I've been pussyfooting around this issue for months, deliberating with myself, vacillating between paranoia and self-doubt, trying to decide how much it matters-- and I'm not getting anywhere with it.
As far as I have been able to tell, in KDE4, there is no available filter bar (which enables rapid sorting of files in the present working directory.). Also, the storage media function is no longer supported. I can't shake the conviction that it feels like sabatoge, a deliberate crippling to force users into the arms of Dolphin (the fins of Dolphin?), the snazzy new file maanager that is more polished than Konqueror, but a lot less powerful. Dolphin is the better file manager until you try to do something creative with it.
My friends in here know how crazy I get, so maybe you can talk me out of this conviction.
infiniphunk
09-20-2008, 03:51 PM
It's been a long time since I've used KDE or Konqueror, but I know where you're coming from. What you just described totally reminds me of the whole Audacious replacing Xmms situation, which to me is a fiasco.
I guess on the flipside the good thing is that nobody is forcing you to use any particular distro, WM or file-manager. But from a users perspective, to me it's a pain in the *** when I suddenly find an application that I love being left by the wayside.
stumbles
09-20-2008, 05:59 PM
I don't know anymore. I have been using kde4 since 4.0, and maybe I have not dug far enough under the hood of konqueror, but it appears to me now with 4.1.1, next to no progress has been made on konqueror as a file manager. Heck, I would go so far as to say the same using it as a web browser. On the latter, the most annoying thing is its crashing the flash plugin.
Anyway, even after assurances from kde folks on the dot this would not be the case. I think konqueror is doomed. Which is really, really disappointing. Because I dislike the pathetic replacement they call dolphin.
The storage media stuff they have got in dolphin, which mostly works, afaict. And yeah, its absence in konqueror is a huge hole.
stumbles
09-20-2008, 06:01 PM
It's been a long time since I've used KDE or Konqueror, but I know where you're coming from. What you just described totally reminds me of the whole Audacious replacing Xmms situation, which to me is a fiasco.
I guess on the flipside the good thing is that nobody is forcing you to use any particular distro, WM or file-manager. But from a users perspective, to me it's a pain in the *** when I suddenly find an application that I love being left by the wayside.
It is not a matter of anyone forcing anything on me. It is just, after using konqueror for so long (since kde3.something), I have gotten really used to it, and thought it a great piece of technology.
blackbelt_jones
09-20-2008, 09:17 PM
It is not a matter of anyone forcing anything on me. It is just, after using konqueror for so long (since kde3.something), I have gotten really used to it, and thought it a great piece of technology.
If you read some of these discussions closely, there's a mentality afoot that seems to discard "I'm used to it" as a legitimate reason for doing anything. We don't care if it's not broke, we're going to fix it anyway.
With me, being forced to use dolphin. The feeling of having these choices made for me drives me to extremes of sadness and rage. I mean, this is the Linux desktop I've been customizing for three years. It IS important. It DOES matter! And I'm really mad, because they said that Konqueror would be maintained, then they removed essential features.
You guys know what I mean by the filter bar. You have a thousand pdf files, you type in "Ubuntu", and only the filters whose names contain the word "Ubuntu" are used. It makes locating files in Konqueror as easy as using the ls command in Bash. Without it, I'm back using Windows Explorer in Win98. Well, there isn't a filter bar any more, even if you add the konq-plugins, but there is something called a "Dolphin bar", f**k you very much!:mad:
I think it's time to make the KDE team an offer they can't refuse. (http://www.kde-forum.org/artikel/20973/don-t-call-it-a-fork.html)
:D
You know, if you go to konqueror.org, no one has even bothered to annouce any of the 4.x releases. (I haven't checked asince 3.5.10). I think the KDE team really is doing some great work, and the consensus is that KDE4 is destined to be an awesome desktop, but they just don't seem to give a rat's *** about my favorite desktop application. There's no law that says they should. But something must be done.
