KDE 4.9 Release Caters to Power Users
With the plethora of open source desktop environments available at the moment, it’s hard to keep track of all the different features sets. And since KDE, which has recently become my interface of choice, arguably enjoys less media love than alternatives such as GNOME and Unity, it seems only fair to highlight some of the feature changes in its next upcoming release, KDE 4.9. Read on for a look — and, just maybe, a few compelling reasons to give KDE a try.
To be honest, I’ve always had a bizarre uneasiness describing myself as a KDE user, a hesitancy I owe mostly to KDE developers’ obsession with inserting the letter “K” wherever possible. That’s a trait I associate with a certain producer of oversugared donuts, not to mention products such as “krazy” glue. It doesn’t make me think of quality software.
Nonetheless, amid all the confusion and upheaval that has struck the Linux world over the last couple years as a new generation of desktop environments — many of them a bit less mature than some might like — have hit the stage, KDE has just worked the best for me. And so it’s been my desktop environment of choice for several months now on my Ubuntu 12.04 system, although I keep Unity and GNOME Shell on hand as well just in case I need to remind myself why I switched to KDE.
KDE 4.9
Since I’m now more or less an official KDE user, I’m glad to see the KDE developers hard at work on the latest and greatest iteration of their excellent desktop environment. Scheduled for final release Aug. 1, 2012, KDE 4.9 will be the latest version of the KDE 4.x platform, which debuted back in 2008.
The full list of KDE 4.9 features, not all of which have been implemented yet, includes a lot of bug fixes and behind-the-scenes enhancements that won’t catch the eyes of many end users. Some of the more notable updates, however, include:
- Improvements to the “Activities” feature of the KDE Plasma Desktop. Windows and files can now be more easily integrated into an Activity, making this somewhat obscure feature — for which, admittedly, there is a learning curve and which may not appeal to non-power users — more useful for those who choose to deploy it.
- Support for renaming files in the Dolphin file manager in line. The absence of this feature has always been one of my peeves about KDE 4, and I’m excited to see it addressed for the new release.
- Dolphin now also does smarter searches, taking advantage of file metadata.
- Tabs in the “Konsole” application — KDE’s native terminal emulator — can now be dragged out into their own window. Again, this is a pretty simple feature that has been present in other desktop environments for a long time, and it’s nice to see it implemented in KDE.
- Last but not lease, Pairs, a simple but effective memory game, has been added to the KDE Edu package.
Overall, the improvements coming with KDE 4.9 cater mostly to advanced users. People who don’t use terminal emulators or understand what metadata is, for example, are less likely to benefit from the changes listed above.
But for those of us with geekier inclinations, the new release of the desktop environment promises to bring some cool new features to what is already a very solid and — especially compared to Unity and GNOME Shell, which are still working out some kinks — usable interface.
Pick any platform, and there’s no desktop environment that is more advanced except maybe OSX. Further, KDE still has plenty of potential built into it. BUT, there’s a catch…
I have a coupple of recommendations though for potential users though:
– Don’t install and test KDE on top of other desktop environments. One will have the best experience with a pure KDE desktop. (That’s valid for all desktop environments.) Feel free to use non-Qt/C++ applications, but use the KDE ones wherever you can.
– IF you want to combine Gnome and KDE in the same installation, OpenSuse works better than anything else.
– You’ll find the best pure KDE experience in Opensuse 12 or Arch Linux.
– The best distributions for early adaptors who wants the latest official release as soon as it is available, use Arch or Opensuse 12 with the “experimental” KDE repository. Arch is preferred.
– For best day to day experience – stick to the KDE version that comes with the (pure) KDE distribution of choice.
– Be conservative – you don’t have to download everything you see.
Some good things about KDE:
– Users can adjust the desktop to fit how they work.
– KDE adapts to you – not the other way around.
– Quite many very good applications.
– The only desktop environment that provides a good UX for NetBooks.
– Background Activities are gentle with your resources until you need them.
– Always improving. Great unreleased potential wrt workflow.
– Snappy and solid.
Some drawbacks with KDE:
– Associated applications have opted for different user experiences thus application user interfaces are not consistent.
– Administration is complex and has a learning curve
– Activities aren’t confusing, but in combination with multiple desktops they are.
– Nepomuk/Akonadi are great – but it gets into your face.
Some advice to KDE:
– Get the administration sorted out – if KDE wants more new users.
– Akonadi/Nepomuk would be fantastic – if the user never saw it.
– Get rid of desktops. It prevents Activities to release its potential.
– Stick to Activities.
– Convince the Application developers to find common grounds wrt UX.
– Kontact needs UX love.
