How long will it take the KDE developers to realize that users want their applications "maximized" every time after they indicate that preference initially by clicking on the maximize button? Seriously, Gnome has been doing that forever, and they're nowhere near KDE in terms of eye candy. Until this is standard in KDE, many users will stick with Gnome for "ease of use".

And please don't tell me that I can set my application preferences for maximized windows. I know that, but I shouldn't have to do that with EVERY application to have them maximized upon startup.

Whew, end of rant.

I agree. When KDE 4.0 first came out I was a tad disappointed but now with KDE 4.2 its amazing. I installed Mandriva with KDE 2.0 for my non techy friend recently and she loved it. Best of all I didn't have to spend more than 10 mins giving an intro to linux and KDE. Talk about ease of use !!!
Its not perfect but as with most open source apps getting better with each release.

You can set one rule in window rules that every window will get initially maximized.

@Gary:

Please don't confuse your personal preferences with everybody elses preferences ;)

On some desktops I have only on app, on others I have 2,3 and 4 positioned, each in their own (same) position every time. KDE achieves far better control easier than in Gnome. My autostarting apps opens exactly how and where I want them.

I terms of logic KDE have placed the controls where they are used - to a great extent. That includes panels, plasmoids, plasmathemes, wallpapers, applications, windows and windowdecorations.

It is important to make an distinction between logical placement/behaviour and what users like you and me are accustomed to.

In my opinion KDE made a bold and indeed wise move when allowing logic to prevail over user's habits. The logic behind KDE is not skindeep but build into every segment. I anticipate that it will become more evident when Akonadi/Nepomuk and so on becomes fully utilised.

New users may have to spend a little extra time to become familiar (like I did), but in the long run it enables users habits to become more logical thus rational.

The extent of "eyecandy" may vary amongst users, but it comes rather cheap in terms of spent resources in KDE 4, and no one have to use it if they don't like it.

Don't get me wrong, KDE 4 is not perfect, but it matches anything else available in any OS. For now. ;)

I've been waiting to change to v4 since it came out but unlike many panicking princesses, I read the fine print which said that 4.0 wasnt ready and then I did something that many people didnt think of doing.... I stuck with KDE3.5 until it was ready.

KDE4.2 is now ready for mom and pop to use.
They love the useful eyecandy like the multiscreen view and the excellent zoom features.

My sister in law had bought a Dell Mini 9 and wasnt thrilled with the Ubuntu it came wtih which she compared to some old Windows version from 10-15 yrs ago. I installed her Kubuntu 8.10 to stay in the same family and she simply adores it (and I realized that one click mkes more sense than double click on a netbook).

I love the PCLinuxOS2007 I have running in our spare room and while 3.5 is still an amazing desktop, its almost a letdown to use after using the Mandriva2009-KDE4.2 I have running elsewhere in our house.

I use Vista and OS10 at work and when I bring in my laptop to work nowadays most people's reaction is "That's Linux??".

4.2 still isnt perfect but there is no such thing in free software. Every 6 months we get a new desktop and its constantly evolving. KDE 4 is now finally usable for my folks to use, everything else will be reaching for new summits and integrating concepts like Nepomuk.

We need to constantly more forward in techology and being prepared for new challanges. Now that the insfrastructure of KDE has changed from 3 to 4, it is ready for the future.

Im still learning v4.2, so Im gonna hold off on trying out 4.3 for a bit and rely on tech writers to keep me in the loop.

Not every application needs to be maximized. I don't want my console window to be for instance. I think the best way would be for the program to save and restore settings that include its size and position. This way the use sets it up once and gets it there way every time.

In fact rather then making the programer do this, perhaps it should go into the application handle KApplication which is the first thing created and the last thing destroyed.

@Gary: You want all your apps maximized every time you open them? You must be using a small monitor. Outside of watching movies or sorting through my photo collection, I virtually never maximize any window. 22 inches of widescreen format is far more space than most apps need. I'm very happy that KDE takes a sane "configure it however you want" approach, rather than your "everybody wants what I want, obviously" approach.

Unfortunately for the Free World, KDE 4 sucks!!! it has a lot unimportant eye candy things that is good for the casual user but the usability has droped down to a level that compromise the existence of KDE. Also the huge memory consumption makes me feel like if I am working with Redmond Products.

I've been using KDE for many years but since version 4 emerged to be standard in most distros I switch to gnome which I still consider very fair but at least let me work satisfactorily.

