It's overall more intuitive, more "context sensitive" and it helps you actively to find your way, if you get stuck. E. g., in certain situations, when actually you have one window open, that's taking the whole screen, and KDE "guesses" from your mouse or keyboard actions that you are looking for another window behind the big one or on another workplace, it scales down the window view and displays all the windows open, so that you can easily pick the one you want. This may sound very complicated, but in fact it takes a lot longer to describe it than just to use it. Little helpers of this kind are implemented at different places, but usually an experienced user won't notice them. If you know what you are doing, they won't get in your way. They only appear, when they can really be useful. The KDE developers did a great job to implement this kind of feature.

BTW, I have, so far, been unable to reproduce this intentionally! It only happens really, when I am lost in my desktop environment and actually need. I don't know, but it almost seems KDE can read my mind...

And: KDE 4 so far is even more robust and faster than KDE 3.5.10 on my hardware. E. g., I've often seen a crash error message, when I left a KDE 3.5 session. I haven't seen such a useless message in KDE 4, so far.

Finally, I like the new dialogs for system settings and printing better than with 3.5, although the older versions worked well, without a doubt, already.

There are many subtle changes, not only regarding the looks of it, but also the feel. But it doesn't hurt, that all of this is also nicely packaged.

gargamel

Once again, the team has done an outstanding job. The install took about 20 min, and I was off and running! Full 64 bit capability, which is nice because it went a lot easier than installing from slackware64-current. The only problem I had was that the new config-less Xorg didn't detect my screen setup automagically (which is odd, I only have one) so I had to go and grab the nVidia drivers before I could run X. Small inconvenience for me, although I can imagine for some of the newbs that it would be difficult and a little daunting without being familiar with links. either way, KDE 4.2 is beautiful, albeit strange, and all the other software I have tested so far works beautifully. Thanks again Pat!

IIRC, if you take your mouse into the upper right screen and move it a little further it will do that with all the windows. But it has been a bit since I used it, as I am still waiting for time to upgrade Slack on my laptop, and my desktop is still not hooked up and will not be until I find a house.

Hello,

I installed 2 slackware64-13.0 and 2 slackware-13.0 machines since last friday. Everything is working fine.

Since I've been using Slackware64-current before the new installation it is not such a big jump for me.

Thanks to the Slackwareteam.

Markus

Ok i installed my 13.0, 32bit version last night, i mean morning ( from 3 to 5 in the morning ). I came across something totally different from my old 12.2. First the KDE4 wich i was familiar with from the Kubuntu live CD wich i tried out earlier this month. Although it is shiny and fancy, i don`t really like it, so i switched to xfce. My mouse works fine, scroll everything, i think my videocard needs a driver but i don`t know wich one to install. I use sbopkg tool and works very well. I`m happy with the overall result although i`m eager to get the slackbook 3.0 after it will be done :D

I've got Slackware 13 set up virtualized. As I had suspected, KDE 4 is pretty atrocious, even when packaged by Patrick (sorry Patrick... a plate of manure is still manure, no matter how artfully presented and prepared), so I'm going to try to get KDE 3.5.10 working on it and see how that goes. I'll post my results or methodology if I get it to work.

Thanks!
 

I installed 13.0 x86_64 and it is most excellent. I have been anxiously waiting for the release and am very grateful for all the folks at Slackware for putting it all together. The quality, reliability, simplicity, of slackware as a complete package operating system is unmatched. As mentioned by someone else above I momentarily tripped over an improper VESA screen size when first loading X but it was easily resolved when I installed the nvidia drivers. I did not even need to touch xorg.conf for anything which was a pleasant surprise. I am adapting to some of the new features and changes in KDE4 but it has been painless and fun. I visited slackbuilds.org and began grabbing all my necessary build scripts and applications and am on my way.

Thanks again to the Slackware Team and all the OSS contributors. Great Job!

Using Slackware64 here. Here's what I've done and my impressions so far:

1. Decided to try the optional 2.6.30.5 kernel in /testing. Got a few complaints from 'alsactl' upon startup, although sound worked. Chose not to play with fire and went back to 2.6.29.6. Audio comes from Intel HDA (Realtek ALC889)

2. Installed nvidia drivers using slackbuild scripts. No issues, woohoo.

3. KDE4 is pretty ugly out of the box, though that can be fixed in a few minutes. Compositing is nice. I don't care for the new 'System Settings' layout. I didn't notice an option to go into 'Administrator mode' to set permissions for K3B, had to log in as root to do so. There's no CUPS administration in System Settings. Used CUPS's web interface instead.

4. Installed QtCurve-Gtk2 from using slackbuild script. Really makes Firefox, Thunderbird and other GTK2 apps look nice in KDE4.

5. Used Dugan Chen's site for improved fonts. Thanks Dugan! Results are awesome.

6. Have a "take it or leave it" attitude over the default menu style in KDE4. It's nice for my girlfriend, who uses a few apps. Can just add those as Favorites, and she doesn't have to drill around as she would with the classic menu. I use the classic myself.

7. KDE4 version of K3B won't work successfully for me (Plextor SATA DVD burner). I've been using Nero Linux, which unlike the Windows version, is still lightweight. It does a good job.

