15 Oct
2012
15 Oct
'12
7:03 p.m.
<snip>
Regarding my earlier comments on whether anyone has
tried KDE4 recemtly, I
downloaded a KDE 4.9 testing LiveCD with OpenSUSE 12.1. While the boot
sequence was slow and the default graphics are as bad as I remembered, the
killer was that the entire virtual machine locked up as soon as I clicked
the Kicker menu icon. I think I'll wait until OpenSUSE officially
releases a LiveCD with KDE 4.9 before trying again. :-)
Tim
Quick update. I burned the image to a CD, which resolved the crashing
issue. While I note that KDE4 has drastically improved since the early
days, it still is not something that I would choose to use over TDE/XFCE.
Even after "reverting" to folder view and other KDE3-esque settings, I
found myself not only using many more mouse clicks than under TDE but also
it seemed like I did not have full control of the environment. Setting a
screen saver? Not intuitive (actually I was not able to find the control
at all within a reasonable time). Opening a terminal? All the lines were
cut in half. Run a custom command? Could not find a way to launch the
minicli from a menu. Press the power button (e.g. to power off)? The
screen corrupts itself.
In short, I think KDE4 needs a lot more work to be useful for people like
me who want to hybrid an old-school terminal and modern GUI experience.
Tim