Forking Konqueror would involve forking kde-base packages and kde libs. Just two packages, but you know they must be the most enormous packages in all of Khristendom. I guess I'll give it a try. It would be a terrible idea if it required me taking any real risk, but it doesn't. I might make a fool of myself, but at this late date, who would even notice? I happen to be retired, so I have the time. I don't know anything about C++, but if I'm willing to put in four-six hours a day, perhaps the community would be willing to give me enough guidance so that I could learn as I go.
arioch
09-21-2008, 07:14 AM
I agree with the poster. Konqueror is being deliberately crippled to propagate a "voluntary" switch to dolphin and the development team isn't being honest about it. To new users, I have often used the versatility of konqueror as the primary salespoint for Linux and/with KDE. Now, I can't do that anymore. Konqueror has been instrumental in making the linux desktop a userfriendly experience back when I was learning/switching from Windows.
Now I just recommend Ubuntu/Gnome instead.
That's what you get for crapping in your own nest, killing a killerapp.
@Blackbelt Jones: Your efforts would be greatly appreciated and I'm sorry I don't have the skills to pitch in. I'm a PHP/AJAX guy.
blackbelt_jones
09-21-2008, 01:25 PM
I agree with the poster. Konqueror is being deliberately crippled to propagate a "voluntary" switch to dolphin and the development team isn't being honest about it. To new users, I have often used the versatility of konqueror as the primary salespoint for Linux and/with KDE. Now, I can't do that anymore. Konqueror has been instrumental in making the linux desktop a userfriendly experience back when I was learning/switching from Windows.
Now I just recommend Ubuntu/Gnome instead.
That's what you get for crapping in your own nest, killing a killerapp.
@Blackbelt Jones: Your efforts would be greatly appreciated and I'm sorry I don't have the skills to pitch in. I'm a PHP/AJAX guy.
You understand, do you not, that all I know about C++ is how to spell it? :rolleyes:
There may be something direct that you can do eventually. For now, your moral support means everything. I woke up this morning and the first thought in my head was "MY GOD WHAT HAVE I GOTTEN MYSELF INTO?:eek: ", and your post calmed me down considerably.
Anyone can support me by following the brand new blackbelt_jones miniblog at twitter.com. There will also be a full-sized blog and a forum. I am seeking to build a community that I can draw on for support. You can never tell what I'm going to need help with. (Development tools, online resources, text editors...", but right now, I'm going to man up enough to admit that what I need most is a little hand-holding. If you subscribe to my twitter blog, it counts as a vote for "I don't think you're crazy for doing this, blackie" .
Last night I installed Vector Linux 5.9 standard on my oldest machine. Vector uses XFCE; there's no KDE installed on the system natively. It's Slackware-based, and I imagine that means a good set of development tools by default.
Here's a quote from the FAQ at Konqueror.org:
Can I run Konqueror without running KDE?
Yes. Just install Qt, kdelibs and kdebase, and from your favourite window manager, just launch Konqueror. It should work just fine, but if it doesn't (KDE developers don't test that case often), report it to http://bugs.kde.org and try running "kdeinit" before running Konqueror, it usually helps.
This is of course the same for any other KDE application.
Step one is to get to know what Qt, kdelibs and kdebase look like, seperate from the rest of KDE. I intend to compile differerent versions of these packages, read the release notes, and finally find out what the code looks like.
I envision step two as taking the code and renaming everything that's in it, so that it can compile as something other than KDE. Maybe that's just a matter of lots of simple search and replace, but I'm not counting on it.
I don't know what the endgame is going to be. The finished product could be anything from a stand-alone version of Konqueror that only does file management (I still like the name Liberator) to a new Desktop environment... actually the old Desktop environment with a new name. It depends on what I find, what I can manage, how much help I get, and what people want. If you think this may pan out, and if you want to influence the shape it takes, that's another good reason to follow me at Twitter. The easiest thing might be to just rename everything in those two packages, add whatevever plugins are needed for full functionality, and hope someone comes along who can help us maintain it. For me, this is about saving Konqueror. That's all I care about.
Another way this could pan out is that although I intend to behave in as nonthreatening and respectful a manner as possible, KDE perceives this effort as pressure and decides that, yeah maybe, Konqueror is an important part of KDE. This would sure make my life easier, but it's interesting to note that the minute I decided to take Konqueror's fate into my own hands, I could let go of all my resentment toward KDE4. In fact, I may start using it sometimes, because of the Twitter plasmoid. So KDE could discover that
Anyway, if you think that this effort could pressure KDE to be more Konqueror-positive, and you want them to take me seriously, that's just another reason. If I may paraphrase Jim Morrison:
Tell all the people that you see:
Follow me!