– Stick to Qt/QMl/HTML4 for plasmoids++
– Get Application developers to start working on proper workflow.
– Refocus
– Reorganise access to addons – it’s a mess with no version control or quality control. Hard to find the excellent 10% when searching through 90% trash.
This may sound like a rant, but it’s not. As stated, (in my book) the only DE that matches KDE is OSX. In terms of administration KDE is overly complex, and OSX is overly simplified. How KDE measures compared to Windows? KDE is way ahead – Windows administration is a mess.
Every platform and every desktop environment has room for improvements. That certainly is valid for Unity (which is the first Linux UX ever that is worse than Aero and Metro), Aero/Metro for desktops, Gnome and even OSX.
i’m a new KDE user myself, about 2 months. i started kinda reluctant, now i can’t see myself using anything else. i run it on fedora and i can say it’s a good fit. pretty clean and vanilla. of all the distros i tested, i found chakra and debian to be the fastest and use the least resources with KDE. but for other (hardware) reasons i went with fedora.
now, since dolphin was mentioned, i just wish they’d fix that autorefresh bug. i’m tired of hitting F5 🙂
@Jack
you make some very good points. as a new user though i disagree about complex administration and learning curves, etc. i think that’s a bit of a myth. reading comprehension skills is all one needs.
There is one feature of the kde 4.9 beta that really jumped out at me: It is incredibly snappy and responsive, noticeably more so than version 4.8.
Nice to see some “media love” towards KDE Plasma, it’s well deserved.
One little thing: Dolphin had “inline renaming”, actually, up until 4.8 (and with it, Dolphin 2.0) came out.
With Dolphin 2.0 some features were lost temporarily due to a big rewrite of the file view component. Inline renaming was such a feature, that’s coming back in 4.9 😉
oh, just bugger off with the K naming thing.
you could say the same thing with the childish ‘i’ obsession.
And Gnome has just as Gmany Gstupid Gnames that Gstart with G.
(and really is there ANY name more stupid than Eye Of Gnome?)..
the only reason its not mentioned is that it didnt become a stupid meme repeated mindlessly and that some people find a K sound and look more jarring visually than a G.
Oh, and the BEST ‘pure’ KDE distro is Kubuntu.
Most people call it a vanilla KDE distro because of that reason…
Kubuntu sucked until 10.04 and its on all my parents and inlaws computers since 11.
Some great points made by Jack in comment #1 – I agree with most of what he said. Arch is indeed a great and underappreciated base for a KDE installation, as evidenced by Chakra’s beginnings as Arch + KDEmod, but I get best results (in terms of resource usage) from Gentoo. No real special configuration (USE flags et al), it just uses 80-150MB less RAM than even Arch at idle.
I do generally turn off nepomuk/akonadi (don’t need ’em) and disable unneeded services like bluetooth. This along with conservative (if any) use of desktop effects can result in a KDE that’s actually lighter than many implementations of Xfce and certainly lighter than Unity or gnome-shell in most cases.
KDE has improved greatly as of late. Even Kubuntu has become downright speedy – boots faster than stock Ubuntu for me at least.
I think a great KDE distro is Kubuntu. As a bonus you get all the PPA’s for ultra-fresh software that Ubuntu users have access to. I suppose Linux Mint KDE could be just as good, since it too is compatible with Ubuntu’s PPA’s.
I agree with most of the post. As a user of KDE for a few years now, I would definitely say that it is a good fit for advanced/power users.
At the same time though it is based on a tried and proven “traditional” desktop metaphor, so it is not much of a problem for a new user to find their way around and use all the basic features that are in any desktop environment or OS. It is possible for it to look and behave very much like Windows if that is what you desire, although without using nearly as many resources (yes even with Nepomuk/Akonadi enabled and doing their thing). But it is also possible to customise it in a way that is nothing like Windows. In my opinion this is one of its main strengths – you can find the workflow that suits you best. Unlike most other OSs/environments where there is one official way to do things.
So I would argue that even if you don’t want to use paradigms like “Activities” KDE doesn’t get in your way. Thus, while it does cater to power users, that doesn’t make it unsuitable for any level of computer user.
(One final note: I am an Arch user, so as per the philosophy of that distribution you have to set up/customise KDE to your own tastes. However other distributions ship with a default configuration that is much more suited to normal non-power users.)
One quite important item I forgot to mention:
Where Windows and Ubuntu have decided that one UX fits all formfactors, KDE’s take is that UX and applicatins should be optimised for each formfactor.
Functions and libraries are broken down to common rational, low demand modules that can run on any device/formfactor.
That’s a significant conceptual difference, and that’s why KDE had (still has) the “only” usable UX for netbooks.
