With quite a backlash to KDE4 going on is it possible that a mistake has been made in accepting KDE4 similar to the mistake made by microsoft with windows vista?

We are seeing many people downgrading to Window XP because of the quirks, requirements, and instability of vista? There seems somewhat of a similar scenario developing with KDE4? Anyone agree?

Please explain the terms Microsoft, Windows, Xp and Vista. Never heard of them before.

Microsoft is one of the world's largest software suppliers, with turnover of hundreds of billions of dollars every year. [?] The company is based in Redmond, Washington state, USA.

Windows is Microsoft's best-selling line of operating systems for personal computers, dating back over two decades.

Vista is the latest release of Microsoft Windows (2007 ?).
XP was the release of Microsoft Windows before this (2001).


Hope that helps all of you hardcore Linux fanboy people who haven't been keeping up with the latest software that other people use

Microsoft is a philanthropic organisation, well known for its strictly ethical business practices.

Yes. M$ is known for treating competitors in a fair and ethical way.....*cough Netscape cough*. Hehe.

No. Vista is an operating system and KDE is a desktop environment. Apparently KDE still has some bugs. I haven't run it in slackware yet but it ran rather smoothly on this machine in kubuntu. There are 2 similarities but they end there.

1. Both have bugs
2. Both use more resources than their predecessor.

Thats where is stops. As I said Vista is an operating system. There are compatability issues with software. There are security issues. Vista was buggy well after 1 year past the release date.

None of those things are true of the new KDE/Slackware combo.

Sigh...this topic has been done to death.
Apparently people also bitched and whined when Gnome 2.0 was released but now love the damn thing (and IMHO it still isn't as featureful as KDE is).
KDE 4.0 was a very "raw" release, but it is maturing and quite fast I might add.

Besides, KDE is a desktop environment! Window Vista is an entire operation system, so the logistics of "downgrading" either one can't be compared.
Try redeploying Windows XP in a business now full of brand new Vista machines. Aside from the amount of time spent on installing XP and getting the machines patched, chances are you might not even find drivers for your hardware.
On the other hand, some linux distros allow you to fire up the package manager and with a few clicks (or commands) have a fully working KDE3 desktop (ArchLinux comes to mind).

Sorry, I don't really see the similarity between the scenarios.

Here at home, that does not seem to be true. KDE4 takes less resources than KDE3 used to.

Eric

Because you have compbiz off?

Yes we understand that windows is a complete operating system and KDE is a window manager however they in effect suffer from a similar disfunctionality -- In that both provide a "flashy" graphical environment that lacks in reliability and high stability/tested features. Lucky for KDE4, linux is providing the stability of the OS. I agree that KDE4 is developing fast and will soon will be fixed, much like Windows 7 will likely simplify/solve the vista issues.

Unfortunately people are finicky and a minor step back before a large step forward can lose some of the user base. Just a thought.

I think with KDE4, like vista, you've seen an overstep in bells and whistles without the stability. I wouldn't be surprised if we see a draw back to more simplification and reliability, in both these software environments.

@ smoooth103 - have you actually tried KDE4 on Slackware 13.0. A lot of the complaints you see are from people who (1) ran it on other distros where the implementation was not stable, (2) ran it after upgrading from KDE3 but failed to remove old KDE3 configuration files, thus causing crashes and strange application behaviour in KDE4 or (3) who are resistant to any change, and the changes in user interface as well as applications are quite big.

There are things left to do in KDE4 with regard to application functionality and stability but that affects a small number of applications only. But, you need to work with it and get to know its flexibility to appreciate the change in course the KDE developers thought was needed.

Eric

I view it that way. I find KDE 4 (all releases I have tried, up to and including 4.3) to be of infuriatingly poor design, slow, buggy, frustratingly inflexible, and ugly.

In fact, the very first thing I thought when I first looked at an early release of KDE 4 was "wow, this looks like Vista, right down to the nearly unusable default menu."

I'm utterly dumbfounded at all of the love that KDE 4 is actually getting... I keep finding myself thinking "are these people talking about the same thing I'm talking about here? Because this is a steaming pile compared to KDE 3.5".

Even more puzzling is KDE 4's presence in Slackware.

SLACKWARE, of all distros! I honestly didn't expect to see KDE 4 in Slackware for at least another year. I wasn't disturbed by all the major distros jumping on that bandwagon prematurely, because I thought "Nah, not Slackware. Patrick didn't even make a 2.6.* kernel the default in Slackware until Slackware 12, fer cryin out loud! KDE 4 won't be front-and-center in a Slackware release until it can actually replace KDE 3.5.10, and maybe even then not until a while after that."

Unfortunately I was very wrong about that, and that upsets me.

I've found a way to make it work in Slackware 13, but that's really only a band-aid in the grand scheme of things. I'm not looking at it as an actual solution, and I'm certainly not going to be replacing my solid current main Slackware setup with that.

All in all, I'm extremely disappointed about Slackware 13 because of this. I've been using a product whose name is synonomous with reliability, simplicity, and stability for years and years, and this completely turns my perception of it on its head.

It's like being a long time Toyota driver, only to find out that the new Camry is using a new engine from Chrysler.

It kind of makes you rethink the entire product.

FWIW,

1-- I don't find KDE4 any less stable than KDE3, in the sense of crashing completely. It hasn't crashed hard on me at all. Now, it's applications sometimes crash, and I have noticed that it's applications do have the tendency to have a gigantic memory footprint under some circumstances.

2-- relative to KDE3, it's less mature, but IMO better looking. I've never set eyes on Vista, so I can't make any sort of comparison between the two. Suffice it to say, without ever having seen Vista, I'd rather run a Linux OS with an unstable KDEx, than run any Vista implementation.

3-- I've found (the few of) KDE4's applications that I was very familar with (specifically konqueror) from KDE3, to be now lacking some tiny features that I really liked. It's not a big deal, but a deal none the less.

I haven't given up on KDE4, but for the time being, I'm getting familiar with XFCE as an alternative. I'll use KDE4 again I'm sure, and I look forward to seeing it mature. It really is IMO nice looking; some places are "too" nice looking IMO, such as the weird sliding Kmenu, but on that, switching to classic view solves that issue in short order.


Sasha

^^^ What she said ^^^

KDE4 is really pain in ass
I hoped that it is better in slackware 13
but I am wrong, I do not know why Patrick change from kde3 to kde4
I do not say about crashing or buggy
I want to say about its ugly.