At Twitter.com
:p
I believe in innocent until proven guilty, and giving KDE the benefit of the doubt. It really was beginning to look like KDE was doing a Tonya Harding on Konqueror, but it's not hard to imagine that Konq had fallen to the bottom of their list of priorities. They've got a lot on their plate, and it's probably in the nature of developers to be focused on the new stuff.
Darkbolt
09-22-2008, 02:16 PM
If anything, I think they might be going back to the unix roots of 'do one thing, and do it _well_'. e.g. have dolphin for file management, make it kick *** at file management, and allow konqueror to be a better web browser. It's probably easier for them to maintain both this way, and focus on what functionality should be where...That's just my guess, atleast.
Personally, I see that the 4.x branch has alot of potential, but the build of 4.1.1 that I've tried ran _really_ sluggishly on my machine. So I'm keeping kde 3.5 installed and using konqueror in fluxbox (I'm not trying to have it be such a critical application that you use it for, I just find the split panes incredibly useful. I can have one pane for an ftp site, and another pane for the local site, and easily transfer between the two...Easier than switching tabs, even. It's the one feature that drew me away from nautilus)
BBJ, worst case scenario just keep the sources that you need around from the 3.5 branch...iirc kdebase & libs dont require too much outside of qt3
blackbelt_jones
09-22-2008, 06:05 PM
If anything, I think they might be going back to the unix roots of 'do one thing, and do it _well_'. e.g. have dolphin for file management, make it kick *** at file management, and allow konqueror to be a better web browser. It's probably easier for them to maintain both this way, and focus on what functionality should be where...That's just my guess, atleast.
Personally, I see that the 4.x branch has alot of potential, but the build of 4.1.1 that I've tried ran _really_ sluggishly on my machine. So I'm keeping kde 3.5 installed and using konqueror in fluxbox (I'm not trying to have it be such a critical application that you use it for, I just find the split panes incredibly useful. I can have one pane for an ftp site, and another pane for the local site, and easily transfer between the two...Easier than switching tabs, even. It's the one feature that drew me away from nautilus)
BBJ, worst case scenario just keep the sources that you need around from the 3.5 branch...iirc kdebase & libs dont require too much outside of qt3
I get waaay too excited about this. Worst case scenario, I use Dolphin, and it doesn't kill me.
I think I just had an epiphany. We don't need a fork to KDE3 when KDE3 is still being maintained. The last release was when, three weeks ago? They're sayng KDE3 will be maintained for years, and longer if people continue to use it.
That's really the key, right there. if you want to continue to use KDE3, what you have to do is... (dramatic pause) continue to use KDE.
I have not come to bury KDE4, but to praise it! It's a great project, and exactly what developers should be doing. Developers ought to be driving development, but I'm starting to talk to people who have gone to KDE4 but who tell me they still find KDE3 more useful. Users ought to drive use.
KDE4 is where the community's attention is centered, and using it makes us feel like we're part of the community. Not using it makes us feel anxious about being left behind. I myself am not immune. I can't prevent myself from installing each new release.
People who want KDE 3 to continue shouldn't waste their time on a fork that I doubt anyone really wants. What we want is a real KDE 3 community. Let's get together and create some good documentation! (The current Konqueror manual... isn't.) How about some themes, a nice website, some forums. :) I say HELL YES!
Calipso
09-22-2008, 06:39 PM
can't you just compare konqueoror from kde3 and kde4 and then see what they took out and put it back in to the kde4 version? I'm sure you'd have to jump through some hoops but it should be doable since they're both done in the same language.
nolimit974
09-22-2008, 08:26 PM
i don't know but i will murdering kde soon.
blackbelt_jones
09-22-2008, 08:39 PM
can't you just compare konqueoror from kde3 and kde4 and then see what they took out and put it back in to the kde4 version? I'm sure you'd have to jump through some hoops but it should be doable since they're both done in the same language.
Maybe. But let's just wait and see until they finish it.
