KDE 3.5 is like XP and KDE 4 is like Vista.

[dragonbite]

Let me clarify this.

OpenSUSE running KDE 3.5 makes me think of XP in that the distribution is solid, has good hardware recognition and runs most applications as if it belongs there.

Some people find little reason to move from 3.5 to 4 anytime soon because 3.5 does what they need.

Even the slab menu that openSUSE has for a while now is similar to XP's default menu and both of them allow you to go back to the "classic" look if you so choose.

OpenSUSE running KDE 4 seems to be more like Vista in that there is more glamour and glitz, some added benefits and functionality with widgets yet at the same time some people have problems with it and other people do not!

Also, like Vista, it is being pushed upon the masses even though there has been some resistance to KDE 4's adoption.

The questions is if, like Vista, the upgrading to the KDE 4 is an inevitable eventuality as time goes on or not.

[Magic31]

Originally Posted by dragonbite

Let me clarify this.

...

Also, like Vista, it is being pushed upon the masses even though there has been some resistance to KDE 4's adoption.

The questions is if, like Vista, the upgrading to the KDE 4 is an inevitable eventuality as time goes on or not.

The short answer: How many KDE 2.x implementations do you see these days?

My two cents on this is that KDE 4 is not being pushed upon people.. I don't see that at all.
KDE 4.x is getting promoted, true, but next to that also KDE 3.5.9 is a valid and supported option in openSUSE 11.0 and probably also in 11.1. It's even being recommended to hold on to 3.5.9 for now if you are looking for a stable mature desktop!

In the end it would be a big task to keep maintaining both KDE environments although I do think that for now they will continue doing so.
As KDE 4.x gets more mature and eventually (by natural choice) more people start to use it, that's when KDE 3.5.9 will start to fade.

IMO with OSS these things go differently and it's more a matter of what the community does rather than something being pushed. But then again, that pushing happens in every ' market'.

I will be curious to see how openSUSE will be handling this...

Cheers,
Wj

[dragonbite]

Promoted is a form of pushing and there are a lot of differences between they way both of them are marketed. KDE will support 3.5 for longer just like Windows XP is being supported, but phasing out.

KDE 3.5, though, as you said will continue being developed alongside of KDE 4 and that is one difference between XP and Vista which is a great example of FOSS community to proprietary capitalism.

Microsoft is taking shots because of their "force upgrade" while how many threads are on this forum with people saying the warnings were not strong enough, or the Live CD should be broken out between 3.5 and 4? I haven't been frequenting the other boards (since openSUSE merged into one ) so I'm not sure how loud they are about it, but SUSE is more involved with KDE than a lot of the others.

[Neophyte42]

If the OSS community feels that KDE 4.x becomes significantly "better" than 3.x then sometime 3.x support will eventually trickle down to asymptotically approach death. This worst case (for 3.x) is different than the MS square wave approach of on date Y (can't use X as a variable here now, can we? ) no more XP support. (We neglect, for sake of discussion that Y is truly more a variable than a constant at this point.)

However, what I think will really happen is that 3.x will live for a long, long time, especially for people interested in not keeping up with the hardware race for the cool new doodads of 4.x and the folks who feel no need for the new and shiny thing when the old stuff does the job just fine. Like people keep saying - 3.x is a mature code base. Relative to the current 4.x development, very few resources need to be allocated to maintaining 3.x, especially if the work that is done is to close security issues and/or keep up with hardware changes (which should mostly be done already in kernel and xorg).

As for KDE 2.x, isn't there a greater functionality change from 2.x to 3.x than 3.x to 4.x?

[dragonbite]

I wasn't around Linux when KDE was in version 2.x (that I know of).

[wnj92996]

Originally Posted by dragonbite

Let me clarify this.

OpenSUSE running KDE 3.5 makes me think of XP in that the distribution is solid, has good hardware recognition and runs most applications as if it belongs there.

Some people find little reason to move from 3.5 to 4 anytime soon because 3.5 does what they need.

Even the slab menu that openSUSE has for a while now is similar to XP's default menu and both of them allow you to go back to the "classic" look if you so choose.

