I Don’t Like KDE4 in Ubuntu / Kubuntu Linux
It was time for me to try Ubuntu or Kubuntu in my laptop. I wanted to get completely rid of Window in my computers. After a lot of trial and error I decided that I will have to dual boot and keep Windows Vista just to run my GPS software but that is another issue that I will write about sometime in the future. The issue at hand is KDE-4, my likes and dislikes.Since I’m sure that I will install either Ubuntu or Kubuntu as soon as the 8.04 “Hardy Heron” is released I decided this was a good time to see which version I wanted to install when the time came. This time not only is there a Ubuntu and Kubuntu version with all the offshoots, there is also the KDE3 or KDE4 question. As it turns out, that is a major decision, for me at least. The new graphics and other features of KDE4 are great. If you would like to learn more about all the features you can wander on over to KDE Home page and read all about the great new features. It is far beyond this article to cover them all and I couldn’t come close to doing it justice. I will tell you a few of the things that I like and don’t like. I’m relatively new to Linux so don’t be to harsh on me if you disagree. But please feel free to leave a comment and state your opinion.
A few of the things that I like or am sure I will are the new multimedia application and some of the new games, of which I am sure there are many. I will also enjoy the the great new graphics that are available. A lot of this is eye candy but there are some new features and you should check it out for your self on their website.
The major thorn in my side is the new task bar and “KickOff” which is the new KDE application launcher, or “start menu”. You can find more information on them at http://kde.org/announcements/4.0/desktop.php . Now for more specific dislikes. Lets start with the task bar. In KDE3 when I right click on the task bar I get a number of selections, one of which is “Configure Panel”. From there I can change just about anything on the panel and the way it works as well at the the menus and the “K Menu”. When I right click on the task bar in KDE4 I get 4 choices; Remove this Task Manager, Add Widgets, Panel Settings and Task Manager Settings. Well, not to bad yet. Lets take a look at them.
The “Task Manager Settings” gets me two options; Show tooltips and Show only tasks from the current desktop. That is pretty bare bones in my humble opinion. Well, maybe the “Panel Settings” will get me what I’m used to and want, if not need. Wrong. Here I get two options, Size and location. Where is everything else? You got me. I haven’t found the other settings yet. If you know where they are please leave a comment and let me know. I need more control than this.
Lets move on to the “KickOff” as they call the new “Start Menu”. At first glance it appears very nice. I saw it in one of the other flavors of Linux but I can’t remember which one, probably Simply Mepis or Open Suse . Anyway, it is very nice looking but totally different. There are 5 basic choices; Favorites, Applications, Computer, Recently Used and Leave. You can see a good explanation of them at KDE’s website. For the most part they are just what they say. A big shocker came when I went into the “System Settings”. The “About Me” should be named “Paths” because that is the only thing there. Gone is your ability to set your personal information. Regional and Language seems to be all there except Spell Checker settings so that isn’t to bad. Accessibility has lost its “Input Actions”. Appearance seems to be left fairly intact. It is missing the “Font Installer” and the “GTK Styles and Fonts”. I used to need those settings but maybe in this version they aren’t needed. I’ll find out later. The “Desktop” settings no longer give you access to set the background but this can be done by right clicking on the desktop but the options are very sparse. Desktop also lost “Behavior” and “Multiple Desktop” settings but gained “Launch Feedback”. The “Notifications” settings have also changed and the “Storage Media Notifications” is no longer there. Oh well, I didn’t use it anyway. It should be noted that the “System notifications” setting have also been cut way back. The Monitor and Display settings have also been cut back. The “Color and Gama” and “Hardware” settings are not there. Maybe they are accessible somewhere else but I haven’t found them yet. The “Sound” settings are totally different. I don’t find a “Hardware” setting or a way to “Test” my sound which I sometimes need. Again, maybe it’s somewhere and I haven’t found it. The “Printer” and “‘User Management” settings are completely gone. They Must be somewhere else. I’ll find them later. Network Settings lost “Network Connections” but the rest seem to be about the same. “Sharing” is down to just setting the Default user name and password. Everything else is gone.