I feel embarassed for overreacting. You know, Kde and dolphin together can do anything in KDE4 that Konqueror can do in KDE3. It just fills me with rage to feel forced into switching off. But nobody ever forced me to use KDE4 in the first place. My only problem is that I'm angry, over nothing, and that's my own fault. Letting a desktop application push MY buttons is a stupid way to assert my independance. Jesus, what am I, twelve? You know, I had to go to the urologist today. I'm 50 now. I have the emotional stability of a pre-teen, and the prostate of a man in his late sixties.:rolleyes:
There's nothing to get upset about. Everything is as it should be, If people want to keep using KDE3, all they have to do is keep using KDE3. In its simple, limited way, KDE3 is pretty close to perfect. So the developers are going to go develop something else. KDE doesn't need to be forked, it doesn't need to be developed, it needs to be mainatined. And that's what's happening. I really hope I can convince other KDE3 fans to help me build a little community, though. KDE3 doesn't need to be developing to be the nexus of a vital user-oriented community.
This is no social crisis. This is me having fun. :cool:
blackbelt_jones
09-22-2008, 08:42 PM
i don't know but i will murdering kde soon.
There have been moments lately when I've thought that KDE might become the death of me!:(
Darkbolt
09-23-2008, 03:01 AM
after giving dolphin a closer look, I've actually found out that it does have the split pane & network folder capabilities that I like in konqueror...Goes to support my theory that they're more trying to differentiate web browser from file browser...In the end I see it as a win-win. Win for the devs because the code base for either one will be less bloated, and the feature set more defined... I will say I think dolphin takes up too much screen estate, with that right pane of its.
blackbelt_jones
09-23-2008, 10:27 AM
after giving dolphin a closer look, I've actually found out that it does have the split pane & network folder capabilities that I like in konqueror...Goes to support my theory that they're more trying to differentiate web browser from file browser...In the end I see it as a win-win. Win for the devs because the code base for either one will be less bloated, and the feature set more defined... I will say I think dolphin takes up too much screen estate, with that right pane of its.
Yeah, but that's not what they're telling us, is it? If KDE were just to announce: **** you, everybody! Konqueror is no longer a file manager!, this discussion would not be necessary. Instead, they appear to be engaged in some sort of ham-handed covert campaign to undercut Konqueror from the shadows. Now, I want to be clear about something. I'm not actually saying that this is what's happening, though I'm not saying that it isn't. All I'm saying is that's what it looks like.
I agree with you about the real estate. It annoys me that the filter bar is located at the bottom, and I don't like the terminal panel. Simply opening konsole seems a lot easier to manage, speaking of the unix philosophy of doing one thing and it doing well. (You know, I'm not really sure that's supposed to apply to desktop applications, but maybe I don't get it. I thought it was about making cli applications that could be used to create scripts. People love to seek universal significance for things, but very few desktop applications only do one thing.)
I don't see it as a win-win. Maybe from the point of of view of the computer, but I'm guessing that the human beings involved are going to be at loggerheads for a long time to come. KDE has now publically stated that they don't want to phase out Konqueror as a file manager. They pretty much had to do this in order to introduce Dolphin as the default file manager without raising a huge ruckus, but it's going to work against them if they actually intend to phase out Konqueror as a file-manager. They're going to look like liars, because (if they intend to phase out Konqueror as a file manager, but say they don't) they are liars.
I really am taken aback a little bit at the Orwellian doublethink of the KDE4's PR campaign. "Don't Look Back" and "Be Free" are two very contradictory messages.
.In the end I see it as a win-win. Win for the devs because the code base for either one will be less bloated, and the feature set more defined... I will say I think dolphin takes up too much screen estate, with that right pane of its.
It looks like you only listed one "win". Who else wins?
Darkbolt
09-23-2008, 12:24 PM
The end user also wins, because there's less of a code base for the devs to have to sift through should/when a bug arises. Also, we (will, eventually, hopefully) benefit from having a more robust file manager, and web browser. Personally, one of my big quams with konqueror is that it was doing the two roles.
I personally don't care where the filter bar is, and I haven't had the need to try out its built in shell, I usually have 2-3 terminals open at any given moment that I use.
Here's where I remind you that as far as kde4 is concerned, they did have to rewrite every user interface from scratch to take advantage of qt4, and you really should give them until 4.3 to really determine how things are going to pan out.
blackbelt_jones
09-23-2008, 12:29 PM
You know, I think everything would have gone a lot better for all concerned if KDE had taken it from the other side. Until recently, when KDE started pushing Konqueror as a web browser, every KDE-based live CD used firefox/iceweasel as the default web browser. To me, this says that people weren't using firefox as a web browser. I certainly wasn't, and I still don't. It's fast, but it's not easy to get plug-ins. I submit to you that if KDE had introduced a web browser called Dolphin, and announced that Konqueror was going to be all file-management, this would have gone a whole lot better.
