Comments on: Dropping KDE 3.5 for openSUSE 11.2 isn’t really a bad thing

By: ben.kevan

ben.kevan — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 03:46:02 +0000

I’d be quite interested in knowing what failures you’ve had as I seem to be doing just fine when it comes to crashes with KDE4 (I’m using factory KDE 4.4).

I used to hate KDE 4, and it caused me to go to GNOME after testing KDE 4.0.X and 4.1, but now I’m back after a few months of being a lost pup.

By: Michal Papis

Michal Papis — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 01:14:34 +0000

Of course I can understand everything but stability of kde4 with ~5 breaks per day is not something what I can accept for work, so my response is again KDE 3.5 http://niczsoft.com/2010/02/opensuse-11_2-kde-3_5/

By: bico

bico — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 11:38:26 +0000

@Gilbert I have just added the KDE:KDE3 community repository and installed the packages from there. In YaST Sysconfig Editor one can also set the default login manager to kdm3 and the default desktop to startkde3.

By: Gilbert

Gilbert — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 12:19:16 +0000

@bico How did you do it?

By: bico

bico — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 13:01:36 +0000

I have installed openSUSE 11.2 and I have also installed KDE3 from the KDE:KDE3 repo. The interesting thing is that the KDE3 desktop seems to be much cleaner and I also obtained the following results:

KDE4 – Boot: 30 s, RAM: 115 MB
KDE3 – Boot: 20 s, RAM: 65 MB

This is definitely a keeper for me, so thanks for creating KDE:KDE3

By: Elmar Stellnberger

Elmar Stellnberger — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 13:43:02 +0000

“With all that said, there is still a possibility that KDE 3.5 can be installed on openSUSE 11.2 by a community maintained KDE 3 repository.” – You may vote for this at https://features.opensuse.org/306733.

“Can you imagine the time spent on maintaining KDE 3.5?” – Simply re-compiling well working apps as they are should not be an awfully laborious job.

“… will be a full suitable replacement for KDE 3.” – I fear we are still not as far as this. f.i. KDE4-Konqueror still refuses to view a lot of www-pages KDE3-konqueror does not have a problem with.

By: Elmar Stellnberger

Elmar Stellnberger — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 09:52:41 +0000

I don`t think that maintaining KDE3 is such a laborious job that it will inhibit the development of KDE4. We just need to recompile the same good working programs.
“I have no doubt that KDE4 will be a full suitable replacement for KDE 3.” – I hope this will apply once upon a time in the future. Unfortunately we are not that far yet. KDE3 users know this.
All people still interested in KDE3 should be eager to give their vote at https://features.opensuse.org/306733 (works only with Firefox). “With all that said, there is still a possibility that KDE 3.5 can be installed on openSUSE 11.2 by a community maintained KDE 3 repository.”. – Vote for it!!

By: cor corstra

cor corstra — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 15:12:44 +0000

They took KDE3.5, took out all configurability,took away al logic, took away ease of use, took away 90% of all feature, added a lot of bugs and instability: voila, kde 4.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 06:16:06 +0000

Why report bugs on missing features against openSUSE? They will be rejected with statement to “submit upstream”

Noone cares about existing bugs on KDE 3.5 (all the ones I filed rejected as WONTFIX), KDE 3.5 was dropped at the last minute against SLED/SLES 11 too!

By: Bruce Korb

Bruce Korb — Sun, 31 May 2009 23:28:20 +0000

Just FYI, I *DID* file a KDE bug report. Years ago. It still languishes and there is no apparent attempt to fix it. Specifically, KDE4 allows an application to steal focus, thus sending keystrokes to the wrong window and, in fact, even yanking the current desktop to take you to the whiny window. No, no, no. Look it up in wikipedia to read a thorough discussion about why this is a severe security threat as well as being extraordinarily inconvenient.

