KDE 4 usability. Users Opinions.

Endperform · 2010-04-27 12:48:44

I recently decided to give KDE another shot after hearing of the release of 4.4. I'm finally happy with it, and have gotten away from Gnome. I started my Linux journey with KDE, and was disappointed with the first few iterations of KDE4, but 4.4 seems to be running well for me. I also figured now is the time to jump ship from Gnome because I really don't like the direction they're heading, with Gnome Shell and other things Ubuntu is brewing up, which will most likely end up in Gnome itself at some point.

fini_fly · 2010-04-27 16:35:32

I made the switch from 3.5.x to 4.2 and have been happy since. I am continually impressed with the 4.x releases and what they bring to the table in terms of new features, usability, stability and speed. 3.5.x is now a distant memory.

lasu1 · 2010-05-07 18:23:19

Wow, I haven't tried KDE in a long, long time....today I'm at home (should be studying for exams), and was bored....SO...I installed KDE on a whim (I used the meta modules in the repos).

I installed the base, multimedia, and kdeutils meta groups.

And...WOW! I don't have anything negative to report. It seems really great. I'm going to continue to try it out for awhile. It's a nice change.

evot · 2010-05-07 20:39:39

Since i installed Arch linux, i have played with different DEs and WMs.
They are all very nice experiences and i have great time with them.

I have quite powerfull desktop computer and few years old netbook.

KDE fits nicely for desktop use.
I installed minimal KDE and i got nothing redundant.
With qtcurve i got uniform look for qt and gtk applications.
It's great to see that every release is huge step forward.
And yes it's quite easy to configure like i want it to look and behave.
Nice job KDE developers and also Arch devs that has nicely wrapped it for us to use.

And i think KDE is not good for low powered machines like my eeepc with 900MHz celeron and powerless intel graphics. So good solution for my netbook is Openbox. Which is extremely fast and powerful solution for that kind of use.

But these days computers are just fine to run KDE well and future brings even more powerfull computers.

So there is some user experience.. and little extra story..

lasu1 · 2010-05-08 18:03:40

Yeah, I'm sort of the same. Since installing Arch I've used tons of different WMs/DEs. Until yesterday, I would rotate somewhat between Openbox/i3/and xfce; however, I'm having fun with KDE. Some of the "K" programs are really nice, and they feel integrated. I know you can use these outside of KDE, but the KDE integration is starting to grow on me. I'm really liking "Kile" and "Kate," also -- plus the nice logs viewer. Truth be told, applications with similar functionality are easily obtainable in any WM, but I like that everything looks "uniform."

So, I think I'm going to add KDE to the list of DEs that I use on a regular basis. I agree that it is a bit more resource intensive; especially when you use some of the "plasma" widgets. That's OK for my desktop, but for my laptop, I will probably stick to a more simple WM.

hwkiller · 2010-07-26 15:58:54

I tried using KDE 4.4 when I reinstalled Arch this past time.

This is the second time I've tried it, and I really just can't stand it. The weird thing is that I can't really tell you why I can't stand it.

It feels super-bloated, clunky, and oversimplified (not in the KISS sorta way, either). I feel it's hard to really modify the finer details of KDE, and I couldn't even find the way to change some of the most basic settings (like panel color) for quite a while.

I know, that's probably just a problem on my end because no one else seems to experience those problems. Maybe where KDE holds certain settings are contrary to where I feel they should be, so I can never find them.

In the mean time, I much prefer xfce and gnome. I may play around with *box in the future, but I don't have the time to customize my system quite *that* much. I still need to figure out how to write UDEV rules so that I can be ready for the riddance of HAL (which is somewhat sad, but somewhat good).

From a usability standpoint? For me, it seems just too "simplified," in the sense that the more advanced settings seem to either be tucked away or in a location contrary to where I would expect it. I know this is probably just an idiosyncrasy of mine.

Besides, I only used it for about two hours last time before I decided that I'd rather try gnome.

Vamp898 · 2010-07-26 17:05:22

Im Running KDE4 since 4.2 without larger problems and with 4.4.5 i didn´t found any bug.