This is the next day. I decided to sit back, download the 64 bit version and install it. I am now giving that a try and I don’t see any difference as far as those options I discussed above. I did find some of the settings I couldn’t find in the place KDE3 had them. The “Advanced” tab of the Systems Settings has Audio CDs, CDDB Retrieval, Digital Camera, File Associations, Input Actions, KDE Resources, KDE Wallet, Service Manager, Session Manager, Solid and Login Manager. Everything except the Login Manager seems to be accessible to the user. The Login Manager, of course, is not accessible by the user. Big problem, there is no “Administrator” button as far as I can see. After a little time on the Kubuntu forum it would seem that they are aware of it. In fact they have the bug listed as “Status” = Confirmed and “Importance” = Low.
On the task bar there is no way to move the “”Widgets”. Documents say you can drag them to the new location but that simply don’t work. When you add a widget it goes on the right side at the end and there it stays. I’ve tried click and drag, right click and drag, ctrl and drag and alt and drag all without success. The only way I can see to move them is to delete them all and add them back in the correct order.
Well, enough of this for me. I’m going to put Ubuntu 8.04 back in and install KDE3 from there. Maybe in a year I’ll come back and try KDE4 again. For now, as far as I can see it isn’t ready for me yet. If you want to use it I hope you have better luck than I have had.
Bob Jones
I'm Bob Jones and I live in Le Claire, Iowa. I'm very interested in Computers, Geocaching, Genealogy, Blogging, Travel and Woodworking. I also play around with Flint Knapping from time to time but have a long way to go before I make anything worth keeping.
April 9th, 2008 at 5:58 am
Thankfully you haven’t seen KDE4 when it came out in January. If you want KDE4 at it is/was meant to be used by the average user, you will need to wait until June or July for the release of KDE 4.1.
Why KDE 4.0 was released with this numeration in the first place is subject to many, often heated, debates. I’m sure Google will find plenty of sources, if this is of interest to you (Aaron J. Seigo’s blog would be a good start, though).
But I digress. What I wanted to point out is that Kubuntu will release a remastered live-CD of Hardy after the release KDE 4.1. So I suggest you give it a spin and see whether KDE4 will then meet your requirements. Of course, you could also install KDE4 on your then current installation of Hardy. KDE3 and KDE4 can be installed side by side and you simply chose one version or the other when logging in. The personal preferences are stored separately for both versions, so they won’t interfere with each other (I haven’t heard about problems in this regard and haven’t experienced any myself.
Good luck with Kubuntu Hardy. I hope you’ll like it.
April 9th, 2008 at 8:02 am
Good Morning and Thank You. Yes, I’m sure that KDE4 will be greatly improved as it goes along. Hopefully they will get the administrator access issues taken care of before it is released. Without that it would be difficult to change some very necessary things without a great deal more experience than I have. I also just plain don’t like the new menus and will probably resist changing for a while. However, as happens to many good things, I’m sure that support for KDE3 will go away sometime in the future and I will have to bite the bullet and learn something new
Thanks again for the information.
Bob Jones
April 9th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
I have a lot of complaints with KDE4 on Kubuntu. One that I find most annoying is that when you install a new program that does not have a menu for it already, it does not make one. I am new to linux but I have tried all the Kubuntus since 6.04 and I find this one the most annoying. I will just have to waut
April 9th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
Hi Josh, Thanks for stopping by. I agree about it not making menu shortcuts. I have had the same problem with about every one of the Ubuntu / Kubuntu versions that I have tried. It seems that some will setup just fine and others don’t get added to the menu for some reason. I have managed to track down some I needed with “search” and then created the menu shortcut myself but that seems strange and shouldn’t be necessary. I don’t think Linux will be ready for the average and below user until someone comes up with a standard install method and programs don’t have to be tweaked like that.
Have A Great Day
Bob Jones
April 30th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
I will have to agree Bob that the “Freedom” and flexibility that KDE3 provides is non-existent in KDE 4 REGARDLESS of the distro you run.
The shortcuts are gone and the CLI returns nothing for what’s been available for years. While I appreciate the “Eye Candy” KDE4 minimally provides, I think I speak for many when I say that we could care less HOW a window appears or looks when opened or closed. Leave that garbage to the kiddies who get off on that stuff. Many have more important things to concern with than trying to compare their Linux systems against Microcrap.