@Fabrizio:
If you don't like it don't use it - you still got at least a year with KDE 3.5.x or you could start using Gnome (for a year - they will make a hairdoo too). Or use XFce - it's great.

KDE 4 is here whether you like it or not. You migh just as well get over it.

@Jacob:
You don't seem to like it when people say negative things about KDE 4. Some people don't like KDE 4 and they also have the right to post their opinion.

Actually KDE 3.5 will be supported in debian stable (lenny) for a couple years. So I have my KDE linux install set to lenny so I'll never get KDE 4.X on it. I also have a more bleeding-edge install debian testing (squeeze). On that install I put the latest Gnome. Now I use one or the other install but when lenny stops being supported I'll probably just stick with Gnome.

"KDE 4.3.0 Beta 1...Linux desktop's future"

I sure hope not. I hope that the other *nix desktop environments don't follow KDE's example. A minimal KDE 4.X install on my computer takes about twice as much RAM than a minimal Gnome install. These new "improvements" are taking a lot of computer resources and aren't making the software more productive or easier to use.

@ Gary

System Settings > Window Behaviour > advanced

Set the placement option to smart.

Now your apps will open in what ever position you last used it in.

The System Settings > Window Behaviour > Window Specific lets you setup the beavhiour for individual applications so you could for instance set firefox to always start maximised if you wanted and have konsole open to 300x200 pixels in the bottom right corner of the screen if you so wished.

Can gnome do that???

Repository for Kubuntu please. Someone post it please.

@Gary

I sometimes maximize an application, but put it back to regular size again later. If It didn't honor that and maximized itself the next time I started it, I'd be inclined to file a bug report.

You cite that GNOME is like that; that's one of the many reasons why KDE beats GNOME so badly, I guess. I quit using GNOME after KDE 3.0 came out because KDE was so much better. GNOME has not closed that gap at all. It's like American car makers trying to catch up to Japanese ones; every time the American ones improve, the Japanese ones improve at least as much, keeping the gap as large as ever. (Trust me on that; I bought a new car recently, and after shopping American brands I chose a made-in-the-USA Honda; it's a whole generation ahead of the competing American vehicles in its class.)

@Jeff:

I have good experiences with both Gnome and XFce.

Anyone are offcourse free to post whatever they like. However, I am not in general very sympathetic to blatant lies.

I have tested STANDARD clean installs of Ubuntu 9.04 Beta and KDE 4.2 used less than 20 mb more than Gnome.

Arguing that KDE 4 is putting KDE at risk is fundamentally wrong as the number of users and people helping out are higher, the activity is increasing and all applications are improving. A lot.

To put it very blunt and simple: Fabricio is lying and he either knows it or he do not know anything about KDE 4. Can't be both.

When it comes to consumption of resources KDE 4.2.3 uses less resources than KDE 3.5.x and not more.

I had one issue in terms of resources with KDE 4.0.x on a 9 year old Thinkpad (Ati 4mb) and that was missing 3D support. KDE 4 resource-consumption has decreased for every single version since KDE 4.0.65.

Anybody are entitled to use whatever their preferences are - competition is a perk, but at least be decent enough to abstain from blatant lies.

Lies won't make your choice better, and it won't make mine worse.

KDE 4.2.3 in Kubuntu (Jaunty ++):
https://launchpad.net/~kubuntu-experimental/+archive/ppa

Arch/KDEmod is a very good distribution if the intention is to follow the latests of KDE 4, Kernel, Xorg and drivers.

@Jacob:

I hope you're not insinuating that I'm lying because I'm not. I admit that I haven't tried KDE 4.2. The last version I tried was KDE 4.1. It's interesting that you say the usage has been dropping because I've found that when I upgraded KDE 4.0 to KDE 4.1 the usage went up. I'm using 32-bit debian and here are the approximate footprints measured on minimum installs (no compositing etc.) with each of the desktop environments just after booting with no applications running other than a terminal and using free to measure the usage not including the buffers and cache.

Gnome 2.22~70 MB (lenny)
KDE 3.5.9~60MB (lenny)
Gnome 2.24~90 MB (squeeze)
KDE 4.1~160 MB (lenny)

I know there was an article a while back where this writer measured the RAM usage of KDE 4.0 and compared it to KDE 3.5 and said that KDE 4.0 took something like 39% less RAM than KDE 3.5. That writer has since admitted that he didn't properly measure the RAM and the article was wrong. Even though the article is wrong I've seen it cited over and over again on the Internet ad nauseum.

