KDE SC 4.6.2 Codename Is Dedicated To GNOME 3.0

[BlackStar]

It's hard to not mention Gnome now. Exactly the same can be said. If you follow Arch Linux forums you will notice Gnome 3 is unstable. It's in testing, but those bugs are rather Gnome, not packages bugs. Or just go to gnome bugzilla.

I'd expect such bugs in testing but not in the second revision of a stable release. It's embarassing, since 4.6.0 I haven't logged into a single KDE session without some random application crashing.

You have mentioned only one application. There are more serious stability problems in Gnome3. Btw. let's take a look at Evolution to make a fair comparison. There are 250 critical bugs open and dozens of bugs which causes Evolution to crash. Like this one:

(a) Two wrongs don't make something right. (Bugs in Gnome don't make KDE any less buggy).

(b) I just tried reproducing this Evolution bug and it didn't crash.

I recommend to stop playing in what software is more buggy, because Coverity did the report and KDE is much better when comes to number of bugs per LoC.

But you know what? My Ubuntu/Gnome desktop is significantly more stable than my Arch/KDE one. I don't get random crashes, I don't get random compositor restarts and I don't get windows animations randomly moving to the wrong corner of the screen!

[Remco]

You are mistaken. Ubuntu does not ship patent-encumbered codecs. It asks the user whether he would like to install them (and assume responsibility) as necessary.

The main difference is that codec installation is painless in Ubuntu (click 'yes' and enter password), unlike in openSUSE (click 'yes', navigate to a website, enter linux version, click download, click run, enter password)..

It's even worse. You have to ignore that Yes button in the first dialog and click on the inline link instead. If you click on Yes you'll get stuck in a useless repository manager.

It's too bad that openSUSE/KDE is not up to snuff, because I really like their intentions. I'm almost tempted to go in and fix a bunch of the issues I mentioned myself, but I know how much effort that'll take.

[kraftman]

You are mistaken. Ubuntu does not ship patent-encumbered codecs. It asks the user whether he would like to install them (and assume responsibility) as necessary.

The main difference is that codec installation is painless in Ubuntu (click 'yes' and enter password), unlike in openSUSE (click 'yes', navigate to a website, enter linux version, click download, click run, enter password)..

That's why Kubuntu is better option imho. It could be much better distribution, but Canonical is Ubuntu oriented.

[kraftman]

Myself, I keep a KDE/Arch installation around for testing. KDE is a collection of good ideas with bad implementations: it's way too unstable (e.g. the kwin configuration app crash every time I re-enable a plugin!)

It's hard to not mention Gnome now. Exactly the same can be said. If you follow Arch Linux forums you will notice Gnome 3 is unstable. It's in testing, but those bugs are rather Gnome, not packages bugs. Or just go to gnome bugzilla.

and it's core applications are very rough around the edges. Point in case: how difficult can it fix KMail so its UI doesn't hang while downloading emails? This issue was reported 9 years ago and the developers still haven't managed to fix it! (This is the most hated bug in KDE, by the way).

You have mentioned only one application. There are more serious stability problems in Gnome3. Btw. let's take a look at Evolution to make a fair comparison. There are 250 critical bugs open and dozens of bugs which causes Evolution to crash. Like this one:

Steps to reproduce:
1. Change to the Calendar view, select a time slot and start typing a
description
2. without pressing Enter, expand the time slot downwards to alter the end time
3. Watch Evolution disappear...

I recommend to stop playing in what software is more buggy, because Coverity did the report and KDE is much better when comes to number of bugs per LoC.

[BlackStar]

That is because Canonical is incorporated in a country that doesn't enforce software patents. openSUSE doesn't have that luxury. It has nothing to do with the user-friendliness of the distribution, openSUSE has legal issues that Ubuntu doesn't.

You are mistaken. Ubuntu does not ship patent-encumbered codecs. It asks the user whether he would like to install them (and assume responsibility) as necessary.

The main difference is that codec installation is painless in Ubuntu (click 'yes' and enter password), unlike in openSUSE (click 'yes', navigate to a website, enter linux version, click download, click run, enter password)..

[Remco]

Once again, I don't see how you could possibly make this leap. You do know there are more than two distributions in the world, right?

OK, instead of me trying all the distributions in the world before being able to claim that something is KDE's fault, why don't you go try all the distros in the world before you claim it is the distro's fault?