OpenSUSE running KDE 4 seems to be more like Vista in that there is more glamour and glitz, some added benefits and functionality with widgets yet at the same time some people have problems with it and other people do not!

Also, like Vista, it is being pushed upon the masses even though there has been some resistance to KDE 4's adoption.

The questions is if, like Vista, the upgrading to the KDE 4 is an inevitable eventuality as time goes on or not.

Your opinion is your own, and is valid as such. However, I disagree...

For starters, other than the fact that both of them are wide, with recently used apps available (which the classic KDE menu has, as well), I don't see any similarities between the two menus. Does XP's menu integrate a desktop search? No. Does XP's menu have a tabbed approach? No. As a matter of fact, XP's menu reminds me a little more of KDE 3.5 in the fact that the menu expands when you hover over an arrow to "dive down", where as the slab menu stays the same size.

As to the issue of upgrading: KDE 4 runs just as fast as 3.5, and has a similar memory footprint. Vista is a pain because even if it supports your machine and equipment, you have to upgrade your hardware to run it decently, usually even to the point of buying a new machine. Also, MS has tried to kill XP twice already, and has relented at the 11th hour each time, and extended the life of XP. KDE 3.5 has not been killed, and as mentioned will live on for quite a while. In fact, as to your question, it could live on indefinitely if people want to pick up the coding, as the KDE team has mentioned they would allow, even to the point of giving server space to a group serious enough to do it.

4.0 had some bugs, and was not feature-complete, as the KDE devs stated time and again. The deal is, people clamored for it, distros offered it, and then people complained. IMO, in a year, this will all be a bad memory, as KDE 4 will be rock-solid and as feature filled and configurable as 3.5, and people will love it. There is much more going on than just the graphics, BTW.

Not trying to sound harsh, just giving my opinion as well...

[GofBorg]

I think KDE4 has features closer to OSX than Vista.
If you are talking about Kicker then KDE 3.5 feels
like Win95/Win98/W2K and XP with classic menu enabled.

Ironically, what defines the OS for a lot of people is
the functionality of kicker or kickoff and the interaction
of icons with the desktop and panels. Kinda funny actually,
but maybe there is something to be learned from that.

I still use 3.5.9 at work but I use 4.1 at home.

[Chrysantine]

Originally Posted by wnj92996

KDE 3.5 has not been killed, and as mentioned will live on for quite a while.

There is a difference however - XP was introduced in 2001 whilst KDE 3.5 was introduced 4 years later and it took a long time before it was "truly ready" for the enterprise desktop - no matter what the zealots like to preach.

What good will it do if the old KDE has patches and is kept "maintained" as far as security goes if all the applications are designed around the new UI and new libraries - you would no longer have any new features added to your system and only backports would keep you alive - most likely you'd be kept on life support by installing QT4+KDE4 libraries.

Originally Posted by wnj92996

4.0 had some bugs, and was not feature-complete, as the KDE devs stated time and again.

You know, when we release x.0 Final software at our company - we like to think we've achieved a full feature functionality that were laid out for the product during the initial design period - until then it's considered .09 or lower, perhaps Alpha.

Releasing software with a 'period zero' that crashes on startup or regularly corrupts itself - then blame people for using it is.. well let's say if KDE was a business, they'd be out of business - luckily for them they're not.

Originally Posted by wnj92996

There is much more going on than just the graphics, BTW.

You are right about one thing - there's a lot more than graphics and most of FOSS people have no clue about it - it's called usability and that's one of the reasons Apple is crushing the Linux front as far as new customers are concerned.

Look at the average KDE4 application (or configuration) then compare it to their offering - do you see anything different? Like say the fact that they have a unified UI instead of every single coder implementing their most awful nightmares about UI design and coming up with new ways of making me have convulsions about it.

The guys at the office tried KDE4 (4.1 to be precise) and wasn't more than 30 minutes when they were back to using 3.5'er or OSX and it had nothing to do with "stability" or "eye candy".

