Plasma alternative

[Duncan]

Felipe Rodrigues Maia posted on Sat, 17 Oct 2009 14:51:21 -0700 as
excerpted:

> I was looking for an official component that could provide better
> performance than Plasma on old hardwares.
> 
> My question has been resolved. As explained by Duncan about KDE4, there
> isn't an official component that provides the same funcionalities as the
> plasma.


The performance issue is a valid one, especially on older hardware.  A 
good graphics card and setup is vital for most of the eye candy that 
sells kde4 as better than 3 (there are other features that make it better 
as well, but these are generally behind the scenes and many, such as 
akonadi, won't come to full power until kde 4.5, so it's the eye candy, 
and the fact that kde3 seems to be simply being dumped by they wayside, 
that seems to form the reasons to switch, currently).

If one wishes, of course, it's possible to turn the eye candy off, and 
then plasma and kwin especially, perform about like their older brethren 
did.  However, as one turns off the eye candy, the remaining bugs in kde4 
that make it less functional than kde3 in some ways, become even MORE 
apparent.

Thus the frustration.  It's much the same problem Vista had.  Aero Glass 
was great... for hardware on which it worked.  But the developer kept 
saying it worked for existing hardware as well, which it sort of did, but 
then all the features that one would switch for didn't work, and many 
found it better to stay with the old version, eXPrivacy.

But one thing MS had was continuing support of that old version.  With 
kde, the old version is getting dumped by the wayside, bugs being closed 
as unsupported, upgrade, etc, with little official kde support.

Oh, well...  Whatever is done is done, and kde4 is at least up to 
reasonable beta level functionality now.  With trends as they are, 4.4, 
scheduled for February, should be release-candidate level, and 4.5, 
provided the switch to akonadi etc goes smoothly tho that's yet to be 
seen, should finally be up to 3.5 in functionality and quality.  But how 
many folks will have switched and won't return?

But meanwhile, yes, replacing the desktop is possible, tho I do wonder 
what the point would be, if keeping the rest of kde, then.  Might as well 
just run some other desktop environment, and run the kde apps one likes 
on it, because really, a desktop environment without the desktop... 
ceases to be a desktop environment.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

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