Users want the application to start yesterday and system resources at the lowest possible for those times when the “Mash of the Gas” so-to-speak is needed. The KDE4 release should have hinged upon - once the interface was equal to if not better in usability and features than KDE3 - Period! I guess the few articles I’ve run across mentioning how Linux too is starting to succumb to the “Marketing Idiots” may have some truth behind the reports.
In any case, Bob hit the nail on the head. Man I dread having to learn and deal with Gnome - such an awful interface as well.
Thanks,
Tony T
May 9th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
I would agree as well. I’m installing Ubuntu 8.04 over my KDE4 install.
May 9th, 2008 at 8:33 pm
Unless something happens in the next 6 months, I believe a lot of folks will be looking for a new Distro or solution as Gnome just doesn’t cut it either. K3b, Konqueror/Dolphin, Yakuake…. let’s face it, Brasero and Nautilus are worthless. Gnome needed a file browser if there ever was an environment that needed one. KDE had an excellent one with Konqueror and many question why Dolphin. Would be nice for Gnome to accept Dolphin as well or offer a way to change the integration of the interface from Nautilus. Getting tired of loading up a system with both sets of libraries and files just to have a functional interface.
Thanks
Tony T
May 10th, 2008 at 6:41 am
Thanks for stopping in Tony. I agree with you. I’m going to try KDE4 again in about 6 months and if it hasn’t resolved some of the issues I’ve had problems with, the task bar is a big problem along with no administrator buttons on a lot of things, I will be looking elsewhere also. If you find something that I should try please let me know.
Thanks again.
Bob Jones
May 24th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
Try OpenSuse 11 kde 4 they did some nice tweaking to make it more useful. They also backported some kde 4.1 stuff to make kde 4.0 useable. Look at polish linux they have some nice previews of kde 4.1. I don’t know what Kubuntu did with KDE 4.0 but it seems to have more issues than some other linux distros. Why even Fedora 9 did a better job with kde 4.0 which is odd since fedora traditionally treats kde like garbage.
May 26th, 2008 at 6:43 am
Ag, I left Suse 9.3 for Ubuntu due to the RPM Dependency issues and headaches these types of distros started having. Watched the RPM based flavors go from YUM, to Carpet, Synaptic to Rug and back again and it still didn’t resolve the biggest detraction they have thus far - lack of good Package Management.
I like the “Debian” based distros for their better performance overall and they have the best package management going. No dependency issues and more package selections to choose from than the rest. I guess their repo’s are better maintained.
The biggest mistake I see across the board of all distro’s is their particular preference and focus to a single interface. I believe all distros should equally support all GUI’s and quit the cannibalization of the GUI to their perceptions or liking. The end user should make that choice. In some ways, the distro’s are starting to act like Microcrap and I would hate to see that attitude stop something good before it has a chance to compete on the global market.
While KDE4 may be working for some on a select few flavors, I’m disappointed in KDE for not completing the project before it was released. There’s no excuse in not having the primary tools and applets available until as a “Post-release”. Also - the top 25 externally produced or downloaded apps should have been incorporated at release time as well. The back porting didn’t work for many.
I don’t use just all KDE or all Gnome. I use a mix from both (Firefox not Konqueror, Evolution not Kontact, Kopete not Pidgin, etc….). The best app or applet for the task at hand is my philosophy. I’ll wait till fall and see how things turn out before I leave a distro that works for me and have to change how I do everything all over again.
Thanks for the info as I will pass it along to my co-worker who is experimenting to see what KDE4 is about.
May 26th, 2008 at 7:27 am
Well said, Old Salt. As you know I’m sure not happy with Ubuntu’s version of KDE4. Some people I have talked to lead me to believe that is will get much better when the next release is out. Like you, I don’t think that software should be released just to meet a time frame. The FIRST requirement should be that it works well so it don’t cause problems for the user. I know that there is no software over 10 lines of code that don’t have a bug or two (usually more
) but that can’t be helped. To release something that has issues as apparent as those in KDE4 is almost unforgivable. I’ll wait until the next release and then try it again. After that I will give up on KDE4.
Bob Jones