QFT

That was what I thought. Moisespedro should read a little bit more about what the "Slackware philosophy" actually is. Plus if the last version of KDE was 4.1 then you have no right to blame KDE for being bloatware. Start using it in Slackware 14.1 (using the default 4.10.5 of Slackware 14.1 or else upgrade to my 4.12.2 for Slackware 14.1) and then judge it.

lastly, Slackware's proper functioning is in no way depending on the presence of KDE on your computer. Just don't install it if you are so opposed to it. The choice is yours.

Eric

I was a proud member of the kde dev team during the 4.0 transition. I have not been active during the past couple of years, though, but I am still listed as the author or co-author of several games and edu apps that we "redid" or ported during that time, including KBlocks, KMines, KMahjongg, KTurtle...
As I see it, KDE 4.x was indeed a rough release, but it was necessary to get us to 4.1, and 4.2, and on. IMHO there are some components that were (and still are) "bloated", in the sense that they take too many resources and are not "useful" for a significant share of users. The two main offenders imo are Nepomuk and Strigi. I still disable Nepomuk immediately after a new install of Slackware.
Also you have to consider that Qt was basically redone from 3.x from 4.x. A lot of things were not yet tuned when 4.x shipped. And some would still be "broken" if KDE had not "pushed" 4.x and its successors out of the door. Bugs are only found and fixed when people start using the software. And, of course, no one was forced to use 4.x, as is the case with almost any component. Well, maybe not systemd, but I will not go down this hole ;)
I also realize that people do not understand exactly how a big project like KDE works. The KDE community is absolutely wonderful AND loves freedom. No one will tell you NOT to do something. This sometimes leads to some components that "shouuld not have existed" (in someone's pov at least) being part of the default install :) Some projects (like GNOME) are a bit more "tight" in their controls, and to each its own. Both tactics have strenghts and weaknesses, and luckily the darwinian evolution theory applies perfectly to open source development, so at the end we always end up with better tools and can exercise our choice to use (or not) the best one for our particular needs at the moment.

I always found it saddening to see all the KDE4 bashing in the early 4.0 days. The KDE development community had made it very clear that 4.0 was not meant for production use, but instead it should be considered a "technology preview". It was the fault of the distros that added KDE 4.0 to their default install regardless of these warnings, that people became so upset with KDE4. Really, the distros are to blame, not KDE4.

There is a damn good reason why I have been maintaining my "ktown" repository for so many years. Slackware needs to offer a tried-and-tested version of KDE for those who like KDE and need a stable work environment. My "ktown" packages are the latest and greatest of what KDE has to offer, compiled for recent versions of Slackware, including slackware-current. It is entirely up to you to decide whether you want to use these "ktown" packages, but it is actually true that many bugs are not found until people start using the software. Developers have a kind of tunnel vision which prevents them from picturing use-cases which non-developers (you, the end users) need for their daily tasks.
Nevertheless, my "ktown" experience is usually stable, because of the solid foundation on which KDE evolves.
The same for future road blocks - if it ever becomes unavoidable to add PAM, systemd, wayland or not-yet-invented stuff, rest assured that it will have been tried and tested before it lands in Slackware proper.

Eric

Ok, one thing I forgot to say: I rather use gtk applications. Well, I might have been unfair and I feel sorry for that. Gonna try KDE again.

Oh and by the way I don't even think (and didn't say) Slackware should be old or hard or anything like that. I even made a thread that states the opposite.

Especially KDE4? What other KDE is there? :D I've never used KDE3, but from what i heard it was very buggy. It seems people glorify it quite a lot, the same way people glorify Gnome2 these days.

What irks me the most about the strong inclination of Slackware towards KDE is that Xfce4 feels crippled and incomplete.

KDE 3.5 was cool. Lightweight and stable. But I was never a big fan of KDE, always used Gnome and, with Gnome's 2 death, I started using XFCE. Now I am using i3 wm only. Gnome 2 was really great, easy menus, easy configuration and fast. Today I see it as outdated and I wouldn't use it but I have to recognise its value.

KDE4 all in all is a crap.
xfce is a lot better - actually, the only one thing i miss in xfce if compare with kde4 - that is widgets support. i use only one widget - YaWP - weather prediction, but that is a handy widget. in all other terms xfce win hands down. it has eat a lot less resources, not have a debil nepomukakonadi things and so on. all kde apps looks like work on xfce too,and it is in menus.
xfce ( in version 14.0 in any way) have a keybord switcher, who you must be install separatedly, because in stock there not keyboard language switcher, and you cannot change keybord language.

kde 3.5 in last slackwares ( 12.2) be a very good and finalized wm. it lack of some minor things, but all in all, after i install slackware 13 and see a first KDE 4, i was very impressed. it was a complete catastrophe. there you even cannot have a different wallpaper for each virtual desktop!

Isn't the recommended version for 14.1 from your ktown repository 4.11.5? Can I use 4.12.2 on 14.1 without any problems? I guess as not much has changed in -current compared to 14.1, the answer is yes, but I wanted to ask anyway.

lems

Recommended for Slackware 14.1 is KDE 4.11.5, and KDE 4.12.2 is advertized for slackware-current.
However I built this KDE 4.12.2 on Slackware 14.1 actually, so you won't have any pains upgrading. I did this because 14.1 and -current are still close enough. Future KDE 4.12.x will most likely be compiled on Slackware-current again.

Eric

That is an outright fabrication!

All you have to do is run something like GKrellm in a corner of your desktop and watch the cpu usage, number of processes and users, jot that down if you have a bad memory and then switch* to another DE, e.g., Xfce and do the same. You will notice a great of difference. Or, at least you should if you are not blinded by your own biases.



*Be sure to reboot after leaving KDE and before starting another DE.

I think I will stick to 4.11.5 for now and wait for the next 4.11 update -- you wrote on your blog that you want to at least build the final 4.11.9 for 14.1. Thanks for your commitment, Eric!

I used htop instead of GKrellm and I think the number of processes and users is irrelevant, only actual CPU usage counts. I have created a new user, so that all WMs/DEs are in their default configuration, I tested i3, XFCE and KDE (with and without Desktop file indexing enabled). For KDE I waited on the first start for the file indexer to finish, which took about 5 seconds. For any DE/WM I used their default terminal emulator, xterm on i3, xfce4-terminal on XFCE, Konsole on KDE. The terminal emulators where the only manually started programs, running htop, all measurements where taken on an idling system.
The test system was an AMD system with Phenom II X6 CPU (6 cores at 2.8GHZ max, ondemand governor) with 16GB of RAM, running a Slackware 14.1 installation with updated graphics stack. The number should be slightly higher than on most users systems, since I run some daemons (NFS, SSH, Pulseaudio) in the background.
The system was rebooted between measurements changing the WM/DE.

Here is what I found:
- i3: RAM usage 202MB, CPU usage: one core was occasionally hopping up to 1.5%, all other cores 0%
- XFCE: RAM usage 349MB, CPU usage: one core was occasionally hopping up to 2%, all other cores 0%
- KDE (stock): RAM usage 710MB, CPU usage: one core occasionally hopping up to 2%, sometimes followed by a second core, also up to 2%, all other cores 0%
- KDE (Desktop indexing disabled): RAM usage 627MB, CPU usage same as KDE (stock)

So besides RAM usage (<5% of system RAM) I can see nothing that supports claims of "wear and tear" or "putting the foot on the accelerator at idle". Care to share your numbers with us? Maybe my measurements are flawed.

I skipped KDE during slackware installation and now I've installed KDE from ktwon repo but it doesn't show up on xwmconfig. Did I miss something?