I have 2 GB RAM, so i don't care if KDE 4 use 100 MB more than any other DE. And, you can read this http://www.kdedevelopers.org/node/3959

I wonder if you still not satisfied

kyosan said: Or jeff said:

It seems to me that kyosan and jeff reply as one, or is that me being confused?

Anyway.

RAM is not really a problem for me either, and I only take an interest in it because it appears to be an issue in debates, and the experience expressed doesn't match mine. At all.

I went through every issue a known writer had with KDE (and I did so thoroughly - in detail) and all statements were wrong. The writer even used a previous version to write a review about the released version, and that was indeed significant.

I do apologise if my statement regarding lies was ill taken by someone else than whom it was directed towards, which was Fabricio.

The test referred to by kyosan was indeed the background for my statement when comparing KDE 3.5 and 4.x and the reason for me using it is that it matched my personal experience. My experience was not a 40% reduction - far from it.

The comparisation between Gnome and KDE 4 was made with Ubuntu 9.04 and Kubuntu 9.04 betas - unmodified standard installs. Reason for using that was simply because it will reflect the average user if such exists.

When it comes to comparing both KDE and Gnome without composites that will most definately provide an advantage in favour of Gnome as switching on/off composite in KDE will not produce a significant difference.

The demand of RAM has been reduced for every version of KDE 4. It was noticeable from 4.0 to 4.1 betas and for 4.1. It dropped further for 4.2 betas and 4.2. Further, a reduction came with Qt 4.5 betas and Qt 4.5 + Qt 4.5.1.

For the KDE 4.2 series there are several possible combinations with Qt as KDE 4.2 could be built against both Qt 4.4.x, Qt 4.5 and Qt 4.5.1. If it's built with Qt 4.4.x it still can be run with Qt 4.5.

KDE 4.2 and Qt 4.4.x belongs together, but after a few bugfixes all KDE 4.2 versions runs very well with Qt 4.5 and later Qt 4.5.1.

(KDE 4.2.2 just became available in Debian I believe).

I do offcourse realise that this can be confusing, but that should dissipate when KDE 4.3 becomes available. I'm using KDE 4.3 beta 1 with Qt 4.5.1 in one of my installations and it is about equal to KDE 4.2.3 with Qt 4.5.1.

I did notice the hike which "Mee" addresses and links to. That increased the memory usage significantly but it is now down to normal.

It is worth taking note of the GPUdriver influence. KDE 4 has suffered from it a coupple of times, but I have had similar experiences with Gnome/Ubuntu where Compis and Firefox/Flash together with the propietary nvidiadriver was a problem in Ubuntu 7.04 and 7.10.

I expect slightly higher usage of resources in a Beta thus you will not get bold statements regarding KDE 4.3 from me until RC or Final.

My expectations are however that consuption will be just about equal to the present.

I do not believe that KDE 4 is intended for very limited hardware.

I do however strongly disagree with statements indicating that KDE 4 is heavy on resources. I also believe it is wrong when such statements are made on basis of very limited hardware.

Comparisation with Redmondware is something I only see from someone performing screenshot evaluations, and even that doesn't make sense. As I mentioned previosuly I could run a early version of KDE 4 on a 9 year old Thinkpad. The machine was slow with Windows 2000 and fast with XFce.

Unfortunately that machine is no longer in my possession, but it should definately run better with the less demanding newer versions.

When it comes to selection of DE on basis of productivity it depends highly of what kind of work the machine is used for.

In terms of capabilities the full benefits within KDE 4 will only materialise when Nepomuk/Akonadi shows off their true nature. Applications will take advantage and workflow will improve significantly.

In my view only OSX has half decent workflow, it's nonexistent in XP/Vista/W7 and in Gnome where apps and functionality are basicly single entities. To me productivity is highly dependent of workflow.

Worth noting is that KDE 4 contain central modules which to a great extent are reused by many applications and functions. The significance being centralised bugfixing and code optimisation.

That reduces the demand for resources by applications and functions thus the total demand will be lower and the DE will indeed be rational.

