In the past I compiled and installed every new version of the kernel. Since Slackware started to provide generic kernels I started to use them and stopped to change kernels on my own. I do it for the sake of the documentation of the system:

Likewise here. I'm utterly baffled at why KDE 4 is in Slackware 13 at all; I could see it being included in /testing, or /extras. That would make sense.

But no KDE 3.5.10 at all? And KDE 4.2.4 as the only KDE version?

I have to wonder if this is still Slackware, or if it has been taken over by someone else. I wasn't expecting to see KDE 4 at all in Slack until at least another year's worth of heavy development had taken place in it first (maybe by the time Slackware 14 is ready, KDE 4 might actually be a suitable replacement for KDE 3.5.10).

I wouldn't mind if it was actually the 'Taz' logo from the WB cartoon, but then again copyright issues would arise.

I am too lazy to do a recompile just for a silly logo though. I'll just live with it until the next release.

The only other comment is about the bootscreen logo, see (http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...0-00-750987/): It took me too long to catch that the numbers were binary , since at first I thought something happened during the install that corrupted the image. Then I wrongly thought it was hexadecimal numbers, not binary, because usually binary numbers are in groups of four not two, the way hexadecimal values are, but I guess Pat just thought it looked better. *shrug*

hexadecimal to decimal:

Just don't understand most of the complaints on KDE4. There are a few quirks here and there but it seems complete and stable in my opinion, and a signifcant improvement overall. I think Slackware has been wise to hang off on incorporating KDE4 until now -- but it seems like this was the right time to finally bring it in. I like KDE3 as much as the next person but the fact is, KDE3 will no longer be supported and will soon be at end of life scenario. Most of the users with the issues should head over to KDE development and try to get some of the issues corrected and also voice their opinions on various features that are missing/disliked. As far as I can tell you can make KDE4 look and feel virtually identical to KDE3... what are the issues?

Thank you for your ideas guys & girls.

I just have added the kernel boot param "logo.nologo" to hide Taz. See my original post for more changes.

You describe something really weird, and if I had such a problem, I'd most certainly switch to Xfce or Fluxbox, but I think it's worth mentioning, that I do not observe this. kdesu so far works flawlessly and starts all the applications I pass to it as a "parameter".

Question is, how to track down what your problem is actually caused by. Maybe some of the highly skilled crew members here can help. (If I could, I wouldn't hesitate, but your problem seems to go beyond my skills).

gargamel

@ gargamel -- it is definitely weird, and not consistent in how it manifests either.

Also, I AM using XFCE! But to start something as root, I still use `kdesu` from XFCE. I've tried the ALT-F2 thing or whatever it is, to get the XFCE run-dialog, but seems that too uses the kdesu backend (I haven't torn it apart to verify this) so meanwhile, I'm just dealing with it, by entering the password a whack of times until it accepts
Sasha

Yes, correct, thanks! This is a really neat feature, I like it a lot. In fact I think, that KDE 4 has a few rough edges, still, but the fundamental approach nicely combines the best things from various desktop paradigms (such as Mac and Windows) with its own innovations. The result is much better than just trying to copy what Windows users may be used to.

I am not really happy about the recent developments in OpenOffice.org. I liked StarOffice 5.2 a lot better. It was different than everything Microsoft had to offer at its time, and it was better and more productive.
Now it's a clone of Microsoft Office, with the advantage of being open-sourced and using an ISO standardised document format. But the technology is no better and not much different. In fact, mewnwhile the UI resembles Microsoft stuff to a degree, that I consult the OOo help, when I don't know how to do something in MS Excel.
Of course, it means, that I don't have to re-think when I switch applications, but it also means that there will be no real added value from an end-user's point of view in using OOo instead of MS Office.

While KDE 4 is young and in some minor areas a little immature, I like it much better. It shows real innovation, and some of its concepts and its basic architecture justify the highest expectations for the future. It demonstrates, what the community is able to achieve, which is much more than just clone existing commercial stuff.

gargamel

Have you had the opportunity to try Go-OO? It looks interesting.

Your support of KDE 4.xx is both interesting and baffling. As I've said elsewhere I ran it for 6 months and the only program that I used daily that was anywhere as functional and/or configurable as its KDE 3.5.10 predecessor, was not KDE related at all, but, rather, Opera which I downloaded and installed directly from the Opera web site with each new release.

Sorry, but Forcing a desktop upon the community that "is young and in some minor areas a little immature..." and "...shows real innovation, and some of its concepts and its basic architecture justify the highest expectations for the future..." sounds like ms-speak out of Redmond, Washington.