Darkbolt
09-23-2008, 12:53 PM
You know, I think everything would have gone a lot better if all concerned if KDE had taken it from the other side. Until recently, when KDE started pushing Konqueror as a web browser, every KDE-based live CD used firefox/iceweasel as the default web browser. To me, this says that people weren't using firefox as a web browser. I certainly wasn't, and I still don't. It's fast, but it's not easy to get plug-ins. I submit to you that if KDE had introduced a web browser called Dolphin, and announced that Konqueror was going to be all file-management, it would have gone a whole lot better.
I can't disagree with you there, IMHO it's alot easier to adapt to a new web browser than it is to adapt to a new filemanager
blackbelt_jones
09-23-2008, 01:26 PM
The end user also wins, because there's less of a code base for the devs to have to sift through should/when a bug arises. Also, we (will, eventually, hopefully) benefit from having a more robust file manager, and web browser. Personally, one of my big quams with konqueror is that it was doing the two roles.
.
YEAH BUT
Konqueror is still doing the two roles, and now they've publically comitted themselves to Konqueror doing two roles. It doesn't sound to me like a less complex situation, and it probably doesn't mean less code.
I personally don't care where the filter bar is, and I haven't had the need to try out its built in shell, I usually have 2-3 terminals open at any given moment that I use.
Well, I mention the location of the filter bar in Dolphin because of your real estate issues. In Konqueror, the filterbar is in the upper right hand corner, right next to the location bar. This usually means I only need to have a small part of the screen exposed to work with the filter bar. With Dolphin's filter bar at the bottom of the screen, I need to have the whole thing.
This is kind of a sidebar, but you do understand how important accessing the terminal from the file manager is to non-programmer end-user types like me, and especially to beginners, right? The last person I introduced to the F4 key in Konqueror said it was "a godsend", and I agreed. These days, I can see the map of the filesystem a lot more clearly in my head, but cd-ing, from ~ to /etc/apt/, for example, used to seem incredibly unnatural and strained, and I still like to use bookmarks or my fluxbox menu to go straight to a directory, in Konqueror, and open konsole to that directory.
Here's where I remind you that as far as kde4 is concerned, they did have to rewrite every user interface from scratch to take advantage of qt4, and you really should give them until 4.3 to really determine how things are going to pan out.
It never hurts to be reminded of that. KDE has continued to support and maintain KDE3, and that's really what counts here. The time to talk about forking KDE is when they stop doing that. In the meantime, there's this weird pull toward KDE4. Lately I've encountered people who say they prefer KDE3 to KDE4, but they're using KDE4! I think that this is because the online KDE community is centered on the developers, and the developers are just doing what comes naturally. Without a user-oriented KDE3 community, using KDE3 makes you feel like a kid in a gas station restroom, fearful that your parents will drive off without you.
If only someone would start a group for KDE3 users, like on facebook or something.
http://www.new.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=28353308082:D
blackbelt_jones
09-23-2008, 02:24 PM
I can't disagree with you there, IMHO it's alot easier to adapt to a new web browser than it is to adapt to a new filemanager
Yeah, especially because I don't think Konqueror was ever very popular as a web browser. So now, every live CD and default KDE installation has Konqueror as the web browser. No Firefox. That's TWO things we're supposed to adapt to, although it's only a real problem for most people in the case of the live CD.
Even now, when I try to imagine what it would be like to discover a new web browser named "Dolphin" in KDE, I imagine myself being kind of excited. And I remember how my heart sank when I first discovered Dolphin the file manager.
Darkbolt
09-23-2008, 02:26 PM
Konqueror is still doing the two roles, and now they've publically comitted themselves to Konqueror doing two roles. It doesn't sound to me like a less complex situation, and it probably doesn't mean less code.
This is something I personally disagree with, I think that they should remove the filemanager functionality from it, especially if they're forcing dolphin as the main filemanager...Having two will just get in eachothers way.
