Switching to running a base kde3 desktop, while running and working thru the problems with individual kde4 apps one at a time while still on kde3, is actually working! It's taking days full of work (it'll be at least a 40-hour-work-week's worth by the time I'm done), but it's working... unlike being hit with a desktop so changed and "substantially broken" for the way I use things that I could make virtually no progress... because every time I tried to fix something, I ran into a dozen things that didn't work trying to fix the one... Tackling the problems one app at a time, on an otherwise working desktop, really is actually working! I'm developing workarounds, setting up configs, etc. It's happening. I have a usable color-scheme now, usable kwin, found a workaround to the khotkeys no-multikeys bug, have konqueror4 (albeit with a frustrating multihorned timeout bug that still forces repeated refreshes sometimes, even after at least two specific bugs with the same symptoms have been fixed in earlier kde4, according to the bugs, but I can use firefox if it gets too bad, and I'm hoping that one will magically disappear either when I get a full kde4 system running or with 4.3) running, etc. About all that's left now is actually switching to the kde4 desktop and working thru the plasma issues. But hopefully that'll work too, within a few days or another week calender time, perhaps another 8-16 hours of actual work. FWIW, I was running kwin4 for sometime yesterday, getting it configured with a decent color scheme and style -- default glaring white backgrounds are EXTREMELY difficult for me to work with, and the muted grays and off- grays most of the schemes use just make me want to puke, so just getting a color scheme I can live with goes a LONG way right there. It was something off of kdelook (tho I'd tried it before and hadn't liked it, but I think now it must have been because too much other stuff wasn't tweaked to usable yet, either that or it grew on me). But anyway, the bad kde4 slowdown must be plasma, because it isn't kwin. I'll have to see if I can get it to workable speed, not slowing everything else (kwin and thus the responsiveness of other apps included, and yes, this is on dual-dual-core with 8 gigs RAM, even if the video card isn't the best, but one would think kwin was the big challenge for the video card...) with some tweaking. We'll see... It's nice to see things come together and actually start working the way I want them too. At least KDE's still configurable enough that I can actually do so, in general. =:^) That's still a rather nice contrast from that OTHER popular *ix desktop, that last I checked didn't even have a system color scheme widget, you had to edit the config files manually or switch an entire scheme at a time, and that seems to have an "our way is the only way" philosophy, not recognizing that people have legitimate reasons for needing "advanced customization" functionality. =:^( (Fortunately running its apps under kde isn't too bad, since kde kindly provides a way to set its colors to match kde's, tho that doesn't make up for the lost functionality due to lack of (GUI) customization opportunity in most of the apps.) -- Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs. "Every nonfree program has a lord, a master -- and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman ___________________________________________________ This message is from the kde mailing list. Account management: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde. Archives: http://lists.kde.org/. More info: http://www.kde.org/faq.html.