So for me its 100% fully working and excellent its also fast and im testing 4.5 RC3 right now (which looks very good

But it seems that a lot of people have problems finding stuff in the Systemsettings becease the most people used DEs or WMs before were you directly setup things _in_ the application

Its just that KDE is an integreated Desktop where GNOME is not or less

KDE have central settings and the KDE Applications have in addition to that there own settings. And people often mix that and try to setup things in the wrong place.

But its like that. If you get used to it you can do much more than to the "typical" way in GNOME or XFCE

but you have to decide yourself if you want to do these things more or if you just want to start a Browser+IM and use that applications...

Most people just dont use there brain. They act by habit. They never used something like the KDE Systemsettings so they use KDE like they used there DE before and that is just what not works

KDE isn´t just a GNOME with fancy effects. KDE is large, modular, flexible and the opposite of blown DE

(btw. GNOME Base Installation is much larger than KDE base installation. People who say KDE is blown just did not get the idea of modularity)

So if you want to interact with such an flexible and modular DE you just really dont have a other choose than create such systemsettings like KDE did.

Last edited by Vamp898 (2010-07-26 17:53:25)

bananaoomarang · 2010-07-27 03:53:59

KDE SC 4 is better than KDE3 and not just because it looks nicer. I had problems until 4.3 but then everything changed. It isn't any more buggy than GNOME or KDE3 now and it has innovative and intuitive technologys with really impressive rates of development.

na12 · 2010-07-27 08:24:58

hwkiller wrote:

I tried using KDE 4.4 when I reinstalled Arch this past time.
This is the second time I've tried it, and I really just can't stand it. The weird thing is that I can't really tell you why I can't stand it.
It feels super-bloated, clunky, and oversimplified (not in the KISS sorta way, either). I feel it's hard to really modify the finer details of KDE, and I couldn't even find the way to change some of the most basic settings (like panel color) for quite a while.
I know, that's probably just a problem on my end because no one else seems to experience those problems. Maybe where KDE holds certain settings are contrary to where I feel they should be, so I can never find them.
In the mean time, I much prefer xfce and gnome. I may play around with *box in the future, but I don't have the time to customize my system quite *that* much. I still need to figure out how to write UDEV rules so that I can be ready for the riddance of HAL (which is somewhat sad, but somewhat good).
From a usability standpoint? For me, it seems just too "simplified," in the sense that the more advanced settings seem to either be tucked away or in a location contrary to where I would expect it. I know this is probably just an idiosyncrasy of mine.
Besides, I only used it for about two hours last time before I decided that I'd rather try gnome.

I second that.

iBertus · 2010-07-28 04:01:57

I've found that it's pretty good as long as you replace KWin with Compiz. Otherwise, it lags on my nvidia cards.

Forgot to say that KRunner crashes every few hours for some reason when nepomuk is enabled.

Last edited by iBertus (2010-07-28 04:04:14)

kokoko3k · 2010-07-28 06:59:20

My big concern is about dolphin/kio_file, did anyone ever tried it with slow filesystems?
Browsing folders full of stuff is a pain, dolphin seems to hang here and there, blocking other dolphin instances too.
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=178678
Still unconfirmed...

splittercode · 2010-07-28 08:04:06

na12 wrote:

I second that.

Third'd. Using KDE is like riding a bicycle up a steep hill covered in mud.

Bushman · 2010-07-28 14:10:37

I really like KDE 4.4, but I really wish they could get an opensync plugin that works with the same version of opensync as barry (a - or should I say "the"? - Crackberry syncronization library). I heard something about a major re-doing of the KDE PIM module in 4.5, so I'm anxiously awaiting next week...

Rasi · 2010-07-28 14:45:31

Bushman wrote:

I really like KDE 4.4, but I really wish they could get an opensync plugin that works with the same version of opensync as barry (a - or should I say "the"? - Crackberry syncronization library). I heard something about a major re-doing of the KDE PIM module in 4.5, so I'm anxiously awaiting next week...

you will have to wait longer.. new kdepim wont be available before 4.5.1

Vamp898 · 2010-07-28 16:02:09

I read the most comments here now and again i get the feeling.