@ Istok:
I’m glad you find it easy, but with all due respect the users I had in mind wouldn’t read the TVG blog :o)
Having to read documentation to do the configuration and administration sort of proves my point. Having said that, detox from Windows is a good reason. Some tends to confuse bad habits with logic when departing from Windows. (There’s a learning curve moving to OSX too btw).
@ Chad Rowan:
I beg to differ. If you were right, nothing would have been better though.
@ Claudecat:
Thanks :o)
Most reasonably new machines have no problem with Akonadi/Nepomuk, in particular if its dual core cpu with hyper. Bit slow on first indexing though. But Nepomuk and Akonadi is really background stuff that endusers should enjoy without even noticing its presence.
The Chakra concept is indeed great, but they still need more time and they are aiming for competent users. For those who are unaware of Chakra they started off as KDEmod providing fine grain KDE to Arch.
Now, they are making their own distro which is pure KDE/Qt whilst delivering GTK applications like Gimp as bundles with all required dependencies. The bundles are kept separate from the system.
@ Simon:
I believe the Activities concept is very very smart. But when mixed with the mulitple desktop concept, something goes wrong – the logic becomes strained.
If you set up one activity packed with plasmoids, one with piles of videos and music and one blank, you’ll see that the resource consumption increases when switching to the plasmoids, increases further when switching to videos. When switching to the blank activity, the resource consumption drops down to minimum. Hardly any delays/lag when reactivating the video or plasmoid activity again. Very clever.
Wrt Arch:
Many users are (constantly) testing various distributions to find the best experience. If Arch with KDE is installed on a machine and the user is comfortable with it, I have serious doubt that he/she will find many good reasons to replace it with any other distribution including Opensuse. Arch is the end of distrohopping.
But Arch is not for everybody, and if Arch is wrong for the user, Opensuse is the best alternative as far as I’m concerned.
For the time being I use Ubuntu 12 with Unity (undeserved benefit of doubt).
@Jack
just so we’re clear, i never said anything about having to read “documentation” in order to configure and administer KDE. GUI dialog boxes and dropdowns and such suffice 🙂
Ahh…. Common sense then ;o)
To be honest, no desktop environment or distribution has ever hit bull’s eye wrt admin and configuration. That’s valid for OSX and Windows too.
It’s easy to complicate things, and when trying to fix it – there’s dumbdown alley. True sophistication is when advanced gets logical and user friendly handling. Hopefully KDE focus on that, rather than turning administation back in the direction of KDE 3 (Aka admin HELL), which they did to some extent somwhere around KDE 4.3 or 4.4.
Worst thing KDE does is trying to please old KDE 3 fans of a certain kind. That’s as bad as adjusting DE and application logic to Windows in order to recruit users.
Jack wrote: “Get rid of desktops. It prevents Activities to release its potential.”
I disagree. I like virtual desktops just fine, and would not want them removed. In fact, for me to start taking more of an interest in Activities I would like to see each Activity become completely independent, so that each Activity could have its own set of virtual desktops entirely independent of the other Activities, with each Activity having its own Panel(s), its own virtual Desktops, its own ~/Desktop directory and so on.
there is another pure kde distro:
openxange.org
there is another pure kde distro:
openxange.org
there is another pure kde distro: openxange.org
Thanks for the KDE article. I too am a new KDE user. I came to Linux through hearing of Ubuntu. Ubuntu forums and a plethora of articles made it seem that KDE was not worth looking into. I am so glad Unity came to be, otherwise I would have never given KDE a chance! Now, while I regret that it took me this long to find it, I’m a very happy camper.
One improvement suggestion: When widgets are unlocked, one should be able to rearrange the icons on the panel without having to click on Panel Settings first! The way it is now is very unintuitive.
There, that is my pet-peeve. (Just so you see that I am objective. 😉
One more thing. When widgets are unlocked there should be a very visible clue to the user that encourages him to lock the widgets for normal use.
@ Fitzcarraldo:
More independence would be a good thing – especially individual panels.
Otherwise: One of the problems is that activities and desktops are not integrated. They are administered differently from different places. The combo is Rubick’s cube.
If there’s need for another workspace – add an activity.
(I’m well aware that there’s quite a bit of functionality attached to the multiple desktops. In fact, that’s the point – It won’t be ported to activities until they decide to kill desktops). Desktops = legacy, and it prevents improvement of activities.
Meanwhile Activities is stuck in the middle of nowhere, and users can’t be bothered. A shame really.