That KDE would force a "immature" and features and functions lacking (its applications) desktop upon us via the various Linux distributions that have played along, has to be one of, if not the, greatest injustices, read "scam" if you will, ever perpetrated on the Open Source community. Replacing something that works, i.e, KDE 3.5.10, with something "that isn't quite ready,"i.e., KDE 4.xx, and hasn't been "quite ready" for the 1 1/2 years since it was introduced, has been, IMHO, a great source of disappointment. As other posts here and on other forums have shown, mine is not an unique opinion.
There is a little solace to be had in knowing that at least Slackware wasn't the first to jump on the KDE 4.xx bandwagon.

I have to agree with some of the posts here. KDE 4.2 is a disaster. It looks nice, but that's the only positive thing I can say about it. After two days of trying to get used to it, I decided the easiest thing was to go back to slack 12.2. My biggest gripes are...

Hard to customize. Customization in KDE 3.5 was non-intuitive and difficult,
but at least it could be done. Not so with KDE 4.

Akonadi! I will never use this. The best way to improve this application is to allow me to remove it from my system. Even if it is "one of the pillars of KDE 4"

Can't drag and drop with konqueror or dolphin while in detail view

Can't disable all the annoying tool tips.

I know this is not really a Slackware issue, but as the main window manager, KDE is dragging down the whole distro. I've been a big slackware fan since around version 7 or 8 and this is the first time that I've been disappointed in a new version.

Slackware 13 was my first long encounter with KDE4, and what a horrible Vista like mess it is. It's not that it isn't pretty, innovative and fast - it's that it's so unstable, bordering on being useless. It crashes and locks a lot more than KDE3 (which hardly ever crashes - at least I can't remember when it last died on me), and seeing as my computers are how I earn my pay, crashing really isn't an option for me.

So for the first time ever, I'm considering XFCE instead of KDE. Or perhaps I'll just stay with 12.2 and hope for a more stable experience with Slackware 13.1 and KDE4. I suspect 12.2 will win.

As other have said, I'm sort of baffled at the choice of KDE4 for Slackware 13. IMHO it belongs in testing/. KDE4 is currently dragging the Slackware brand through the mud, at least on the computers I've tested (one AMD/ATI, one nVidia and one Intel Atom). At least that's my opinion. I see that a lot of Slackware users are very happy with KDE4, so chances are it's just me being unlucky.

Oh well, here's hoping for a better experience with Slackware 13.1


/Thomas

I should probably remain silent since I don't use KDE. However, most of the problems seem related to adapting to operational changes of the desktop. Personally, I agree with Pat's inclusion of KDE 4.x. KDE 3.5x might have been put in /pasture, though, if possible. Crashes are a problem if due to KDE 4.x, but most users should probably spend a bit more time ADAPTING to the operational changes ...

I don't know, I think everyone is being too hard on the inclusion of KDE 4. What would a brand new dot zero Slackware release be without a few liberal changes, especially a new desktop? Pat can't cling on to KDE 3.5 forever guys. It's already pretty much dead and personally I was getting bored with it anyways. There's no direction it can possibly go except down. Not sure what all the fuss is about, we already know Pat's reasons for not shipping GNOME with Slackware anymore and there's already other great window managers like fluxbox and desktop alternatives like XFCE. Shipping 13.0 with KDE 3.5 would have been a disappointment imo. As it stands it's like living on the edge a little with KDE 4 vs. kicking a dead horse with KDE 3.5.

Anyways, I installed 13.0 last night and really love it. Thanks again Slack team for all your hard work on this release. I think all of the best decisions were made

EDIT: Also thank you to everyone for all your opinions. I know a lot of you aren't getting along with KDE4, in fact despise it, so there's a lot of conflict of taste and opinion and I don't want to sound like "you're wrong, I'm right." I just feel KDE4 has more direction and keeps the forward momentum of the project going as a whole.

I used Slackware-current for a bit with KDE4 on a Pentium 4 with 2GB RAM and a GeForce FX 5600 for video.
Overall, I was unhappy with KDE4 on that setup. It made my computer feel its age, so I opted to try XFCE.
It was the first time I spent any decent amount of time using XFCE, but I came away really liking it. Not quite up to par with the aesthetics of a full-blown GNOME desktop, but with a little work things were snazzy enough for me.

Then I built my Core i7 920 box, now sporting a passively-cooled GeForce 9800 GT. KDE4 is very nice.
Building packages and compiling packages? Freakin' sweet compared to the Pentium 4.


I posted earlier in this thread about a sound issue, where I could only hear sound from one source at a time. I made some headway, and now I can hear sound from multiple sources at once, though I'm still working on getting sound from a VBox guest while also getting sound from my Slackware64 host. I'll start another thread when I get it all figured out.