There're alot of things I like about kde4, I'd probably be using it if it weren't so sluggish on my machine...Hopefully in the beginning of october I'll be able to put this machine back upto 1gb ram (It had 1gb, but a stick died, and having recently moved from MA->CA, I haven't had the funds to replace it)...Then ofcourse, I have my whole belief that a desktop environment shouldn't be taking up quite that much of my ram. (For the record, I don't need suggestions to try out xfce/fluxbox/<your favorite wm here>...I'm using flux ;))
as for forking kde...That's not something that anyone will want to do aside from an absolute last resort...Chances are by the time they stop maintaining it most of the issues will have been worked out. The reason why they're not developing it anymore is, by my guess, there's nothing left for them to develop on it. They finished their job, and probably maxed out the functionality they could add with qt3
blackbelt_jones
09-23-2008, 03:23 PM
This is something I personally disagree with, I think that they should remove the filemanager functionality from it, especially if they're forcing dolphin as the main filemanager...Having two will just get in eachothers way.
It's hard for me to agree, because I am devoted to Konqueror. It's hard for me to disagree, because file management in Konqueror has become a joke.
As a filemanager Konqueror 4 appears to be crippleware.
There're alot of things I like about kde4, I'd probably be using it if it weren't so sluggish on my machine...Hopefully in the beginning of october I'll be able to put this machine back upto 1gb ram (It had 1gb, but a stick died, and having recently moved from MA->CA, I haven't had the funds to replace it)...Then ofcourse, I have my whole belief that a desktop environment shouldn't be taking up quite that much of my ram. (For the record, I don't need suggestions to try out xfce/fluxbox/<your favorite wm here>...I'm using flux ;))
Most of my interest in this comes from my love of running Konqueror3 on fluxbox. Nothing else comes close to adding the full functionality of a DE to a mere WM.
I would gladly use KDE4 from time to time as an occasional media desktop. While listening to an audio book, or having KTTSD read out loud from a PDF about Ubuntu, it would be great to have all those widgets up there monitoring the weather and keeping track of my twitter blog. What prevents me from doing that is the convoluted dialogue window for setting up keyboard shortcuts. Either it's broken, or I don't understand it, or both.
as for forking kde...That's not something that anyone will want to do aside from an absolute last resort...Chances are by the time they stop maintaining it most of the issues will have been worked out. The reason why they're not developing it anymore is, by my guess, there's nothing left for them to develop on it.
There's one good reason to fork KDE3, and that's so that KDE3 will be able to run next to KDE4 without any confusion. I'm not a developer, but intuitively, it seems to me to be a simple manner of renaming everything. Now is not the time for that , because there's so much bad blood. "Fork " has become shorthand for "KDE4 can go to hell."
I've come around to the understanding that KDE has done very little wrong, and what they've done wrong is hard to avoid when Software developers attempt to handle public relations. When Development on KDE3 reached a certain point, a bold departure is exactly what was called for. KDE3 is being maintained, will be maintained for years... and it turns out this was always the plan. They didn't really talk about that very much, because they're:) developers, and development is what gets developers excited.
We don't owe the devs immunity from all complaints and criticism, but we owe them a lot. Future generations may look back at the free software developers of today with the same gratitude that scholars look back at those monks who copied manuscripts every day for years and years. These guys (some are women) are heroes.
Darkbolt
09-23-2008, 04:20 PM
The thing about forking kde is that its an absolutely GIGANTIC code base, I highly doubt simply renaming the binaries will be sufficient Chances are it'd be easier to add desired functionality to the applications you want in kde4...Which is also why I'm alerting you to give them time, there's a good chance that the developers want to add much of it, but they have priorities...Maybe with mark shuttleworth throwing his money towards it, there's a better chance of it getting added.
blackbelt_jones
09-23-2008, 08:17 PM
The thing about forking kde is that its an absolutely GIGANTIC code base, I highly doubt simply renaming the binaries will be sufficient Chances are it'd be easier to add desired functionality to the applications you want in kde4...Which is also why I'm alerting you to give them time, there's a good chance that the developers want to add much of it, but they have priorities...Maybe with mark shuttleworth throwing his money towards it, there's a better chance of it getting added.