[TheBlackCat]

It seems openSUSE didn't include a normal chat program by default. It does provide an IRC client. I, a normal user, don't even know what IRC means.

And that is a flaw in KDE...how exactly?

Again, here it's about how easy it is to make mistakes. Try Ubuntu and you'll be surprised by how hard it is to mess up the installation of additional codecs. Nothing like ignoring the most obvious button, then going to a website, navigating three levels deep and clicking on the right link.

That is because Canonical is incorporated in a country that doesn't enforce software patents. openSUSE doesn't have that luxury. It has nothing to do with the user-friendliness of the distribution, openSUSE has legal issues that Ubuntu doesn't.

It's on the dividing line between DE and distro. The app obviously must support automatic codec downloading. The distro then hooks it into the package management. In KDE it seems to be hardcoded to pop up a message that certain codecs are missing-please go to X website. Even if you don't need those codecs. So every user will encounter this dialog the first time they use the software, and the dialog is always going to be unhelpful.

KDE is most certainly not hard-coded to do this. It might be in openSUSE, but that is once again because of the legal issues openSUSE faces. It is not on the dividing line at all, it has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with KDE.

Precisely! Why would I want to do this? I don't want to close the tab. I saw the red cross and I was amazed that someone actually went through the trouble of implementing such a thing.

Trouble? KDE offers a pretty easy-to-use tab system, it isn't really any trouble.

So I clicked it. Then I thought, well how do I get it back? Have you looked at the dialog box that pops up when you click on that new tab button? It's ridiculously easy to mess that up again. What does "Cannot add view - GUIProfile is invalid." mean?

I'm not sure, I just went with the first option and it worked fine.

I went into the K menu and then to Utilities. There I saw Manage Printing and I thought "hey, I need to set up my printer". Manage printing curiously starts Firefox and the CUPS web interface. I naturally assumed that this is how KDE manages that. If not, don't let the user make mistakes.

That is a bizarre assumption. Why would KDE pull up firefox in the first place?

Once again, you don't know how distributions work. Those things are added by the distribution, not by KDE. KDE has no way to control what sort of links a distribution decides to add. This is all controlled by FreeDesktop.org standards. KDE cannot do anything other than show it without violating the FDO standard.

Sure, I don't understand how Linux works. Maybe I should have used Kubuntu. But then if anything breaks, it's my fault for using Kubuntu and not openSUSE (happened last year). I guess I can't really use any distro to test KDE, because KDE is broken by all distributions.

Once again, I don't see how you could possibly make this leap. You do know there are more than two distributions in the world, right?

[BlackStar]

Remco, I feel for you. OpenSUSE tries hard to be user-friendly, but somehow falls short of its goal. It's a collection of little things that make the user experience a little more unpleasant than it should be - your post summarizes my feelings well.

Myself, I keep a KDE/Arch installation around for testing. KDE is a collection of good ideas with bad implementations: it's way too unstable (e.g. the kwin configuration app crash every time I re-enable a plugin!) and it's core applications are very rough around the edges. Point in case: how difficult can it fix KMail so its UI doesn't hang while downloading emails? This issue was reported 9 years ago and the developers still haven't managed to fix it! (This is the most hated bug in KDE, by the way).

[kraftman]

That GNOME Shell sucks doesn't mean that KDE is good. I hate KDE, but I hate GNOME Shell more. I can tolerate Unity, but it has a long way to go before I ditch my classic GNOME interface.

I'm interested very much in Unity. I wish its devs to succeed. It looks promising and maybe I'll even start using it in KDE someday or I'll switch to Ubuntu, but I'll still be using KDE apps. Like I mentioned in other thread Unity can be a bridge which will join KDE and Gnome applications together in a consistent ecosystem. There are good signs of 'unity' like PulseAudio becoming standard in Gnome and KDE distributions, GStreamer is default frontend in upcoming Kubuntu (I don't like GStreamer too much, but XINE is nearly dead and VLC Phonon backend is probably on the same level as GStreamer, telepathy is becoming a standard too. There's also Zeitgeit comming to KDE. It will be perfect if Gnome devs will also be so open on technologies from outside, but maybe this will change.

[Remco]

Kopete is installed by default.

http://software.opensuse.org/114/en

Download Live KDE 64 Bit PC edition. I dare you.