People say they use GNOME becease KDE is blown and fat

GNOME Base installation is larger than KDE so do most people maybe judge in case of just wrong information.

If its like that, theres no real hope to change. A lot of people fell that much in love with there favourite DE/WM that they would never accept something good on KDE. They dont know how it works and doesnt have the interest to inform about.

And a lot of people are just insanly stupid

For example on KDE they use all widgets, file-preview in folders and a lot of stuff which needs computer ressources. Than they say a smaller DE is better becease they dont provide such features and so they have lower memory/cpu/whatever usage

c´mon what a bad joke. Dont act like KDE forces you to use the features which needs a lot of CPU Ressources. KDE works with a Memory usage of 90mb on my EeePC which have 650 MHz and 512mb Memory. It doesnt laggs or anything like that. It works like every other DE/WM on my EeePC

To use optional features which uses CPU and than say a other DE is better becease he doesnt have this feature and so the feature doesnt need CPU....

But now im a point who i dont care anymore. If people think that "Modular" == "you have to take everything what is provided" than they should die stupid.

The problem is just when people with there wrong information about Harddisk, Memory and CPU Usage tell people which are new to Linux that KDE is bad or things like that. That just makes me bad!

Last edited by Vamp898 (2010-07-28 16:03:05)

mythus · 2010-07-28 16:36:10

Come on now, calling people stupid is a bit too far.

There are very legitamite reasons to not like KDE. How about, not liking the fact that nepomuck and anokondi are such a integral part of it all? Yeah, you can disable it, but some want to start an environment without it completely, and for some, having such would count as bloat, as it is unneccesary for them and their needs. But to say they are stupid? Just not right.

Linux is about choice. There is no 'king environment'. And there is no telling people how they should feel about any certain environment. Sure, you can offer pointers and proof of being able to do such and such or remove such and such or whatever, but in the end it is up to the one using the computer to decide what he or she thinks about the environment and which they prefer to use. There is never any reason or need to go and call people stupid just because they won't conform to your beliefs or come to agree with your thoughts, even if your thoughts may have some proof and fact to them. One man's idea of bloat may not equal your idea of bloat at all.

For the record I love KDE. I love the most recent kde with it's grouping and such. But I also like other environments and constantly switch amongst them.

Vamp898 · 2010-07-28 16:45:33

I dont call people stupid when they say KDE is bad. I call them stupid if they say it for the wrong reasons.

Its like when KDE 4.0 was released. Everyone said its just unusable buggy and shitty at all and KDE is dead

KDE clearly marked 4.0 as a developer release and no "ready for users" release.

Sure there is no King Environment and KDE is far from that too but there is no reason at all to call KDE a bad environment just becease you dont know how it works and tested it in the wrong way.

So everyone have his own oppinion and a lot of people really dont need KDE at all so why should they use it? But again there is no reason to call it bad in case of the missing knowledge about it.

Cdh · 2010-07-29 00:13:49

Until (including) KDE 4.4 every KDE 4 was way too slow for me. I went through systemsettings and disabled obvious things: compositing, the in kde 4.4 new dropbox "slow cpu bla" etc, no indexing etc.
It still doesn't feel smooth. Programs take ages to open, context menus lagg behind when opening, the file chooser opens extremely slow and clicks on buttons have an annoying delay.
As a XFCE user I am used to speed and I see that KDE doesn't give it. To be fair I didn't run it yet on my dualcore. But from what I see from other people using kde 4 I guess when you have a dualcore 2ghz+ KDE runs really great when it comes to speed.
But one Intel P4 3 ghz or even an atom - I really don't like to use it there.