[wnj92996]

Originally Posted by Chrysantine

There is a difference however - XP was introduced in 2001 whilst KDE 3.5 was introduced 4 years later and it took a long time before it was "truly ready" for the enterprise desktop - no matter what the zealots like to preach.

What good will it do if the old KDE has patches and is kept "maintained" as far as security goes if all the applications are designed around the new UI and new libraries - you would no longer have any new features added to your system and only backports would keep you alive - most likely you'd be kept on life support by installing QT4+KDE4 libraries.

True, but what I was referring to was the fact that XP and KDE 3.5 are at very different points in their respective "phasing out" (or whatever you would like to call it) timelines. Vista was released a full year earlier than KDE 4.0. Microsoft has also been trying to push their users to Vista much harder than the KDE devs have been trying to move people to 4.0. There's a reason for it: when an XP user moves to Vista, Microsoft makes money. When a 3.5 user moves to 4.x, KDE gets much less--maybe some exposure and more testers, but that's about it.

Without active development, as you mention, it is not much of a viable option. However, I would guess that the number of apps that are supported for the "enterprise desktop" would be limited, and perhaps even manageable for the period of time that it takes to get 4.x close enough to the old 3.5 state. After that, I guess the hope is that it can exceed it.

Originally Posted by Chrysantine

You know, when we release x.0 Final software at our company - we like to think we've achieved a full feature functionality that were laid out for the product during the initial design period - until then it's considered .09 or lower, perhaps Alpha.

Releasing software with a 'period zero' that crashes on startup or regularly corrupts itself - then blame people for using it is.. well let's say if KDE was a business, they'd be out of business - luckily for them they're not.

You hit the proverbial nail right on the head--they're not. Maybe this was a bad choice for them, but they felt that releasing to a selected group would speed up bug reporting and the like. That selected group was sure not meant to include people who don't know how to deal with the problems that many experienced. I personally saw a lot of posts and the like from people all over that wanted to try KDE 4 but didn't want the hassle of compiling it for themselves. The devs made a choice, and as you mention, they sure didn't do it for business reasons, and I suspect they never will. [/QUOTE]

Originally Posted by Chrysantine

You are right about one thing - there's a lot more than graphics and most of FOSS people have no clue about it - it's called usability and that's one of the reasons Apple is crushing the Linux front as far as new customers are concerned.

Look at the average KDE4 application (or configuration) then compare it to their offering - do you see anything different? Like say the fact that they have a unified UI instead of every single coder implementing their most awful nightmares about UI design and coming up with new ways of making me have convulsions about it.

The guys at the office tried KDE4 (4.1 to be precise) and wasn't more than 30 minutes when they were back to using 3.5'er or OSX and it had nothing to do with "stability" or "eye candy".

Yeah, and there is a decent chance it didn't have anything to do with the lack of a unified UI, which you are correct, doesn't exist. But then again, if the KDE devs were getting paid, and able to go around and recruit top-notch talent, then maybe things would be different.

The points I was trying to make are the following:

1. XP does not remind me of KDE 3.5

2. KDE 4 is not being "pushed" on people. The devs made a decision to go a different direction. People can either use something else, or get to coding.

3. There are more differences between 3.5 and 4.x than eye candy and UI changes.

[john_hudson]

I've never forgotten being blown away by the beauty of Gnome in about 1999 before I began to use Linux myself and when the alternative was the Mac or Windows 98.

I still have KDE 2 on the computer I bought in 2000 and, even then, it just knocked the spots off Windows for useability. Everything was so easy and didn't I just love having six desktops to play with - I felt I was a computer millionaire and so much of my work instantly became easier to manage.

What's more, I could open a console and delve into things that a GUI couldn't do then.

I still have to use XP for certain things but it is so crude and cluttered compared with KDE 3 and, if go on the same website using IE7 and Konqueror, the Konqueror rendering is so much better and, though I use it only occasionally, the Firefox 3 rendering is even better.

I wonder what a focus group would say if someone ran KDE 3 past them and told them it was Microsoft's forthcoming release? My guess is they would be just as wowed by it as those who were shown 'Mojave'.