On 26 Oct 2009 at 11:57, RedShift wrote: > This thread will probably erupt in a massive flamewar, yet I decided to post my > story anyway. I am talking about the desktop experience in general, not the > technical details behind it. Keep that in mind. > > > I've been working these past few months with KDE 4.3 and it feels very sluggish > and incomplete. I can't enable the desktop effects because that makes things > even slower. I'm doing this on a fairly decent setup, an AMD Sempron 2 Ghz with > an nVidia FX5500. My laptop suffers from this sluggishness as well. On top of > that, lots of things annoy me in KDE 4.3, see the end of this post for my top > annoyances. Yesterday I had to reboot to my Windows XP installation on this > computer and I was shocked when I arrived in XP's userland. Everything was > ridiculously fast. When returning to my linux desktop everything felt even more > sluggish. That's when I decided to go back to KDE 3.5. I restored my old KDE 3.5 > profile, installed the necessary packages and logged back in. WOOOOOF, > everything is fast again. Opening new windows is instantaneous, hell even > bringing up context menus is faster. If Linux is that much better, why does the > current Linux desktop (KDE 4.3) still suck compared to an operating system > that's 8 years old? > > Last week I also had the chance to check out Windows 7, and I was stumped. I was > genuinly impressed by Windows 7's GUI. It feels fast, works fluently, it has > nice effects which just work and work FAST. When browsing around it felt like a > very solid desktop environment. I am jealous. I really am. The thought of > using Windows 7 in favor of KDE 4.3 has occured to me much more than I like. And > it's little things like dragging the windows to the top of the screen makes them > maximized, dragging them to the left makes the take exactly 50% of the screen. > How many times have you been manually resizing windows to fit next to each > other? I have, too many times. These are things that really improve your > productivity. > > > So when should we have started working at a better desktop environment for > Linux? > > When Mac OS X came out. When was that again? 2001. Yes, it really was that long > ago. It already had awesome desktop effects that just work on (compared to these > days) VERY modest hardware. And it worked fast as well. It was and still is a > solid desktop environment. From that point on the Linux community should have > recognized the threat Mac OS X was for the desktop environment. Unfortunately > nobody did and we went on creating a big mess, fighting over implementations and > technical details instead of attempting to create a solid desktop environment. > > Yet we did have a second chance in 2007. Microsoft obviously screwed up with > Windows Vista, we had the chance to win back alot of terrain here until the > release of Windows 7. So what did we come up with? KDE 4. Yes, a big > dissapointment. We still don't have something that's comparable. > > > So basically, where are we at? > KDE 3.5 is Windows XP > KDE 4.3 is Windows Vista > ??? is Windows 7 > > > When are we getting to the Windows 7 stage? > > Microsoft didn't do a big advertising campaign for the launch of Windows 7, > nevertheless they delivered a big slap in the face to the Linux desktop > environments. The numbers speak for themselves, Windows 7 has already sold more > copies in its first week than Windows Vista did in its first month. And with > good riddance, Windows 7 really is better than Windows Vista. Microsoft > recognized the problems with Windows Vista and dealt with them. And dealt with > them swiftly if you ask me, doing it in less then 3 years. > > > Conclusion > > We are losing ground. We are losing it fast. Our competitors recognize what the > user wants and delivered. > > If we are comparing enterprise desktops, there's no going around Red Hat. The > current Red Hat desktop (5.4) ships with KDE 3.5, while its succesor RHEL 6 will > be, if looking what Fedora brings now, shipped with KDE 4.2 or 4.3. That means > KDE 4.2/4.3 will be the main desktop for enterprises for at least the next 3 > years. A disgrace if you ask me. Users will be comparing desktop environments > and they will find Windows 7 or Mac OS X to be better. After the damage RHEL 6 > will have done to the reputation of the Linux desktop, it will take again as > many years to rectify the damage done. Granted if we will have a solid desktop > environment comparable to Windows 7 by the time RHEL 7 gets released. Which I > can't help but doubt. > > > > My top KDE 4.3 annoyances: > * Slooooowwww. Logging in takes a multifold of times it did under KDE 3.5, > repainting windows takes up a lot of time > * The battery status applet is buggy, it only shows the actual percentage after > you've hovered it with the mouse, even when you've set it to always display. The > scale it uses is also difficult to interpret. These bugs have been reported a > long time ago and are still not fixed. > * The run dialog is useless. The reason is the history function. It can't > display a full history when you start typing, you have to type alot more. Having > a pull down menu and using the arrow keys to select the entry you want is alot > faster. Even Microsoft knows they shouldn't touch that dialog, it still works > like a charm in windows 7. > * Double clicking the system icon in the titlebar doesn't always work to close > an application (the system icon is the left-most icon in the titlebar). This bug > has also been reported a long time ago and still not fixed. > * I get a full 10 minutes of extra runtime on my laptop when I switched back to > 3.5 > * Power management is buggy in KDE 4.3 and sometimes powerdevil just loses > its settings > * Some settings KDE 3.5 used to have aren't there anymore in KDE 4.3. > * Where's my "home" icon!!!??? :-( I guess you are right about everything. As a desktop Windows is better than KDE. If desktop is all that is matter for you then you should go for it :) By the way Alt+F2 is something I like in KDE4.3.2 for example. What about you? Is there anything you like in KDE4.3? I think it's always good to see things you like and to try to be positive even if KDE4.3 sucks. Thanks for the message. -- O< ascii ribbon campaign - stop html mail - www.asciiribbon.org
