Tokamak II was a grand success, modulo some unfortunate hiccups with travel and bed bugs. Sebastian, with the help of Richard, wrote up a rather nice review of the event. I was quite happy how there was a strong mix of coding, planning and community building that went on. People from the local area stopped by at various points to look in at what we were doing, which was pretty interesting and really reflects our open nature well. No secret meetings here! :) Now we just need to see how well we execute on things like the new system tray method over the next 6 months.
Today, however, I'm sitting in a board meeting for KDE e.V. We try and do these in person a few times a year as we can get a lot done sitting around a table together for two days relative to the usual email and phone communication we do. Today was no exception, and I'm feeling exceptionally tired mentally at the end of today's meeting. Tomorrow we do it all again, all in the name of continuing our process of both reinforcing what is working and improving what could work even better.
During this time there's been a small bruhaha on the KDE blogs about Plasma in 4.2 and Qt 4.5. Here's the short and sweet story on it so everyone can relax and sleep a bit better at night:
We (the Plasma team) would like Plasma in 4.2 to work with Qt 4.5. Obviously, this is also what the wider KDE and Qt community wants to. As they say, however, you don't always get what you want. But if you try, sometimes, you get what you need.
Right now, with all the changes in QGraphicsView in 4.5, there are some Unhappy Places in Plasma when you use it with Qt 4.5. For example, there is an "interesting" one pixel gap in some of the SVG rendererings (specifically, Plasma::FrameSvg). There are also some work-arounds in Plasma for bugs in Qt 4.4. that are not Happy with Qt 4.5. So we have some testing and patching to do. While Plasma generally runs better with Qt 4.5 in a number of ways, such as performance and less layout hacks needed, it currently needs some work.
We're working on these things in trunk, and will do our best to come up with a patch set against 4.2 in the process. Helping us test KDE 4.2 against Qt 4.5 and identifying these issues is very welcome and then later testing the patches would also be welcome. While the Plasma team will be doing our best to do so, reality is that wider testing equates to better results.
So in summary: using Qt 4.5 with Plasma in KDE 4.2 right this minute will result in less than perfect results; we're working on it; help us and it'll go faster; eventually running Plasma in KDE 4.2 with Qt 4.5 will be smoothly doable. In the meantime, please be patient and don't jump the gun. Given that Qt 4.5 isn't even released yet, I don't see the issue.
I now return you to the regularly scheduled storm in a tea-cup ... I have a board meeting wrap up waiting for me to pay attention again. ;)
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15 comments:
Dear Aaron,
reading the blog post on tokamak and your comment on the meeting at Porto, I feel I should write something about my experience with KDE 4.2 during the last 3 weeks. And though I recognize the great achievements in this release, there are also some things that need to be said.
I will not bore you with details on bugs here (there are better places for that), but will give a short description of my situation.
I had already used KDE (3.5) on Opensuse 10.3 last year, when ver. 4.0 was released and actually switched back to Windows partly because of this release, partly for working reasons. This december I decided to go back to Linux and Opensuse, ver 11.1.
First I installed both actual versions of KDE, then, prior to the release of 4.2, reinstalled skipping the complete 3.5 series. Since the release of 4.2 I am following the ermerging updates on the OpenSuse channels as often as possible (which is, actually, nearly daily). And, unfortunately, in the course of this, are considering another switchback to M$ ...
These are the reasons:
1. Though plasma looks great, since some recent updates, it has the annoying behaviour of not remembering plasmoid coordinates, deleted plasmoids in the dock reappear like zombies (unknown) after logout/login and have to be redeleted each time. This is also true for "distance"-plasmoids which I unfortunately added to the dock an which eventually and reproducably cause crashes that make the system irresponsive (meaning: reboot).
2. This is actually the most annoying thing: Linux itself is quite stable as a system (much more than windows as far as I know) but I do have to reboot the complete system about 3 to 4 times a day because of crashes that (as far as it is obvious to me as an non-developer) have no apparent reason, because I was doing something completely simple or reasonable (and sometimes even without me doing anything at all ;-( ). Honestly: a system breakdown from time to time might happen and is not of greater importance, but 3 to 4 times a day is way to often.
3. There are numerous other minor annoyances, for example: phonon seems to be blocked by an application or irresponsive some time resulting in music not playing or system morifications not being announced, and so on.
Most of these things, I reckon are minor bugs or glitches that will certainly be resoved in a short time, but THAT is not the problem.