But the strongest reason to not use it is how buggy it is. People always talk about how the "new" KDE is even more stable but when I test it many, many programs segfault often. Most often it is plasma. I remember wanting to show someone the qalculate plasmoid. I click on it and plasma segfaults. I remember the very person I wanted to show it being unable to start kde because of a incompatible knetworkmanager. "Being unable to start" = "it segfaults". I mean, in contrast of showing an error message.
Or the problem that when I type a complex calculation in the qalculate plasmoid the whole desktop doesn't respond while the calculation is working. Shouldn't this be solved from the Desktop?

iBertus · 2010-07-29 00:29:07

Forgot to say that if a decent photo management app existed for GNOME it would be a no brainer for to leave KDE for GNOME. I always liked GNOME but digikam is way better than f-spot. Also, Okular is IMHO way better than Evince.

flamelab · 2010-07-29 06:07:26

Cdh wrote:

Until (including) KDE 4.4 every KDE 4 was way too slow for me. I went through systemsettings and disabled obvious things: compositing, the in kde 4.4 new dropbox "slow cpu bla" etc, no indexing etc.
It still doesn't feel smooth. Programs take ages to open, context menus lagg behind when opening, the file chooser opens extremely slow and clicks on buttons have an annoying delay.
As a XFCE user I am used to speed and I see that KDE doesn't give it. To be fair I didn't run it yet on my dualcore. But from what I see from other people using kde 4 I guess when you have a dualcore 2ghz+ KDE runs really great when it comes to speed.
But one Intel P4 3 ghz or even an atom - I really don't like to use it there.
But the strongest reason to not use it is how buggy it is. People always talk about how the "new" KDE is even more stable but when I test it many, many programs segfault often. Most often it is plasma. I remember wanting to show someone the qalculate plasmoid. I click on it and plasma segfaults. I remember the very person I wanted to show it being unable to start kde because of a incompatible knetworkmanager. "Being unable to start" = "it segfaults". I mean, in contrast of showing an error message.
Or the problem that when I type a complex calculation in the qalculate plasmoid the whole desktop doesn't respond while the calculation is working. Shouldn't this be solved from the Desktop?

^ I always wonder how so some people find SO many (mainly performance or visual) bugs in KDE and so many others DON'T find bugs in KDE. Any or almost any bug.

What is happening ? Does KDE have different behaviour on each desktop ? An AI ? If the user doesn't like it, it is buggy, if he/she likes it, it isn't buggy ?

I belong to the second team (I find very few but negligible bugs).

(This is not an answer to this post quoted above)

Last edited by flamelab (2010-07-29 06:08:03)

SpeedVin · 2010-07-29 09:07:19

KDE in it's current state is very usable but the integration for example some tools with Akonadi is really hard decision, here I can't use for example KMail and Akregator because Nepomuk and Akonadi have some problem's but it's a testing release (4.6.51) it will be better!
BTW. It would be nice if the default engine in Konqeror will be Webkit
Good work KDE Team/Developer's!

Vamp898 · 2010-07-29 10:06:54

The most speed problems are caused by old/wrong settings.

People who tried KDE before maybe should delte all akonadi/kde configs before they try it again

rm -rf .kde4 .config/akonadi

if then still speed problems exist then its the user fault (in my oppinion).

As i said i even run KDE 4.4.5 at a 650 MHz EeePC and its the same speed as GNOME, XFCE or something else for me.

Also my standard PC isnt slow at all as you can see here: http://www.speedyshare.com/files/23572754/out.ogv

(the first folder i go to is a Video folder so all the previews are videos)

i even have 3D Effects enabled with my Intel Notebook Onboard Graphic Card

do yo see something slow?

btw. since KDE 4.3 i never seen a segfault in plasma again. Maybe people should not say "oh damm stupid plasma crashed" and take a look at why plasma crashed. Often you see that it was a wrong configuration or driver problem and bad drivers arent the fault of plasma at all.

A bad setup Xorg or old and bad KDE configs aren´t the fault of plasma at all too. So crashing plasma doesnt have to mean that it have wrong code!

Maybe some people should switch to OpenSUSE in case that they are not able to handle Archlinux. Setup a system doesnt end before X.Org, a correctly setup of X.Org and KDE is also a part of Archlinux and most people fail on that. openSUSE pre-setups everything and there are nearly no plasma crashes at the bug tracker so it seems like they have no problems.