Well, speaking for myself, I had a psychotic episode earlier, but now I've been doing some research, and I don't see any need to think about it until support is withdrawn for KDE3. That official word is that'll be years, or as long as people keep using it. If people want to keep using KDE3, the way to accompliish this is to keep using KDE3... problem solved. The only thing to do now is to establish a KDE3 community.
I'm thinking that there are probably less radical ways than a fork to ensure that 3 and 4 play well together. What's your opinion on that?
blackbelt_jones
09-24-2008, 10:15 AM
This thread feels like a therapy session, and a very successful one! (Thank you, Dr. Darkbolt!) I still think that KDE3 ought to have a chance to survive, and KDE3 users need more community, but I have largely overcome my fear of KDE4. And I've been using Dolphin in my KDE4 install, (I got a dual boot of etch with KDE3.5.5 and Sid with KDE 4.1.1) and it's definitely a very nice file manager.
KDE got most of it right, but I think it would have gone a lot better for them if they'd kept Konqueror as the file manager, which is how most people use it, and made Dolphin the web browser. I suspect that they didn't do it that way because Konqueror was originally a web browser, and maybe the architecture of the code suggested doing it this way. FIne, but considering the reaction of some seriously neurotic users out there (Do I mean me? Who wants to know?) next time it might be worth considering to look at what the users are doing, and make the code accomodate the users, and not the other way around.
Or not. Free software gives the developers a lot more power in relation to users. In the commercial software world, the presumption is (or at least ought to be) that the customer is always right. In free software, the developers can tell the users to suck it up, and there may be times when this is actually good for the software, in the long run.
One thing KDE needs to understand is that good public relations is what happens when you take responsibility. I may be immature and whiny, and I may have responded to the changes in Konqueror like a three year old who had his Teddy Bear taken away, but good public relations is what happens when you take responsibility for whiny douchebags like me getting the message. Let's face it, we are legion.
enshum
09-24-2008, 03:15 PM
"There have been moments lately when I've thought that KDE might become the death of me!" Hey now that is not going to happen period a piece of software is just not that important. You and I will go through a period of adjustment then move along with the new. Technology is always moving along so we must move along with it or get off the train. If you want to slow down or go backwards switch to Vista.
ed
blackbelt_jones
09-25-2008, 03:55 PM
"There have been moments lately when I've thought that KDE might become the death of me!" Hey now that is not going to happen period a piece of software is just not that important. You and I will go through a period of adjustment then move along with the new. Technology is always moving along so we must move along with it or get off the train. If you want to slow down or go backwards switch to Vista.
ed
So it is the responsibility of the user to change to accomodate the technology? The servant has become the master? This is a big reason why I don't use Vista, which mandates massive upgrades in order to be effective.
But I understand now that this isn't really what's happening. No one is being forced to adopt KDE4.
I'm going to start another thread on this topic, because I've come around to completely different conclusion, and I want to make that clear. This means that the mods are probably going to lock down this thread, so let me be sum up on the big question that I opened with.
1. If KDE intends for us not to be able to use Konqueror as a file manager, and they told us otherwise, that would be a serious breach of faith. However:
2. That may not be what is actually happening. Dolphin is the default file manager, and if Konqueror has full function, Dolphin as default is cool as far as I'm concerned. I definitely prefer Konqueror, and, IMO, Konq4 is definitely broken, but since k4 has a perfectly good file manager in Dolphin, fixing file manager number 2 may not be a priority. After all, Konq3 fans have K3, and it was always in the plan that k3 would be around for some time to come.
So we'll see. Stay tuned.
enshum
09-25-2008, 04:29 PM
2. " That may not be what is actually happening. Dolphin is the default file manager, and if Konqueror has full function, Dolphin as default is cool as far as I'm concerned. I definitely prefer Konqueror, and, IMO, Konq4 is definitely broken, but since k4 has a perfectly good file manager in Dolphin, fixing file manager number 2 may not be a priority. After all, Konq3 fans have K3, and it was always in the plan that k3 would be around for some time to come."
