KDE 4

[Scott]

My other computer running XP wouldn't boot so I decided to throw on Kubuntu since all it was really being used for was browsing the web and checking emails. Since no one was really going to use it as a personal computer I threw on KDE 4.2 to sort experiment with it.

At first impression, it seems like a really good upgrade and really flashy but when it comes to usability it feels like a line was crossed between aesthetics and functionality. I literally spent 20 minutes trying to create a desktop icon for Firefox. I went to the menu found Firefox Right Click -> Add item to desktop, didn't work. I dragged it to the desktop, didn't work. I copied the Firefox.desktop to /home/scott/Desktop/, didn't work. In the end I found a widget for the desktop which provided a folder view, and I used that to show the Firefox icon, but it makes the desktop look bad.

It seems like it has a lot of potential with all the customizing you can do to the desktop and the sidebar, but it feels like basic functionality was overlooked and would be very frustrating to use. I would avoid using this until you experiment with it first.
_________________
TutorialToday

[LP-SolidRaven]

Well, there is a reason people are sticking to KDE 3.x... Until 4.x actually works well most of us aren't going to use it.
_________________
Dilly dally, shilly shally.

[Rashy]

I actually found the folder view somewhat attractive when I went through KDE 4.1. I think I set up 3 on my desktop, one for the Desktop, one for my home folder, and one for the secondary hard drive that holds all my media.

One thing I really liked was the plasmoids, and I used and abused them, particularly the sticky notes and folder view. I also put stuff like the time and trash so I could free up space on my kicker.

As far as eye candy goes, nothing beats KDE 4.x. Of course this comes at a price. The reason that I am not still using KDE is system requirements. Basically my computer isn't fast enough to run KDE 4.1 (or .2 I imagine) as I would like it to. So I am using XFCE on my desktop and Gnome on my laptop.

If I had a computer fast enough to support it, I would definitely use KDE 4.x. I have never used 3.x so I don't really know what I would be missing
_________________
Rashy!