Maybe its becease a lot of people are used to GNOME or some of those very small DEs/WMs where you dont have to setup that much. But as i mentioned some posts above, KDE isnt like other DEs. Either you care about handling it or you will fail. But dont say that fast its the fault of KDE

Last edited by Vamp898 (2010-07-29 12:08:36)

Labello · 2010-07-31 23:07:03

well... i really enjoy KDE. it is so amazingly beautiful, reliable and fast. all the nice modern apps are just rocking my ass off :-)

but i missed hacking config-files and fiddling around with tint2, conky and openbox :-) so i am back to openbox

sorry KDE but openbox is more my personal thing.

but i still tell everyone who is new to linux to try kde instead of gnome :-)

faelar · 2010-07-31 23:41:22

Vamp898 wrote:

The most speed problems are caused by old/wrong settings.

KDE is associated in my mind with the word slow. I think that's mostly because I tested it on other distributions than Arch. You said OpenSUSE, I would like to add Mandriva and Pardus to the list. Thoses distro were slow, and I take Ubuntu+GNOME as a reference here.

I'm sure you can customize KDE, and run it smoothly, but well, look at those distro I mentioned : they target novice users (mostly). The first thing these users do is not to change/config everything.

I think that's why lot of people think KDE is slow, it's probably the Distro/Config fault, but it's an overall idea that spreads.

Note : I use openbox myself, and I don't want to put any DE above the others here.

Vamp898 · 2010-08-01 00:29:22

The Problem is that Distros often change a lot of things in KDE (just take a look at SuSE) and even Kubuntu does change a lot

Kubuntu Netbook Remix doesn´t run on my Netbook becease its to slow

Archlinux with KDE4 Netbook Interface runs just awesome

i dont know what distros do wrong but they do something wrong and thats a fact.

They just think "Hey KDE have so much settings, we have to put our hand at every of them to make KDE look like it is a own operating system made by us". On the SuSE side its really extreme. Sometimes i think the SuSE guys sit on a round table and someone throws in "Function XY is much to easy, we have to change that"

Really i hate SuSE...

Arch Linux

#51 2010-04-27 12:48:44

Re: KDE 4 usability. Users Opinions.

#52 2010-04-27 16:35:32

Re: KDE 4 usability. Users Opinions.

#53 2010-05-07 18:23:19

Re: KDE 4 usability. Users Opinions.

#54 2010-05-07 20:39:39

Re: KDE 4 usability. Users Opinions.

#55 2010-05-08 18:03:40

Re: KDE 4 usability. Users Opinions.

#56 2010-07-26 15:58:54

Re: KDE 4 usability. Users Opinions.

#57 2010-07-26 17:05:22

Re: KDE 4 usability. Users Opinions.

#58 2010-07-27 03:53:59

Re: KDE 4 usability. Users Opinions.

#59 2010-07-27 08:24:58

Re: KDE 4 usability. Users Opinions.

#60 2010-07-28 04:01:57

Re: KDE 4 usability. Users Opinions.

#61 2010-07-28 06:59:20

Re: KDE 4 usability. Users Opinions.

#62 2010-07-28 08:04:06

Re: KDE 4 usability. Users Opinions.

#63 2010-07-28 14:10:37

Re: KDE 4 usability. Users Opinions.

#64 2010-07-28 14:45:31

Re: KDE 4 usability. Users Opinions.

#65 2010-07-28 16:02:09

Re: KDE 4 usability. Users Opinions.

#66 2010-07-28 16:36:10

Re: KDE 4 usability. Users Opinions.

#67 2010-07-28 16:45:33

Re: KDE 4 usability. Users Opinions.

#68 2010-07-29 00:13:49

Re: KDE 4 usability. Users Opinions.

#69 2010-07-29 00:29:07

Re: KDE 4 usability. Users Opinions.

#70 2010-07-29 06:07:26

Re: KDE 4 usability. Users Opinions.

#71 2010-07-29 09:07:19

Re: KDE 4 usability. Users Opinions.

#72 2010-07-29 10:06:54

Re: KDE 4 usability. Users Opinions.

#73 2010-07-31 23:07:03

Re: KDE 4 usability. Users Opinions.

#74 2010-07-31 23:41:22

Re: KDE 4 usability. Users Opinions.

#75 2010-08-01 00:29:22

Re: KDE 4 usability. Users Opinions.

Board footer