kde4.2 impressions

ssl6 · 2009-01-29 19:57:31

just wanted to post and give my impressiosn of kde4.2 since i updated yesterday. seemed to be the most appropriate forum to post in, thought i'd see what others opinions were

so far, im actually very impressed, though its not the biggest update, i really like kde4 when it came out, now im even more impressed, it hasnt changed all that much from a user perspective, but it feels so much more usable and the few ui tweaks i've noticed really made a differnce to the appearance, like the highlighted active windows on teh task bar. another thing i like is that i can drag and drop my favorites in the k menu up and down now, so i dont have to add them in the order i want anymore

one of the other problems i used to have thats gone now, is i used to get wierd lines around my screen, like left over window borders that would go away when i moved the mouse over them, or they would just move around, only happened when i had firefox or dvdrip, or something else more or less gtk based open. still have the systray icon thing going on, but that one doesnt bother me too much

one thing i can't find anymore, is the show desktop widget, am i not seeing it, or do i need a seperate package for it now? or is it just gone?

i was also pleased to find the close button on the filter bar in dolphin is moved to the left side, i used to hit it so often when trying to wipe my query and always had to reopen it. although one thing bugging me with dolphin now is the icon spacing, i couldnt find an option to pack them closer together, maybe its for easier viewing of long file names? i usually use the details view when theres long file names, since i keep them to a minimum outside of my movie folder

KFIND, used to be my biggest irritation, used to take so long to open, now it opens in snap, which is great because i use it so much

aside from the issues i had getting it to work, and reinstalling a few things, and getting them to work again, like my sound in amarok, kde picked up my non existent pcspeaker as the primary output device. all in all though, its just feels so much better all around, i can see alot of people put in a lot of good work, so cheers to them

Last edited by ssl6 (2009-01-29 20:00:09)

arch_nemesis · 2009-01-29 20:03:23

I haven't given it a serious look until 4.2, and I'm generally liking it. I'm struggling a bit with a couple of simple things which I think are mostly my ignorance of how KDE works (except not being able to prevent certain plasmoids from coming back every time I log off), not actual bugs.

I haven't really done much with it yet except fiddle with customizations and user firefox, so my impressions are about as superficial as they get. Assuming that my various little problems get fixed in the near future, or I figure out what I'm doing wrong (depending on which applies), I definitely think I'll start moving towards this as my primary DE.

Si · 2009-01-29 21:07:10

ssl6 wrote:

one thing i can't find anymore, is the show desktop widget, am i not seeing it, or do i need a seperate package for it now? or is it just gone?

If I'm not mistaken, you need extra/kdeplasma-addons. At least that's what I needed to get it using kdemod (kdemod-kdeplasma-addons).

I'm also extremely impressed with KDE 4.2,, however I also noticed many little annoyances. Some maybe bugs, others may just be the way it works, not really sure.

For example, even if panel auto hide is turned on, it won't hide upon login until you hover over and leave. I guess this is a design to let the user clearly see where the panels are?

The quick launch plasmoid currently doesn't seem to have the ability to reorder the icons, and they have to be ordered at the time the icons are being added.

There are countless other minor bugs like the cashew (occasionally) when highlighted by hovering over, it stays highlighted even after the mouse cursor leaves. It looks like it's time to file a big pile of bug reports.

Performance-wise in general is quite acceptable on an nVidia 8400M GS, but panel auto hide animation is not so smooth on a dual screen setup, also, ZUI is horribly slow when zoomed out on a dual screen setup too.

ssl6 · 2009-01-31 03:53:25

yep, turns out i forgot to reinstall the plasma addon's. i i had quite a few things to remember to reinstall after starting with a clean kde4.2 install

as far as performance though, for the most part is faster, and smoother, but sometimes, ill have it hang for a few seconds before it responds again. usually when i try to switch tabs in dolphin or console, or switch workspaces

Last edited by ssl6 (2009-01-31 04:10:06)

Dead Code · 2009-01-31 04:50:46

I have been impressed with 4.2 so far. Its been a good changed from 4.1.

Pros:
1. The system notification has improved.
2. The plasma workspace looks more uniform
3. Lot of good widgets

Cons:
1. A small glitch, the system tray goes fuzzy once in a while esp. when there is some activity.

Overall, a really good release

whaler · 2009-01-31 13:51:28

Dead Code wrote:

Overall, a really good release

I second that. I followed the advice and upgraded from console (r.lvl. 3) and all my configuration tweaks seem to have been carried over smoothly. Nice.

I should say that I am not tweaking/testing KDE a lot, so for all I know there may be numerous little glitches that escape me, but with my use it has been without any problems so far except for one strange thing:

Using Ark to zip up a directory does not work reliably from KDE 4.2 here. It only compresses some of the files/subdirectories, leaving many untouched and complaining about a memory segfault and asking if permissions are right. I have chown'ed the permissions to myself as the user, but it does not help.