I still can't get over how "blown out" KDE has become. After a test installation on my Ubuntu 9.04, I was left flabbergasted at how UN-intuitive this is. Just to make sure it wasn't ME and a bad attitude, I asked one of my employees to test it out. Again, he was confused beyond belief. What happened to the ideology of "Keep is simple, stupid"? I'll have to live longer with Gnome and XFce as KDE's just gone too far for my tastes anymore. If I could roll-back and use KDE3.5, I'd certainly have my preference for that. Sorry KDE team (Gosh, I was playing with you since you were in Beta!)

@Jacob:

Thanks for your post. I post with the name kyosan on some other forums and without thinking I posted using that name. Thanks for pointing out that mistake.

Maybe we are getting different results because we aren't measuring under the same conditions. For KDE 4.X I used the minimal install package from debian experimental and used their recommendations for setting it up. I guess it's possible that both the KDE 3.5 and KDE 4.X libraries were loaded in and that increased the RAM usage. But I was careful not to install any KDE 3.5 applications. The only application I was running (konsole) was the 4.X version.

Don't exaggerating things. Even my little brother who had never used computer before was able to use KDE 4 easily the first time i teach him.

I had a lot of friend, some of gnome and kde 3 user. When i ask them to try KDE 4, none of them got confused as you described. Well, some of them prefer gnome or kde 3, but still none of them got confused

@Stephen:

If you want a clean DE ie not "blown out", you won't be installing KDE 4 on top of Ubuntu, would you?

What intuitivity concerned anyone expecting KDE 4 to be KDE 3 og Gnome/XFce are doomed to become dissapointed. It is intentionally different.

Userhabits are not the same as logical habits and if user's habits are "broken" it will indeed feel unfamiliar. In KDE 4, the DE controls are placed as close as possible to the item it controls.

When installing a new DE, an open mind is required and with KDE 4 one has to familiarise in order to take advantage of it. Same goes for any change of DE and OS. XFce is different from Gnome and moving between KDE 3.5 and Gnome is indeed a change.

When Kubuntu 9.04 arrived I gave a nearly 50 year old woman the download link because I didn't believe her bricked XP laptop was ruined. She never installed a OS and she never used anything but Windows. If they are able to use KDE how is it that some of the old KDE users are completely lost?

She received no assistance when she installed Kubuntu (I expected her to jus spin the LiveCD to verify whether the laptop worked) and without assistance she and her young daughter now are using Kubuntu. With big smiles on their faces.

Now they want to get Kubuntu on their 2nd machine too, but I asked them to become comfortable and familiar before they do the transition.

I firmly believe that users that do not want to use Linux or do not want to use a specific DE should not use it. Gnome will change significantly next year thus that will need to be learned too.

I do however wonder about the few remaining KDE oldtimers that keeps on picking on KDE 4. It's no cure for confusion though.

Progress and change seems to worry these beyond reason. No willigness to abort bad habits at all.

I've been a Gnome and KDE 3 user for years. Perhaps I'm openminded? Again - it's a free world and anyone are completly free to choose and express opinions as I do.

@Jeff:

Just wanted to be sure wrt whom I responded to ;)

I'm pretty sure that comparisations we are doing are based upon different parameters. We might have different hardware and we probably have different objectives with our DE and our general usage of computers. I believe it would be hard to find experienced users with "DNA-matching" setups.

My view on consumption of resources boils down to a balance between functionality, usability and consumption.

Users decides what to use based upon preferences, available resources and what they are using their machine for. That will decide what's best for the individual user.

Prefences could be breaked down as well. Curiosity, challenge, looks, effects, sensation factor, maxed usage of hw, ease of use, habits and so on and so on.

Therefore I cannot state that "KDE 4 is the best" or "Linux is the best" or "OSX is best". For my usage Linux with KDE 4 is as close as it gets for now, but different users have different parameters. I do believe that one has to be aware of pros and cons of alternatives to conclude what's the better for their use.

Any DE, function or application should be as low on resources as possible but always grab whatever is needed. If functions and so on are speedy and good , low consumption is an expression of smart design, good processes and smart coding.

I believe the KDE project have handled this wisely technically and wrt design. They are very focused on keeping the consumption low.

That does not mean that it is low enough for every user and anyone should respect that. On the other hand hardware is getting more powerful.

Developers of software must take that into account, not limiting the software to the boundaries that existed 5-7-10 years ago, and users of "limited" hardware should respect that too. It is not bloated or "Redmondesque" as some people states (based upon screenshots i presume).

