State of the KDE Union
I love KDE.
I have used KDE since 3.1 on Mandrake 9.1. Since then I have used it on Debian, Gentoo and Ubuntu. Then KDE4 came around. The 4.0 RC was buggy, feature incomplete and hard to use. I felt alienated and switched to Debian and GNOME. The 3.x branch was outstanding in so many ways, it was endlessly configurable, stable as a rock, and ( at least somewhat ) attractive. I understand why we needed KDE4, and I understand why the change had to happen. I even understand why it was called “4.0″ even though it was nowhere close to that. They needed developers, press, market share.
KDE is a second class citizen in the world of debian based distros. Why is this? Is it really because the call was made to stick with GNOME? Is it because GNOME is better? More stable perhaps?
I don’t think so. I just switched back to KDE, with 4.3. So far it’s liveable. It’s not finished by any means. It’s not even as feature complete as GNOME. That, however won’t be hard, given GNOME’s past of removing functionality every release.
The fact is, we can’t compete yet. I was infuriated by the loss of some of the applications most dear to me, I coded religiously in gedit, now replaced with vim and geany. I miss gnome-do, replaced with the stock KDE launcher. gnome-terminal by konsole. Rhythmbox by amaroK ( and then by mplayer. No offence to the amaroK guys, but that latest release is a major regression ). Ubuntu One is a MAJOR issue. I can’t use it any more. I looked into plug-ins for Dolphin, only to find it’s not very hack-able. Same goes for Dropbox. I did, however, get dropbox working as a daemon.
On the up side, I can finally configure my machine! I can edit settings for a screensaver ( and don’t for one minute claim that it’s not something that should not be configurable ). Widgets are incredibly integrated these days, and as a whole, KDE looks much more put together.
So, the state of the KDE union, as it were. Solid. There is direction for sure, but work still needs to get done. I, for one, will be using the 4.x branch moving forward. I urge you all to not only think about supporting KDE, but to try using KDE. I think you will be impressed.
Filed under Wisdom on Ubuntu | Tags: kde, kubuntu | Comments (27)PDPC and FOSS Events
As some of you know, the PDPC ( our overloads that manage Freenode ) have been around and tirelessly working on Freenode. Well, in a move that I am calling “Brilliant” they have started to give back to the community in fun new ways. It’s great to see this kind of motivation anywhere, and from the PDPC, it really gives me a warm feeling in my stomach. One example that I was given ( by the great JonathanD ) is http://fossevents.org/. Let’s all give them a big hand!
Filed under Life, the Universe and Everything, Wisdom on Ubuntu | Comment (1)