So I am wondering if these lines in /var/log/messages.log may be a clue:

Jan 30 11:25:33 Sulutvedt X:4656 conflicting memory types e0000000-f0000000 write-combining<->uncached-minus
Jan 30 11:25:33 Sulutvedt reserve_memtype failed 0xe0000000-0xf0000000, track write-combining, req write-combining
Jan 30 11:25:33 Sulutvedt X:4656 conflicting memory types e0000000-f0000000 write-combining<->uncached-minus
Jan 30 11:25:33 Sulutvedt reserve_memtype failed 0xe0000000-0xf0000000, track write-combining, req write-combining
Jan 30 11:25:33 Sulutvedt X:4674 freeing invalid memtype e0000000-f0000000
Jan 30 11:25:51 Sulutvedt X:4656 conflicting memory types e0000000-f0000000 write-combining<->uncached-minus
Jan 30 11:25:51 Sulutvedt reserve_memtype failed 0xe0000000-0xf0000000, track write-combining, req write-combining
Jan 30 11:25:51 Sulutvedt X:4776 freeing invalid memtype e0000000-f0000000

These errors appeared after the latest Xorg upgrade on this 64-bit system, and I see the same on my i686 box. Both systems seem to run fine, but now I wonder if Ark's behaviour may be connected to these errors.

mrunion · 2009-01-31 13:58:07

I have aloway only used Gnome -- except for about a month using Suse/KDE in 2006. I;ve been using Gnome since '98 and have always liked it better than KDE -- until 4.2. I've been running 4.2 since it hit testing and I relaly think I may stay here!

n8schicht · 2009-01-31 14:43:50

Yes, KDE 4.2 came out really beautyful! I already feared it might go down the drain after the first impressions I got from 4.0, but fortunately they improved it from release to release. I have 2 or 3 small things that bug me, but I'm looking forward to the next bug fix release. It's so snappy now with the latest nvidia driver that I use (180.27)!

GregW · 2009-01-31 15:29:20

I've already found a couple of bugs and a usability issue in kmail even after nuking my .kde settings before upgrading as per the arch advice.

1. I can't change the fonts or colours in the messages list, or rather you can but it makes no difference to the layout.
2. You can no longer set the header column to display in my preferred order.
3. You can't remove the new tab feature which is just a waste of space on within the application.
4. if you make a mess of the message layout theme, there is no reset to default option and the use of the theme is overly complex.

On the plus side, at least you can auto-hide the panel now! But I still miss the group similar applicaions option that kde 3.x had. It does seem quicker on initial login and so far, I've had no problems with plasma. It used to crash fairly frequently in 4.0 and 4.1

Cheers
GregW

ssl6 · 2009-01-31 21:17:48

i never had any serious problems with 4.0 or 4.1, never really had any issues i considered problematic in terms of usage, i just hope it keeps improving the way it is. i've always like kde, i think its the windows user in me, makes for a more familiar environment, kind of a comfort zone

hk2717 · 2009-02-01 09:02:04

+1 for improved oxygen theme
+1 for amazing 3rd-party themes: skulpture and bespin
+1 for the best single-pane fm: dolphin
+1 for the best duel-pane fm: krusader
+1 for the best music player: amarok
+1 for the best document viewer: okular
+1 for the best image viewer: gwenview
+1 for improved configurablity
+1 for improved plasma
+1 for the rapid growing number of plasmoids and plasma themes
+1 for improved and more usable kwin
+1 for krunner
+1 for lancelot
+1 for supporting gnome icon themes (never knew this before)
+1 for vi mode in kwrite and kate (not as usable or powerful as the real vim though)
+1 for ktorrent (though the download speed is not as fast as rtorrent, according to my experience)
+1 for the nice mldonkey frontend: kmldonkey

-2 for the ugly look of firefox (cannot use the gtk theme because of the tab rendering issue)

ckristi · 2009-02-01 09:23:39

Use gtk-qt-engine and set the style for GTK applications (SystemSettings->Appearance->GTK Style and Fonts) as Industrial (or anything else that suits you). I use Industrial and it's OK.
I guess you have to install more GTK themes (pacman -Ss is your friend, as I don't recall exactly how the themes packages are named). Ok, ok... I left my laziness behind and found the name of the package: gtk2-themes-collection. Enjoy!

toad · 2009-02-01 09:28:55

My firefox looks NICE Perhaps this will help you...

http://forum.kde.org/how-to-integrate-f … 17786.html

What I am lacking is a decent pool of widgets. Do you lot get yours from AUR? I did for KDE 4.1.x and they all stopped working in 4.2 I tried to compile the quicklauncher but no joy so far - and the quicklauncher is must-have-or-I'll-die kind of plasmoid

orion · 2009-02-01 11:06:43

i noticed that the memory consumption in KDE 4.2 is lesser than the consumption in GNOME? Anybody got the same experience?

i like the advanced feature, to use compiz seamlessly as window manage, as replacement for KWin, i think it's an performance win if you use compiz, because it uses the features of your graphics hardware, which is in my case, a geforce 8600.

after all, i will use now kde instead of gnome very good release!

hk2717 · 2009-02-01 11:47:05

@ckristi and toad

Thank you but my problem is that I installed gtk-qt-engine but firefox does not render the gtk style (mainly the tabs) provided by gtk-qt-engine properly. I am using oxygen theme with obsidian coast color scheme and yet to find a solution to make firefox go along with my kde apps. ATM I use NASA night launch theme for firefox.