In these few lines lays the answer for the user. It is quite obvious that between Kde 3.5 and 4.0 there is enough software available to meet the needs of just about any user and we have a clear choice to pick and choose what we want to use. Some will opt for the new KDE 4+ with konq and dolphin some will opt for 3.5 others will mix and match to suit there individual needs and another group will throw KDE out and opt for Gnome and there in lays the beauty of Linux were not stuck with anything. And if you have the ability and time you adopt Gentoo select a frame and wheels and start adding options er excuse me you start compiling options to suit your tastes. Now I also use Vista on another hard drive and this is my take on Vista. Vista home basic should be stocked on those software and games for $5.95 stands. Home premium should be were the 9.95 specials are displayed and Vista ultimate should be in the $19.95 are all the time low price bin.
ed
blackbelt_jones
09-26-2008, 12:56 AM
Actually, here's where I found the answer, from a blogpost by KDE developer aaron seigo
What is the future of 3.5?
This year, as with most years since KDE3 emerged, there have been huge deployments of KDE 3 based software. These deployments will not shift for years to come, no matter what KDE4 is. This is because large institutional deployments (government, corporate, educational, etc) typically have 3-7 year cycles (sometimes even longer) between major changes. Patches and security fixes? Sure. Major revamps? No. This alone ensures that KDE3 will remain supported for years. Why? Because there are users. That is how the open source dev model works: where there are users, there are developers; as one declines so does the other. The developers tend to be a step ahead of the users for software that is progressive, but you'll also find that they have a foot in the here and now too (as well as the past, often).
KDE3 is still open in our svn so that bug fixes, security fixes, etc. can continue to be made. KDE 3.5.x is a rather solid desktop system and really doesn't need a huge amount of work given what it is today; the work to move it to the next level is what we refer to as KDE4, of course. This means that the efforts needed to put into it aren't huge to keep it viable. However, efforts that do go into it are welcome.
While the core KDE team will continue to concentrate our work on KDE4 since that is the long term direction of things, it is fully expected that our partners (which include some KDE core team members as employees/members) will continue supporting and even developing on KDE3 issues. The central project will also be around to lend a helping hand with advice and what not; I did that for a person the week before I left for holidays in December, actually, so it's not wild hypothesis but solid theory.
For those familiar with the open source method, the above probably sounds .. well .. obvious. That's because it is .. for those familiar with the open source method. We will find in this blog entry that many of the concerns people raise come from not acknowledging how Free(dom) software is created via the open source method.
There it is. If people want to keep using KDE3, they just have to... keep using KDE3. The more people use it, the better support it'll get. But it's definitely going to be there for a while. They really need to get the word out about this aspect of things. It would have saved me a lot of embarassment.
Darkbolt
09-26-2008, 01:01 AM
Well, after installing and upgrading slackware 12.1->current on a spare 100gb partition I had lying around, Im finding my kde4 experience (all of 5-10 minutes now) to be much smoother than that of kubuntu...So either Pat's better at building packages, or it's the difference in the nvidia drivers (The latest ones fixed alot of issues, from what I understand).
Either way, konqueror has all the features I need, and if I really need that damned filter bar that you keep rambling about (:-P) then I can just open up dolphin ;)
Although, I think in the next release konqueror may get a nice feature: From what I've read on /. (which should be taken with a few grains of salt) webkit's javascript performance has shot through the roof.
Anyway, I'm growing fond of kde4...So I think I'll stick with it for a bit, see how much it grows on me
blackbelt_jones
09-26-2008, 11:48 PM
KDE3 is still my cup of chai, because to me Konqueror 3 is just about perfect. Dolphin is great, just not perfect. To be honest, the difference between perfect and great is mostly aesthetic. It means something, but it's not worth fighting to the death.
On my Pentium 3, KDE4 slows things down just enough that I can't get tolerable streaming video, but I can't deny that it shows a lot of promise. The last time I tried KDE4, I'd install it, and fool around with it occasionally, but sometimes KDE 3 and KDE4 just don't play well together.
The last time I tried KDE 4.1.1 was just a few days ago, in Sid. I tried rotating the widgets at different angles,and it really looked great. I wish I'd taken a screen shot.
Again, let me explain that I don't usually run KDE; I run KDE applications in Fluxbox. More than any other file manager, Konqueror can be integrated beautifully into an amazing desktop partnership with fluxbox. Dolphin comes closer than anything else I've ever tried.
So I dunno, if I had a slightly faster processor and I could figure out the keyboard shortcuts, I might switch to KDE4 cause the desktop looks so good. I'd use it occasionally for media stuff.
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