8. Installed OpenOffice via slackbuilds. No surprises.

9. Installed VirtualBox 3.0.4 PUEL edition via .run file. Have a few minor quirks with it. Now and then, mouse control gets out of whack. If I enter seamless mode, then exit, I end up with an unmovable shade box, and you can't see the guest OS. This probably has something to do with compositing being enabled in KDE. I can shut the guest down with the keyboard, then all is good. Having a slackbuild available for the PUEL edition would be nice, but the .run file installs fine, and it has an uninstall option, so I guess it's not really necessary.

10. It appears I can only have sound coming from one source. If I play an MP3 in Audacious, I can't get audio while watching a flash video on YouTube. If a VBox guest OS grabs audio, I can't hear anything from the host. I guess I don't have a sound server running? Gotta look into that some more.

11. I will probably convert to a multilib setup for a few games, and possibly even Adobe Reader.


Happy to have 64-bit Slackware.

Thanks for the reply.
I came across that "feature" in an earlier version of 4.xx. Sorry, I don't remember which one. However, IIRC, you can trigger it by moving your mouse into the upper left hand corner (as you are looking at your screen). This is something "borrowed" from the Mac, BTW.

I installed Slackware 13 32-bit. So far it's been very solid and I haven't had any problems except for one application crash (the find dialog in KDE).

There are some things that could use improvement in KDE but that is hardly the fault of Slackware. The KDE help is sadly out of date and refers to functions that have been removed. Examples are the administrator mode of the login manager (no longer there) and the ability to disable all sounds (no longer there).

Amarok refuses to display the album covers that I installed on Slackware 12.2 and won't let me download any new ones. It never finds any on Amazon when it searches. There are some Amarok features like adding timing marks that are not really finished (no way to delete them after adding them).

Another strange thing that I've noticed is if I create icons as widgets and the icons refer to shortcuts in the menu, editing the widget icon changes the menu entry. Apparently the icons are more like an alias than a totally separate shortcut. The way I got around that problem was to put copies of shortcuts in a separate folder and then link the widget icons to those shortcuts. I happened to use a "Desktop" folder since I already had shortcuts for most things I wanted in that from the previous version of KDE. The "page" that is displayed does not show the contents of the "Desktop" folder but there is a folder widget that can be used to display the contents of any folder including "Desktop".

My biggest problem is that VirtualBox doesn't work with KDE if I enable the 3D compositing. The contents of the virtual machine windows don't appear and full screen mode doesn't work. Seamless mode does work after clicking the desktop once to make the windows appear. The interesting thing is that VirtualBox does work with XFCE and compositing enabled. I like VirtualBox but I've been fighting an ongoing battle with each version introducing new bugs.

I was a bit disappointed in the analog clock since it only has one color scheme (too dark with no numbers). I also spent some harrowing moments after accidentally dragging things into strange places.

I think Slackware makes the most out of a less than finished KDE. Only time is going to (hopefully) see KDE become more complete and consistent. Some distros have already moved on to KDE 4.3 but I have to wonder how solid that is. At least the KDE 4.2 in Slackware is working without any major problems.

In spite of my complaints with KDE I still feel more comfortable using it than Windows Vista or even Windows 7. Both of those somehow leave me always hunting for things and swearing at the extra mouse clicks and scrolling to get to what I want. My analog clock on Vista slowly drifts to the left with each reboot. It's certainly the strangest time drifting problem I've had. So far things in KDE stay where I put them.

Slackware 13 may very well have the best KDE 4 available and that's no minor feat considering the state of KDE. I think that Slackware 13 is an improvement compared to 12.2 and I thought 12.2 was one of the best Slackware releases.

Use "kdesu systemsettings" instead of logging in as root. I meant to add that to CHANGES_AND_HINTS.TXT, but it slipped my mind until the ISO's had already been sent off to the replicator :/

I'm feeling very slack!
 

Good solution Rob!
---

I've discussed this in at least two other threads, but here it is again: `kdesu` does not work for me on Slack64, at least not the way it should.

I have to:

Execute `kdesu something`
Let it reject my password a couple times.
Maybe then it will accept the PW, but "something" never starts.
Execute `kdesu something` again.
Get at least one more rejected PW.
Now, it starts "something" successfully (usually).

It's really annoying.

I don't blame it on Slackware, I blame KDE. And I'm using XFCE now, just because I prefer KDE4 less than KDE3 or XFCE.

Other than the above, Slack64 (Slackware 13 -- must get used to that!) is as delightful as ever, and I am extremely happy with it-- almost as happy as I'll be when I find the DVD in my mailbox in the near future :)

Sasha

I`m using the32bit 13.0 and I have that issue too.

Absolutely no problems at all with a 32bit install and xfce desktop. Of special note on my own system:

1. Installation was faster
2. Graphics with an only integrated intel graphics controller are crystal clear and quite responsive, improved from 12.2
3. Great new versions of my most-used packages
4. The whole system feels totally renovated and rock-solid!!

One happy customer :-)

Andrew

Just getting down to playing, right now. First of all, I don't think I'm going to get on with KDE 4. It seems that you can't disable all the tooltips (the ones when you hover over the pager and the Kickoff application launcher (K button) are annoying). Also, I don't seem to be able to create a vertical panel as easily I could before. Other than that, I've not noticed anything odd. I've got to disable HAL and create an xorg.conf and then hopefully that will be all I need to do!

Same here.