KDE 4 (yes, again...): what features are you using?

[Anne Wilson]

On Wednesday 25 March 2009 05:36:31 Thierry de Coulon wrote:
> On Wednesday 25 March 2009, James Richard Tyrer wrote:
> > > Now it appears that, at least in OpenSuSE, this file gets overwritten
> > > with the defaults (or the present settings, I don't know) when you
> > > log out, so your changes are lost.
> >
> > I should first tell you that you should only edit the file when the
> > session it is for is NOT running.  This tends to be true of many
> > configuration files for KDE (in 3.x.y as well).
>
> I suppose this means starting a Gnome (or other desktop) session, or first
> killing X?
>
No.  From a konsole (user) type 'kquitapp plasma && plasma'.  Your desktop 
will disappear but konsole will stay visible.  Do whatever editing you want to 
do (backup the file first in case of problems), then restart plasma with 
'plasma'.

> (...)
>
> > Starting at 0, there is a problem that the KDE-4 project doesn't start
> > at 0.  If this was a new independent project and we had released version
> > 0.2.1, nobody would be complaining since users would figure that when it
> > got to 1.0.0 that it would probably work correctly.  So, we really
> > shouldn't call this KDE-4.x.y, it should be called KDE4-0.x.y.
>
> I absolutely agree. Being an ex-OS/2 user I've always thought it should
> have been called KDE/2, and it should have been said that KDE 3.x would
> remain (but no more be developped) and /2 would eventually be the
> successor.
>
> I plainly trust the developpers to make KDE 4 a wonderful piece of software
> (in the end), but I doubt it will be there in 0.4.3 (pardon, 4.3) and
> Distribution makers like Novell (pardon, OpenSuSE) said they want to go
> "KDE 4 only" as of their next release.
>
> If I have to upgrade my distribution (this may be necessary depending on
> hardware) I will probably swith to Gnome and ... may never come back
> (what's more, you can perfectly start KDE 4 apps from Gnome).
>
> One way or the other, I'll miss KDE 3 features, so the winner will be
> either the one that makes me loose less, or the one that brings me some
> killer feature. For the time being, the only one I found in 4.2 is the
> possibility to have two clocks on my two screns that are set do different
> timezones...
>
For me there is no 'killer app', but lots of feature improvements, the sum of 
which make it much more enjoyable and convenient than KDE3 was.  It's a sort-
of 'grow-on-you' as you find yourself gradually discovering features that work 
for you and you use a lot.  The pivotal moment is when you find yourself 
working on a KDE3 desktop and cursing because the newly-created habits are no 
longer working.

> That's not enough fo me at the moment, and while I thank all the
> contributors to this thread for sharing their thoughts, it seems to me
> ovious that they have to _think_ to show a feature that makes KDE 4
> sensible "against" KDE 3
>
Not so.  We did not have to 'think' any more than we would have to for any 
question.  Someone else remarked on the many features of dolphin - there was 
no point in my repeating his comments.  And so on, and so on.

I think the real problem is that you don't discover the advantages until 
you've used it for a while, and many people don't stick with it long enough to 
make the discovery.  All is not perfect, but then it never was.  I always said 
that 'bling' does not attract me - I never bothered with compiz, for instance 
- but this steady adding of features that are genuinely useful make KDE4 the 
desktop of choice for me.  It won't be for everyone, but that's life :-)

Anne
-- 
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