@ Jack:
Virtual desktops and activites do not need to be mutually exclusive. In fact, they can coexist quite nicely. I’ll give you an example. Say you’re a student working on a research paper and you want to break down your tasks by three main categories: personal (e.g., Facebook, instant messenger), research (web browser, miscellanious/unorganized documents amp; sources), and your actual work project (word processor, collated documents and sources which are organized and ready to be implemented into the paper). Activities will allow you to easily differentiate these tasks and avoid distractions from irrelevant tasks when you’re attempting to focus on a specific task, such as a new post popping up on Facebook when you’re busy trying to research something. Desktops will then take this a step further and allow you to subdivide your tasks (activities) for the sake of organization and workflow. When you really start getting into it, having activities and virtual desktops together makes for a very pleasant, organized experience, and I wouldn’t want to see either one of them go. Besides all of that: even if one doesn’t like or use either virtual desktops or activities, should not the option be there regardless? I have never seen the KDE folks as the type to take legitimate options away from its users. That’s the GNOME team’s job. 😉
@Samuel:
I don’t mind the functionality. The problem is the degree of separation, thus “having it together” is not how it is today.
I consider your way of using it as compensation for the disadvantage of keeping them separate, and it could be handled differently. E.G. by profiles which allows you to group activities and pick a profile that matches what you are working with right now.
For instance I’m working with different screen constellations, and could really benefit from presets in activities.
As long as Desktops and Activities are kept separate activities won’t get much needed functionality that is handled by desktops and so on. E.g. how transitions and so on are handled when shifting between desktops should be a part of Activities.
Choice is a good thing – often – not always.
In this case I believe that keeping Desktops (which I consider legacy) prevents Activities from being fully utilised. Therefore the ability to choose between the 2 separate alternatives – or the ability of combining the 2 separate alternatives – is bad.
Relevant functionality should be merged into Activites, and I would like to see even more functionality (e.g. individual panels for each activity).
I don’t really want to loose the good things that are attached to Desktops – I would like it to be a part of Activities. By collecting the relevant bits and pieces into Activities it should become way easier to improve the combined functionality. As long as they are split, you won’t be able to make it work optimally together.
In some cases I get the impression that KDE keeps some legacy stuff of sentimental reasons and not because its the best solution. That’s not a good thing if or when it prevents KDE 4 from being as good as it can be.
It kind of reminds me about the good old american muscle cars.
The fixed rear axle and suspension is part of the muscle car characteristics, but every european interested in cars knows that the road handling and ride suffers badly from it.
@Samuel: Precisely!
KDE is my favorite DE but there is one thing that i can’t stand about it… the oxygen theme… it makes the windows look fat and ugly… with those gray colors and gradients, bleee…
@ MinimikeQT:
Strange argument – as Oxygen is easily replaceable and you can pick color schemes or make your own mixed bag of colors. It can be as fat as you like – or you can twiggify it.
You can virtually make KDE as good lookin’ as you want – or as bad as you can. By using KDE proper themes – or by using “theme engines”.
I seriously doubt you are familar with the customisation of Oxygen – or any other KDE theme.
http://kde-look.org/index.php?xsortmode=highamp;logpage=0amp;xcontentmode=17x18x19x20x21x75x81x102x103amp;page=1
http://kde-look.org/index.php?xcontentmode=28×74
…but first of all I suggest that you set up your monitor and fonts ++ properly.
@Jack “Oxygen is easily replaceable”
Yes, but the problem is that most of the themes(skins/styles) is very poor quality and look even worse then the oxygen theme…
Bespin an qtcurve are probably the best replacement of the oxygen but there are still faaaaaaaaar from “great” for me…
As OSX “look” is of significant age – I am not familiar with any desktop “Look” that is any good. Not, XP/W7/W8, not Gnome, not Unity.
KDE Oxygen shows signs of aging too – but is on the better side of the pack.
KDE folks must be happy if Oxygen is the worst part of it. ;o)
Fedora has a really rocking KDE spin that is often overlooked. There is even a KDE-Unstable repo where you can always get the latest KDE bits.
Fedora is still a experimental distro. Being experimental is what it’s supposed to be. Never was intended for general production usage.
Great for those who matches the user groups it’s intended for. Production users would quite often be better off with other alternatives.
Jack – Fedora is *not* an experimental distro. Fedora “Rawhide” might be seen as experimental, but not a released Fedora version. In fact, most Red Hat engineers run Fedora on their workstations, as do I at work, home and on my laptop. I wouldn’t trust my work desktop with an “experimental” distro.
I just switched to KDE myself a couple weeks ago. I never wanted to give it a chance really. I can say I have never been happier with a DE. Arch + KDE has given me the best Linux experience in the past 3 years of strictly using Linux. My only beef with Linux now is the awful battery life on laptops.