KDE had to strike a balance, and I believe they have kept consumption quite a bit below what they expected. If hardware is 5-7 years or less the constraint that might be hard to solve would be GPUs that was ageing at that time. (e.g 3D and shared memory).

I do not have a brand new laptop - it was bought 2nd hand for 1/3 of it's original price and was in fact older than the one i replaced. (Not the 9 year old Thinkpad). The technology was new about 3,5 years ago I believe, and it was not the top of the line then either. It is however powerful and of good quality thus I expect to use it for quite a few years.

I've been using KDE (Kubuntu) for the last 6 months or so. I started with KDE 4.0 which was practically unusable, but the version included with Jaunty is pretty good.

There are some pretty odd user-interface decisions though:
- In the Applications menu, why is there a 'System' directory and a 'Settings' directory? There is also a 'Utilities' directory that contains system utilities such as the System Logs Viewer. And the System Settings program doesn't appear in the applications menu at all.
- Keyboard shortcuts are... clumsy. Why is that I can define two different sets of shortcuts in 'Input Actions' and 'Keyboard and Mouse'? For that matter, why call it 'Input Actions' and not 'Shortcuts'? That will scare away mum & dad really quickly.
- Plasma toolbars and the like are all sized in absolute proportions, so that if you increase resolution, you have to resize the toolbar that used to extend across the whole bottom of the screen and now doesn't. It might seem a small thing, but it makes the whole plasma widget thing virtually unusable if you regularly use an external monitor, because you have to resize every widget every time you plug it in.
- The power monitor plasmoid (I'm running a laptop) is automatically sized so that (near as I can tell) it's impossible to view the percentage power without the text being cut-off.
- The new version of Amarok is missing lots of
basic functionality that was in previous versions. It's harder to use too, and the Plasma functionality is hopelessly limited.
- Text size doesn't scale well with resolution changes (higher resolution it gets smaller), unless you force DPI to be fixed - which is the opposite of what you'd expect (a high resolution monitor should display text the same size but at a higher DPI).
I'm still using KDE, I think it has lots of potential, but I'm certainly not 100% enamoured of it. I may yet switch back to Gnome when the next Ubuntu comes out.

@Wade said:
- Applications/System/Keyboard shortcuts/toolbars
I agree with you that there still are items in need of logical optimisation.

- The power monitor plasmoid
Agreed - It's not space for 2-3 digits and the % sign. Some themes provides better graphical indication of level, and they should remove the % sign and/or digits or address scalability of the text.

- The new version of Amarok
I run Amarok from svn and I agree that it is not yet perfect. The loss of functionality had to happen. The reason was that MANY of the scripts was made, published and abandoned - ie "it works, lets keep it like this and forget it". They had to free themselves from the baggage and establish a environment for keeping control over scripts.

Amarok have made a basic application and ensured that it works. At present they are working on tuning and trimming the GUI and features. Scripts that enhances the features will come too. Just saw a note about a base for scriptbuilding yesterday.

Further, there is a new prototype for sorting out the "left panel" ie collection and so on, and that is looking good (might not be implemented though). Amarok has improved considerably but there are still rough edges. Strangely enough, I'm beginning to like the bugger ;)

- Text size doesn't scale well
Agreed, and I think they should put a priority on this.

Here are som links to KDE 4.2.3 PPA in Kubuntu, Amarok dev version plus some posts about the development of Amarok: (Own risk though! - I use Arch to follow the latest and greatest)

KDE 4.2.3 in Kubuntu (Jaunty ++):
https://launchpad.net/~kubuntu-experimental/+archive/ppa

Amarok experimental:
https://edge.launchpad.net/~kubuntu-experimental/+archive/ppa

Prototype for Amarok:
http://amarok.kde.org/blog/archives/1018-From-the-Post-2.1.0-Git-Vaults,-Part-3-Something-really-far-out.html

Wade:

I just installed KDE 4.2.87 which is the 2nd update of KDE 4.3 Beta1 (4.2.85)

The power monitor plasmoid has been sorted out and the text displays fine. (Don't know about 100% as i will not ruin my battery by charge it to the max).

KDE 4.3 Beta 1 is settling in, and I presume it would be fine shortly.

If following the Amarok Blog I linked to i my previous posting, there is another video of experimental Amarok. That video made me indeed comfortable. Amarok will become a very good player.