[arch-general] KDE4.3 Beta - Rocks, still a bit rough, but very usable as a primary desktop

[David C. Rankin]

Listmates,

	Having been a leading pessimist of KDE4 since a crippled 4.04 was dumped on 
the openSuSE community on 11.0 and then more disappointment dumped again with 
kde 4.1 in 11.1, I have been skeptical if the desktop, which from first looks 
was something developed by teenagers on way too much Jolt Soda, would ever get 
to a usable state.

	Well for the past week I took the plunge again with openSuSE's 4.3Beta1 1-
click install on my spare drive, and ... I never thought I would type these 
words, but I like it! It is more than usable as a primary desktop. That's not 
to say it doesn't still need a lot of tlc, but the bugs are largely run of the 
mill bugs that just need cleanup and aren't showstoppers.

	One of my biggest bitches has been the fish_kio functionality and the 
inability to connect to boxes across the internet (fish over lan worked). 

	Well, fish over the internet isn't broken, it's just really screwed up! What 
that means is that you can actually get fish to connect to a remote box (you 
just have to repeatedly try the same connection 3-25 times have it connect-
crash-disconnect until it actually succeeds in connecting and establishing a 
session for the first time)

	The upside? Once you establish the connection to your remote host the first 
time, fish will re-connect to it as usual. No kidding. Why it craters after 
connecting and before a fish session is established the on the first 3-25 
times is still up in the air, as well as why it continues to work just fine 
after that... but it does.

	I have given kde4 on heck of a shakedown and added 15 or so new, along with a 
couple of old, bugs to bugs.kde.org. Here is a short list of the bugs from the 
shakedown of kde4 in the past few days (just add the "ID" at the end of:

 https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=

if you want the details)

ID      Summary
195247  KDE4.3beta1 knotes causes SegFault in Kontact
195259  kmail "message structure" needs show/hide button
195505  Composer Standard Templates Defaults Not Reset After Default Pressed & 
OK
195635  Konqueror "Tabbed Browsing" Settings Do Not Take Effect until Restart
195808  File Manager Does Not Restore Saved Profile
195697  F8 (show hidden files) Requires Manual Focus on File List
158985  kbattleship freezes when attempting to join lan game
195528  Detail View: Clicking in space between File/Folder name and Size fails 
to place Focus
195533  kmail: No indication shown for Unread Messages in Collapsed Thread
195343  New sub-basket does not respect color scheme
195623  Basket Groups Not Expanded and Systray Icon Won't Restore Basket App
195489  Organization should be Formatted Name if no Family or Given present
195493  Groupware Integration Authentication Fails after Session Timeout
195523  "Formatted Name" Listbox needs to be accessible outside "Edit Name" 
subform
195367  fish_kio Fails in kde4.3 for konqueror, kate, kwrite, etc..
176599  Wish - KfontViewer needs 'next->file' 'previous->file' and 'mark/tag' 
features
189583  Ability to add submenu "like editors" to kicker panel from classic 
menu

	If you have been staying away from kde4 until it was "usable" (as I was), 
well, "It's Usable!" in 4.3 Beta. The more users that take the plunge now and 
find the little snafus in their favorite apps and bug it to bugs.kde.org, the 
quicker it will be "Cleanly Usable"

	Now all I have to do is figure out how to get 4.3 Beta loaded on my Arch 
drive and I'll be golden! Seriously, I thought I would load kde4, see what had 
improved and be disappointed again, probably trash my elegant kde3 install 
with cross-configuration issues in the process, and have to dump the drive and 
reinstall. Was I ever pleasantly surprised. If you have been in the same 
holding-pattern lately in your thinking about kde4 as well -- I bet you will 
be pleasantly surprised as well ;-)

	Thank God .. There is hope for KDE4 after all!

P.S. To really see the desktop effects as they should be, you need to adjust 
the "Animation duration" to something that is reasonable for your hardware (it 
is set to a terrible default for any newer hardware) In kde control center > 
appearance > desktop effects (then in the individual effect settings) try a 
setting of about 250ms and go up (most likely) or down by 50ms at a time until 
the effects smooth out and look right. 250-280ms worked fine on my laptop.

	I suspect the default is off by a factor of 10 from its intended setting 
which makes the effects look jerky and crude compared to the compiz effect 
they were based on. (the default is probably 25ms when it was intended to be 
250ms) Anyway, it sure make the effects look much better. The kde4 desktop 
effects still don't compare to the equivalent compiz effects and there is no 
equivalent to certain compiz effects I really like (Expo, etc.), but what is 
there looks pretty darn good for KDE4 all things considered.

	Give it a go... Now where can I get 4.3 Beta for Arch? or at least a good 
howto on how to download the build dependencies needed to build from source. 
I'll check the wiki ;-)

-- 
David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E.
Rankin Law Firm, PLLC
510 Ochiltree Street
Nacogdoches, Texas 75961
Telephone: (936) 715-9333
Facsimile: (936) 715-9339
www.rankinlawfirm.com