Pierre · 2009-02-01 11:55:42

Try qtcurve. Its a native theme for kde3, kde4 and gtk2.

ckristi · 2009-02-01 11:56:54

I had the same problem with the rendering of the tabs (close tab icons looked awful). But after selecting the Industrial theme, and using no custom theme in Firefox... the problem was solved. My tabs look ok, and the tab-closing buttons are big X's very nice drawn. Try enabling the default theme of Firefox, after setting the GTK theme through gtk-qt-engine.

Last edited by ckristi (2009-02-01 11:57:45)

hk2717 · 2009-02-01 12:06:46

@Pierre

I tried it but it does not fit my taste.

@ckristi

I tried switch between different themes but it does not help.

It seems to be a compatibility issue between firefox and gtk-qt-engine. I just tried gtk-kde4, with which firefox can render the tabs properly, but it has some other problems, like scroll bars and box borders.

Edit: Issue fixed after reinstalling the gtk-qt-engine. I don't know why but everything works prefectly now..cheers!

Last edited by hk2717 (2009-02-01 12:14:15)

chair · 2009-02-01 12:38:20

hk2717 wrote:

I tried it but it does not fit my taste.

I think the Silk preset looks a lot like Oxygen, but there's lots of others, there should be something to suit your taste

ckristi · 2009-02-01 13:49:17

@hk2717: Enjoy and happy browsing!

mrunion · 2009-02-01 13:52:49

@orion: Where can I get more info on this?

Dead Code · 2009-02-01 14:48:48

I guess it came with KDE 4.2, in GTK styles and fonts I found an option kde4-oxygen and firefox never looked so good on KDE, and on top of that, add the Oxygen theme for firefox and it looks perfect. Check the screenie below:

Last edited by Dead Code (2009-02-01 14:51:15)

chair · 2009-02-01 22:57:08

I guess it came with KDE 4.2, in GTK styles and fonts I found an option kde4-oxygen

kde4-oxygen is part of the gtk-qt-engine package. It looks like it's a hack to make the style render properly with Oxygen.

hk2717 · 2009-02-02 02:47:40

Dead Code wrote:

I guess it came with KDE 4.2, in GTK styles and fonts I found an option kde4-oxygen and firefox never looked so good on KDE, and on top of that, add the Oxygen theme for firefox and it looks perfect. Check the screenie below:
http://f.imagehost.org/t/0254/firefox.jpg http://f.imagehost.org/t/0158/GTK_Style.jpg

Do you notice that the firefox oxygen theme is the old oxygen style which is somewhat different from your other KDE4 apps? Also, if you use other themes or color schemes in KDE, your firefox stands out again. The solution is gtk-qt-style but its rendering is not perfect. You can get perfectly consistent looking with qtcurve but then you are stuck with one theme.

Dead Code · 2009-02-02 09:03:44

Yea i noticed. Atleast firefox has a KDEish feel to it.. I haven't tried qtcurve..

Oh, I wished firefox had a QT port!

Arch Linux

#1 2009-01-29 19:57:31

kde4.2 impressions

#2 2009-01-29 20:03:23

Re: kde4.2 impressions

#3 2009-01-29 21:07:10

Re: kde4.2 impressions

#4 2009-01-31 03:53:25

Re: kde4.2 impressions

#5 2009-01-31 04:50:46

Re: kde4.2 impressions

#6 2009-01-31 13:51:28

Re: kde4.2 impressions

#7 2009-01-31 13:58:07

Re: kde4.2 impressions

#8 2009-01-31 14:43:50

Re: kde4.2 impressions

#9 2009-01-31 15:29:20

Re: kde4.2 impressions

#10 2009-01-31 21:17:48

Re: kde4.2 impressions

#11 2009-02-01 09:02:04

Re: kde4.2 impressions

#12 2009-02-01 09:23:39

Re: kde4.2 impressions

#13 2009-02-01 09:28:55

Re: kde4.2 impressions

#14 2009-02-01 11:06:43

Re: kde4.2 impressions

#15 2009-02-01 11:47:05

Re: kde4.2 impressions

#16 2009-02-01 11:55:42

Re: kde4.2 impressions

#17 2009-02-01 11:56:54

Re: kde4.2 impressions

#18 2009-02-01 12:06:46

Re: kde4.2 impressions

#19 2009-02-01 12:38:20

Re: kde4.2 impressions

#20 2009-02-01 13:49:17

Re: kde4.2 impressions

#21 2009-02-01 13:52:49

Re: kde4.2 impressions

#22 2009-02-01 14:48:48

Re: kde4.2 impressions

#23 2009-02-01 22:57:08

Re: kde4.2 impressions

#24 2009-02-02 02:47:40

Re: kde4.2 impressions

#25 2009-02-02 09:03:44

Re: kde4.2 impressions

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