I'm testing KDE 4.2.4 in Slackware (current) and a I notice if I click a lot between device notifier,application launcher (the new), system operations dialog (the i in the task bar), show me desktop and the workplaces. All thing breaks lose and the (i) on taskbar stays on but i can not see the file operations dialog anymore. The device notifier list and the application launcher disappears also.
Is this a bug or I'm getting too hard on it?

Patient: "Doctor, it hurts when I do this!"
Doctor: "Well, don't do it then."



Probably a bit of both. Obviously, it shouldn't get itself in a mess, but I think that currently with KDE you're lucky if it works when you use it as intended. If you start stress testing UI elements, then I'm not surprised if it gets a little confused. I'm sure the KDE guys will work on the robustness of the UI as time goes on.

I do not see how one can stress test a UI element since, as far as I understand, it processes messages one at a time and it makes absolutely no difference how often it is clicked. Thus, the "work on the robustness of a UI" sounds like "compensating for fundamental design faults" to me.

I did not analyze the code, but from the end user perspective KDE 4 looks like Windows - having fundamental problems that can be forced to pop-up less frequently by debugging and patching but cannot be eliminated.

However, I believe KDE is the only option for those who are not happy with XFCE and there is no sense in looking back.

A single element perhaps not. I'm not that familiar with the KDE codebase either, but I get the feeling that the KDE/plasma desktop design is more of a collection of individual parts that interact and cooperate with each other (i.e. A big ball of wibbly-wobbly-codey-wodey stuff).

As you say, the messages are put on a queue and taken off in sequence, but once they've been received the individual processes still need to act on them, and that's where you can experience these race conditions. So it's probably quite possible to get weird interactions when clicking this and that and this and that and that and this and the other, rapidly.


I've used WindowMaker for a good few years now and am happy with it. I'm a firm believer in the UNIX philosophy of writing small tools that "Do one thing, and do it well". I guess most people would consider me a luddite. Clearly, KDE is the exact opposite of this, and not to my tastes at all, but if they want to have a go at creating a complex and highly integrated desktop to rival Windows 7 and OS-X then I wish them well and I'm not going to criticise them if they make a few errors on the way.

It is a bug and was already reported.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...pplets-743729/

"wibbly-wobbly-codey-wodey stuff"

I am going to add that phrase to my technical vocabulary.

-Ben