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Unable to configure KDE 4 in any meaningful way

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leereyno

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Thursday, January 17th 2008, 12:54am

Unable to configure KDE 4 in any meaningful way

I've installed the KDE 4 packages for Kubuntu 7.10 (gutsy) and I'm now running KDE 4 as my default window manager. (But not for long).

It looks pretty, but why can't I configure anything?

I purposefully avoid using gnome because of how crippled and dumbed down their configuration is. You can't actually configure anything. You're stuck having to use a slight variation on what they think you should have. Since I'm not a mac (l)user, I don't cotton to that kind of tyranny. Create a system for idiots and only idiots will use it.

So far, unless I've done something wrong, it looks like the KDE team has pulled the same joke on us.

And to think that I was looking forward to a new version of KDE that (I'd assumed) would be even more customizable than its predecessors.

Unless I've done something wrong and/or I'm missing packages that provide the basic functionality that is missing, I'm going to have to look at moving to a different window manager in the future. I'm the lead admin/developer for a university student computer lab that includes over 300 Linux systems. I've traditionally used KDE as the default desktop on these systems because of how easy it is to configure and customize. If this has now changed then I won't hesitate to move to something else. I work for a living and I don't mix religion with computers.

I'm sure this post isn't going to win me any popularity contests, but then I don't expect KDE 4 to win any either unless and until its behavior can be customized. Trying to compete with Gnome by "embracing and extending" its FLAWS is a formula for future obscurity.

I'm hoping against hope that it is I who have done something wrong and that KDE has not been made into crippleware.

Someguyouknow

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Thursday, January 17th 2008, 3:25am

A lot of feature have not made it yet. Its coming... just not here right now.
eh?

leereyno

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Thursday, January 17th 2008, 6:32am

I passionately hope so!

If this 4.0.0 version is really just a final beta then ok, I can live with that. I mean Microsoft has been doing it with their X.0 releases for years ;)

epchris

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Friday, January 18th 2008, 4:05pm

Yeah, I remember reading an interview/article about this a couple days ago. It's not that it won't be as configurable as previous KDEs, it's just that the work isn't finished porting/implementing all of the control panel stuff yet.

Ketzusaka

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Sunday, January 20th 2008, 7:43pm

Similar issues

Couple notes here..

First, I love the new KDE. Looks fantastic, but I'm using KDE3 for the time being. Some various issues exist with the current kde4. One of the big things that was irking me is that I couldn't find a way to set it so only windows on the /current/ workspace was shown on the taskbar. I tend to run a lot of applications so having them all on one taskbar is a real cluster.

Secondly, I don't agree that making an wm usable by idiots would only attract idiots. Just need to have an 'advanced' section xD. But, GNOME is very configurable if you're up to gconf editing.

plunix

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Tuesday, January 22nd 2008, 5:28am

a disappointment

I agree. KDE 4.0.0 is a huge disappointment.
If major features are not available in SVN/CVS or an alpha release or maybe even a beta release, that is understandable. However, releasing KDE 4.0.0 prematurely was a mistake. Not only are many things missing (there's not even a kmail!), but some
packages don't even build correctly (kdegames, kdebase-workspace [ksysguard], and kdeedu [kletters, kalgebra, a couple of others]) due to XLM errors in documentation files.

I do hope that the configurability is restored, but there is no way this release should have been called a final 4.0.0 release until then.

I do fear there are some changes which will not be fixed, though.
For example, 'systemsettings' seems to have completely replaced kcontrol. Even if all of the configurable modules from kcontrol are added to systemsettings, the interface to systemsettings is much less usable than that of kcontrol.

I can't find any way at all to configure the panel, add applets, etc.
The ability in plasma to add new widgets that show up on the desktop is all but useless for those of us who actually like to use most of our screen space for program windows.