I also do not understand why I cannot have different wall papers for different desk tops. That worked in 3.5. It is a superb visual clue about where I am in my dozen desk tops…

By: Graham N

Graham N — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 23:06:09 +0000

k4 is awful. I have been running it (admittedly on ubuntu, but coming back to SuSE now – was a fan since 5.3.) I agree with several other commenters that whilst pretty is a feature, its low down on my list of importance. Give me the stable usability of 3.5 any day. ISTM that when we are at last dumping the stupid “desktop” analogy for UIs (I hate icons on the desktop), k4 is moving backwards.
Give me a panel (that works properly) across the bottom of my screen, and another on the RHS, and I’m happy. Stuff plasmoids – I see zero value in them – aside from (possibly) looking nice.

Its about the usability, stupid

PS When will windows be ready for the desktop?

By: user78405

user78405 — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 01:17:51 +0000

they need to do is keep all 3.5 sound effects and move to kde4.

By: Chaz6

Chaz6 — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 13:58:46 +0000

I will support dropping KDE3 when KDE4 does not run like a dog using a remote connection. Using Nomad (xrdp) the drawing along takes up 60% of the host cpu, and using raw x11, the cpu load is much less, but the excruciatingly slow drawing problem remains.

By: linux user

linux user — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 05:05:45 +0000

“Linux is no longer immature tinker toy. We use it for real work. I don’t care about plasmoids, compiz and such useless wizardry. You should never replace an old tool with a new one, until the new one supersedes the old one both on features and stability.”

This is the problem with Linux. They say that it is “Desktop Ready,” but then they treat it like a toy. KDE4 should still be in beta.

By: Dusan

Dusan — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 19:28:00 +0000

Your arguments for dropping kde3.5 are completely wrong.
Making a distribution is not about easing the load for the maintainers. It is about putting together a product which is useful. If you keep forcing users with something they do not want, they will go elsewhere.

Linux is no longer immature tinker toy. We use it for real work. I don’t care about plasmoids, compiz and such useless wizardry. You should never replace an old tool with a new one, until the new one supersedes the old one both on features and stability.

Most of the software is not written by suse developers, so should all that be dropped too?

By: Mike

Mike — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 13:07:39 +0000

If KDE4 was stable, and application set was complete with the features of KDE3.5, I would use it. I have tried to adopt at every iteration and every time I revert to 3.5 due to stability, everything seems to crash or become non responsive, and lack of features in the software suite. I will adopt, when it becomes usable. If KDE3.5 is dropped from 11.2 and KDE4 is not yet ready, then I will stay on 11.1 or 11.0. Functionality is more than a few pretty screens.

By: Jens

Jens — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 00:48:02 +0000

No, i dont think so. KDE4 isnt that rock stable, and it isnt ready yet. It slows down my computer without giving me new opportunities. It still lacks features that are in KDE 3.5.x, it lacks features which were promised since KDE4 was in alpha state (akonadi, amarok…) and i didnt see any useful enhancements over KDE 3.x until now. Plasma? For what? A new way to set your options? Why? Some broken features in KDE 3.5.x will not be fixed anymore but they didnt even exist as features in KDE4. Until KDE4 doesnt give the same amount of comfort and functionality it should go to the experimental repositories and KDE3.5.x should be maintained with higher priority. Linux isnt Windows, but KDE4 is closer to Vista than to KDE3 (very much bells and whistles, but nothing useful behind).

By: Bob Smits

Bob Smits — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 22:53:34 +0000

I agree with the post, by and large. I, too will stay with KDE 3.5 until 11.2 at least. I do see we’re stuck with KDE 4 after that, and I see the value of getting developers to fix things in KDE4 faster.

I don’t, however, like KDE4 or all the unnecessary changes I’m going to have to make in the way I use my machine.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 10:04:12 +0000

KDE4 is the future, it rocks and is stable for production use. KDE 3.x was a great desktop but there is no need to hold on to something that is not being developed to the extend as KDE 4. This way the openSUSE/Novell team can focus making KDE 4.3 even better and integrated better in 11.2