KDE 4: the good, the bad and the broken

[Dotan Cohen]

On 29 April 2010 03:32, Draciron Smith <draciron at gmail.com> wrote:
> On the Good side I'll say features they are working to implement. It
> sounds like the Plasma thing is the right direction if they ever get
> it really working. Right now it really is not ready for prime time and
> switching reduced configuration and functionality. for no gain.
>

Thanks.


> On the bad side.
> Dropping of some beloved apps like kedit.
>

I will add Kedit to the list.


> On the broken side.
> This could be a really really really really long list.

Ass long as you like! We might even solve some problems or file some bugs.


> For starters
> picking up non-KDE apps in the menu. It took 2 updates before Firefox
> finally showed up in my menu and 3 updates before the add application
> function actually worked.  Yet I still can't get Gimp added to my menu
> much less my task bar. Every attempt fails. It looks like I added it
> but I go to look and it's not in the menu and if it's not in the menu
> it cannot be added to the task bar. Who knows if this update whether I
> can actually drag and drop. Sometimes I can drag menu items to the
> task bar and they actually go there, other updates I can drag all I
> want but I still cannot add an app to the task bar.
>

I have not had this problem. Are you saving the menu after editing it?
It needs to be saved before the changes take place, and I myself have
been guilty of closing the menu editor without saving.


> An easy replacement for shortcuts is needed. One of the many things
> which once the Plasma desktop is actually working as described will be
> nice but right now there's no reasonable method to create one.
>

Do you meant shortcuts to applications on the desktop? I will mention
that, it is a common use case. Thanks!


> Better distro support. Last time I tried to install KDE under Ubuntu
> it was an abysmal failure. I used the Ubutunu repositories and nothing
> worked. Gnome worked fine on that machine and was the default from the
> installation. No sound under KDE, menu options gone, the logout log
> off functions broken, no way to change the graphics resolution but I
> could under Gnome. I forget half the problems but it was the most
> botched KDE install I've ever attempted. Since it wasn't my machine I
> just set the user up with Gnome instead of going thorugh dependency
> hell trying to install from tarballs.

That is a Ubuntu issue, not a KDE issue, sorry. But I will tell you
that Kubuntu works fine, in fact most of my installs are Kubuntu.


> The Fedora install of KDE
> worked out of the box but as I mentioned I've had problems with
> updates adding and removing core functionality.  Don't have any SUSE
> machines running at the moment but I'm sure I'd have similar
> complaints about SUSE. Between Fedora, Ubuntu and SUSE your talking
> over a third of desktop installs and that's at least a third of
> potential KDE users running into serious problems just installing or
> maintaiing a KDE system.
>

Please file bugs with your distros. Feel free to email to me the bug
numbers in private mail (in a new thread, not a reply here) so that I
can triage them.


> Memory usage. There is a memory leak and a big one somewhere. Since
> moving to KDE 4 on this machine I've had to restart KDE multiple
> times. Something I normally only do a couple times a year. KDE 3 could
> be counted on to work and work great until I had to reboot for other
> reasons. While I've not had to reboot I've had the system just crater
> and run out of memory and electing to stop KDE causing me to have to
> log back in. Which means 5 minutes or more of waiting for all those
> apps to reopen. Some of which I have to reopen the specific file I was
> editing/working on.
>

Which distro? Which apps? I have not had this issue with KDE, though
Firefox has a huge memory leak.


> Pulse audio only sort of works under KDE 4. With Audacious I lose the
> last 30 seconds of every song, with QNMP I suffer serious volume
> issues, with other sound players I suffer conflicts as they default to
> non-Pulse audio.  It'd be really nice to have Jack integrated into KDE
> if possible. I know Jack is a complete pain to work with but so many
> audio apps require it yet Jack is notoriously fussy under KDE, even
> more so than under Gnome. I don't even bother installing it on most
> machines because it conflicts so badly with KDE especially with Fedora
> based distros. There was an OpenSUSE distro which actually got Jack
> working great under KDE so it's possible. Unfortunately nobody is
> maintaining that distro. Tempting to take it apart to figure out how
> they got Jack to work and play well with KDE.  The importance is
> simple. If you are a musician or intend to make movies or do any heavy
> audio editing under Linux you need Jack because so many apps like
> Audour, Rosegarden and even drum machines require it. I personally
> don't like it and have complained to the authors of that software but
> I don't see them switching away from Jack any time soon.
>

Again, this is a distro issue. Does PA or Jack work better under
Gnome? I honestly don't know too much about the sound systems, but I
did not realize they were so dependant on the desktop environment.


> The loss of the ability to use a different image for each desktop.
> Initially I thought this a minor annoyance but I didn't realize how
> much I depended on this to keep track of what desktop I was actually
> on.
>

I think that's back in KDE 4.5.


> Side bar proportions and editing of task bars are really awkward at
> best. Given up on having a side bar and just have a top and bottom
> bar. The applets are so badly distorted on the sidebar that things
> like a calendar cannot be read.  I'd love to move very uncommonly used
> items like netorking over to secondary task bars but it just
> duplicates them not removes them. If I remove them from the primary
> task bar they go away on ALL taskbars. I use the networking icon maybe
> twice a year. It's however handy to have on a secondary task bar since
> the ifup and ifdown commands no longer work on so many distros. Having
> it required for the main taskbar makes no sense. Why would it remove
> it from other taskbars if I remove it from the main task bar?
>

Thank you, I know that this is a mess! I will talk about this.
Additionally, if you want to help fix this issue then please start a
new thread on the subject and CC me. There are open bug reports and
your input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!


> The grouping on the taskbar fails to fade if you don't choose anything
> and change your focus. The tooltip doesn't go away obscuring what your
> trying to choose. The tooltips should be on the side not over the
> grouped items.
>

Mention that in the new thread that I mentioned above. And don't
forget to CC me!


> The reporting tool is broken. Even when I install the debugging libs
> it still says they are not installed. If I click the install link on
> the reporting tool it's broken. Not sure how much of this is Fedora
> KDE specific or if it's more KDE specific. Don't have any current
> Ubuntu machines up at the moment.  Still using KDE 3 on my laptop.
>

Yes, that sounds like a distro issue. It works decently, but not 100%,
under Kubuntu.


> There's more, that's just what I'm remembering off hand that's bugging
> me this week and that I haven't found a work around for that's become
> habit.
>

Keep me posted. I'd actually like to help you solve the issues
mentioned earlier if you are interested. Thanks.


-- 
Dotan Cohen

http://bido.com
http://what-is-what.com
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