KDE's rough edges... what are your experiences?

[Frank Steinmetzger]

On Sun, Oct 27, 2013 at 07:54:09AM +0100, Michael wrote:
> Hi peops,
> […]
> 3.) Widgets, plasmoids, generel KDE features: Yeah well, really nice
> design (mostly), but from a usability standpoint? Often a mess.

Plasma is a constant source of annoyance for me. I never really
understood the need for a second UI style next to the “normal” one.  The
many animations that can’t be switched off and low contrasts are causes
of grievance for me. There are layout bugs (notifications on a friend’s
machine pop up in three places simultaneously), redrawing bugs (flicker
in the taskbar when switching desktops), UI bugs (the scrollbars don’t
adhere to the usual GUI behaviour like middle-click) and feature
regressions (ksysguard graphs are nigh-useless in a panel).

> 4.) […] configuration tends be be trashed every now and then, from one
> moment to the next (in the process of configuring KDE for example, so
> no change to the installed packages or other changes to the system)
> KDE may start to behave "weird".

Akonadi, the problem child for many, is a nice example with its (for
this human) incomprehensible config and data file layout. When I back up
my setup or want to sync two machines, I’m never really sure what files
to include and exclude if I, for example, want to sync only my address
book data between machines. I went akonadi-free for a while on the
netbook, but eventually installed it again because KMail just fits best
into my Qt-centric computing ecosystem (although I prefer Firefox as
main browser).

> […]
> So, that all said, what do you guys, users and maybe even developers of
> KDE, think? I don't want to come around as rude or overly harsh, as
> really, I think KDE is a great Desktop Environment, it just has some
> really rough edges.

Sometimes I find myself using XFCE or even Awesome on my netbook for
their sheer speed and easy go on resources. But from a convenience
standpoint, KDE beats them all with nice extra features (KIO, global
keyboard shortcuts, range of consistent base-applications). And even
though I have some issues with it now and then (like reliable and *easy*
file transfer via Bluetooth), I come back to KDE every time, despite it
taking 20 hours to compile on an Atom. ^^

> Is it just me, or are others also thinking KDE could / should invest
> more efforts in QA and maybe less in implementing new stuff?

I, too, sometimes think “It’s a grave bug and so old already, why
doesn’t it get fixed?eleven?”, like bad scrolling distances in Dolphin.
But I suppose part of why I can’t always be accomodated with my problems
is my diminishing use case -- KDE on a weak netbook. Brightness control
is really messed up on *my* machine right now (it works, but KDE and
ACPI fight over control, so I get temporary lockups). But I’m not the
majority, so I can’t expect everything to go smoothly in all cases.
After all, you get what you pay for. ;o)

I suppose right now the migration to 5.0 takes lots of developer
resources, so I imagine fixing bugs in “obsolete” 4 gets even less
attention. I attempted fixing bugs before (and sent a patch in two
instances), but it requires lots of work to get into the code,
especially in bigger projects like Amarok or KMail.



I thought of not sending this, as it is more like a collection of bug
whining, but after having spent lots of time on composing, it would be a
waste of electrons not to send it.
-- 
Gruß | Greetings | Qapla’
Please do not share anything from, with or about me with any Facebook service.

You call this cappucino?  It’s not even sprinkled with Parmesan!
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