I'm a KDE 4.x user, and am willing to listen. Exactly what important features are missing from KDE 4.x?

You have missed the point. We may discuss these matters when KDE4 users accept that something is missing. Then we may to try together to find out what it can be. I think that your question is rhetoric. I suspect that in fact you are only willing to explain me how I am wrong thinking like that.

How can we accept that something is missing if you're not willing to tell us what you think is missing?

Adam

If I know I will tell you. I can say only about my experience with KDE4 and KDE3. But this give us no clue at all. It will be like I am yet another person complaining about KDE4. I don't want to discuss for what I am stopped to use KDE4. Trust me that I have real reasons. Not because I don't like KDE4. And trust me that I tried to customize KDE4 for my needs. But without success in the sense that still working in KDE3 is more convenient.

Uh-huh. So because I'm a KDE 4.x user, I'm incapable of having a rational discussion about what it is and what it is not? You never wanted to discuss this; you just wanted to complain about the lack of KDE 4.x in Slackware.

igadoter, weren't you invited to participate in the efforts of building Trinity by Woodsman in that other thread? After that, I don't think it makes much sense for you to come here and post a thread like this. The Trinity team needs people willing to install it in newer versions of Slackware and provide useful feedback.

No, I didn't say like that. I mean only that at this moment we have no subject to discuss. Think this way: these are my suspicions that something is missing. Am I right? Difficult to decide. But maybe there are other people who also feel that something is missing, but no one is able precisely describe that 'missing part'. But there is a chance that our common effort gives us an answer.

Yes. This is why I will install Kubuntu Maverick with preinstalled Trinity. To understand what is a difference between Ubuntu and Slackware.

There are a number of differences between Ubuntu and Slackware; that is in no way relevant to the KDE3/4 discussion.

Saying that "something" is missing in KDE4 is a bit too obvious: if nothing were missing and the product perfect, then there'd be no need to develop it further, right?
So, you're experiencing a lack somewhere, somehow. You cannot state what it is, or you're not willing to. It doesn't really make a big difference. So, we're here discussing the obvious "the world is not perfect". KDE3 wasn't perfect either, in fact there were some serious designflaws, one of the most annoying (to me) was it having it's own sound server, that would lock up the sound card, so no other applications that did not use KDE's sound server would not be able to produce any sound at all. There were other flaws, but I found that a pretty annoying one.

But basically, we're just sitting here, discussing something that everybody knows: that the world is not perfect. However, I'm a pragmatic person, in order to solve the issues, one needs to know what's making it not perfect and what would be needed to make it perfect (for you): that's your starting point and endpoint. If you know both, you can plan the route to get there. However, if you don't know where you come from, nor your destination, it's damn hard to plan a route.

Slackware not having KDE3 is in itself a logical decision: KDE3 and KDE4 both use the same environment variables and too identical library/function names, which makes it tricky at best to have both. Given that KDE3 is abandoned by the KDE team, it's logical to drop it. Given that Slackware only uses applications that are either very stable and have proven themselves to be good enough for production use (not meaning that the products are perfect for everybody) and either are so stable that maintenance is no longer needed (TeX comes to mind), or still maintained (KDE 3.5.x is neither at this point) it's even more logical to no longer include it in the distribution; If, and only if, KDE Trinity has proven itself to be stable and useful (and enough people want it) it has a chance of being included.

So either we can just stop the discussion, as the points have already been made (and it's not really needed to repeat them over and over again) or we can get the discussion to a more constructive level. With that I mean, point out what's lacking, what's exactly wrong, which designflaws you think have been made, etc, so we can move on and see how the world can be made a better place for all of us.

Trinity runs under Ubuntu. And it is its newest release. Woodsman compiled Trinity suite for Slackware 12.2. I installed these binaries on my fresh Slackware 12.2. But there were problems. Timothy Pearson Trinity developer claims that one can run both Trinity and KDE4 on Ubuntu.

If Trinity is developed and compiled against the QT4 libraries, that will certainly be the case and it likely will run the same on Slackware, given that each has it's own separate installation base (eg /opt/kde3 for kde3, /usr for kde4)

Of course you right. There is something in KDE3 which is missing in KDE4. I imagine that KDE4 is not a simple improvement of KDE3.

What about 64/32 multilib system? I was thinking about to compile 32 bit KDE3 on 64 bit system with 64 bit KDE4 installed.
From a wiki page
How many is enough? Does each application added to Salckware have 'enough' users?

It's pretty vague what you state, and like you have done during this whole discussion; A vague indication that KDE3 is better than KDE4, because KDE4 is "missing something". I could claim the reverse and actually come with examples to give the point. That's what I'm missing from your participation, and what more people than me have asked from you: show us what it's lacking in your eyes, what's making it not work for you. "Trust me that I tried, trust me that I have my reasons": I trust that you do, but why not share your thoughts? "Trust me that I hate my ex" is a likewise claim, (and one that more people can at least guess about) but it's not helping anyone any further and does not really make for a nice, constructive discussion ;-)

Quite easy: FHS dictates that 64-bit libraries are installed in /lib64 or /usr/lib64, whereas those same libraries in 32-bit are isntalled in /lib and /usr/lib. That allows for easy distinction.

as for the tex: it was an example only for an application that is no longer actively maintained and still included in Slackware (I recall TeTeX being in Slackware from the top of my head, I could be wrong there)

Enough is what Pat determines as enough ;-) He may be made aware of the amount of users that want the application. Given that some of the Slack team at least visit LQ often, possibly Pat himself, a poll could be launched here like "Should Trinity be made part of the next Slack, yes, no, I don't care". However, from what I read here, it's not really like it's production ready yet... I could be wrong of course.

Anyway, I'm forced to use KDevelop 3.5.5, because it is the only IDE that has a reasonable support for autotools for my tastes, so I built a Mini-KDE 3.5.10 in Slackware-current to sustain the KDevelop3. I talk about KDE-3.5.10, not Trinity.

Look here to see what I got:

arts-1.5.10-i686-6darth.txz
kdebase3-3.5.10-i686-8darth.txz
kdelibs3-3.5.10-i686-7darth.txz
kdesdk3-3.5.10-i686-3darth.txz
kdevelop3-3.5.5-i686-2darth.txz
qt3-3.3.8b-i686-12darth.txz

Of course, I use some patches, also KDE3 do not interfere with KDE4 (for example, it uses ~/.kde3).

If The Slackware Nation just can not live without KDE3, I can continue to port the entire original KDE3 in Slackware-current.