditional virtues of openSUSE. Great KDE which is stable, polished and enhanced (Kickoff menu, sysinfo, kerry, etc.) by the openSUSE star ensemble of KDE developers and maintainers. The 80+ easy to use yet very powerful YaST modules allowing the user to easily configure just about anything on the system with GUI or ncurses. Good balance between up to date packages/stability and easy to use/powerful is also a characteristic trait of openSUSE.

Apart from fixing the major complaints mentioned above and maintaining the traditional SUSE-virtues, this release also has a ton of other exciting new stuff.

KDE4 preview – easily updateable to (at least) weekly svn-snapshots and of course to the final version due in December. Ntfs-3g is installed and used by default enabling write access to NTFS-partitions. New YaST-modules for ftp-server, sshd and squid. KIWI to create your own ISOs for USB, live-CD etc. And one of my favourite new features, the beautiful green artwork – although lacking in Geekos. Within a reasonable timeframe installable live-CDs will be released too – the installer is not yet stable enough. Of course openSUSE 10.3 is completely translated to Danish and Martin, Ib, Jan and I are proud of the work we’ve done.

When the openSUSE project was announced about 2 years ago there was talk about a “Lizard blizzard”, after a couple of years of under-achieving for various reasons I think the lizard blizzard is coming, be prepared!