KDE 4, as far as I know, was and it aimed to the average user, who in general is neither able nor willing to deal with minor bugs, glitches, work-arounds or else. All he wants is complete control over his PC (or at least the impression he has something like that - this can be overdone, as M$ has proven with the UAC in Vista). But a system that needs even small "redoing" after each log in, doesn't work as expected (e.g. doesn't play music when it is instructed) or crashes on each and any occasion without the user being able to see why or being able to avoid it - that is exactly the contrary of this expectation.
The problm is, that as far as my experience goes, things are getting worse instead of better since the release of 4.2. This might be a completely personal experience, but it is mine.
To set this straight: I like KDE 4.2 a lot, I am looking forward to its further development and I will get through this, but as an average user I can, for now, not recommend KDE 4 for other average users and, without wanting to be rude I would say: claer up the mess in this release because I know there are also people losing their nerves over it.
It is always good to have plans and perspectives for the future (and it is even necessary to have them), but Konquering the future might all be futile if you don't win the present.
I'm sorry if my words in some way "ruin the party" but I hope you see them as more productive than they might sound ar first. KDE 4 is great in concept and vision and in many respects goes further than any sytem component I have seen - and honestly I wished I coud be of more help than with this comment. But as it is: to win people you have to achieve great things ... but still you can lose them by small bit and annoyances.
Thanks for your patience to read this and best greeting from Berlin!
Jörg
@Jorg: I've been reading the KDE blogs for quite some time, and recently when i see issues like this, it is nearly always the fault of the distribution or at least something out of KDE's control. The three annoyances you mention are all serious enough to have been noticed by the KDE team itself and would rarely ever make it to releases.
The biggest issue are usually the distributions which, by wanting to provide the best desktop experience, try too many experimental things which only breaks stuff. I understand that it's their goal, but too often it comes at the price of stability which is a shame.
@Pieter
Right, because the KDE team would never put out a release with known bugs.
Uh hi.
I am interested in helping out with the qt 4.5.0/kde 4.2.0 plasma stuff, and in general anything else in that arena. I have a box with qt 4.5.0rc1 and kde 4.2.0 compiled from source with no distro specific modifications, patches, etc.
I am not a programmer, but can apply, create patches and do some other rudimentary things. With a little pointer here and there I wouldn't be to much of a burden. So how can I get involved with this?
@Henri: I'm not saying they wouldn't put out a release with known bugs, I'm saying that I very much doubt that the things he mentioned were all labeled as known bugs or went unnoticed.
Jörg,
As a openSUSE user AND KDE 4.2 user I can advice you to remove your .kde4 directory. In general I have to say that the SUSE KDE team has done a *great* job in providing KDE 4.2 to openSUSE users, but there are some minor glitches (like your zombie plasmoids in the dock) that are easy fixable by recreating your .kde4 directory.
On a side note I have to say that I find KDE 4.2 in openSUSE 11.1 really great. Even my wife is using it, and I haven't had a single complaint, except when she tried to connect her digital camera.
Forget Windows, stick with KDE 4.2, file bug reports with SUSE/KDE and be patient for 4.2.1. Probably some of your issues will be resolved by then.
Regards Harry
@Jörg said: I will not bore you with details on bugs here
He then goes on in his post to gripe about bugs... ;)
I just installed qt-4.5rc1 and restarted KDE 4.2. Everything just works for me. The coloring(gradient) is different on the panel and plasmoids, but no crashes or anything. The difference in coloring could be due to updated nVidia-drivers too.
Perhaps I'll recompile KDE against to see if there are any problems.
@Taurnil
Going to the freenode IRC #plasma channel and asking how to help is probably the fastest way to get started. You might also try the mailinglist: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/panel-devel
Cool you want to help it'll be apreciated by the devs!
@Jörg
I have used happily openSUSE 10.3 and openSUSE 11.0, and I can tell you openSUSE 11.1 suck really bad.
Plus, tha "Factory" packages you are using are not stable enough. I'm now using Kubuntu 8.10 with KDE 4.2 and I find it a much better solution.
@Henri
I have used KDE 4.2 on openSUSE 11.1 and on Kubuntu 8.10. I can tell you it's the distro. Definitley.
I'm not trying to start a flame. I always loved openSUSE. I just found the last release unsatisfing for my needs, so I would'nt be surprised if others were in the same situation.
I have all of the issues Jörg have. One *could* jump to the conclusion that we were the only ones on the planet having all three of these errors. Maybe it's just archlinux non-kdemod. Do you use archlinux Jörg? If it's not however, I don't understand how issues like this can crop up.. Surely there *is* something which could be improved in the dev process then isn't it?
That is not to say that i don't enjoy kde 4.2; in fact, i think kde 4.2 is the best GUI of all the UIs on the market today(though i had to spend a day or two getting to know the ui and tweaking it to my liking). So great job! (and probably, also to the QT team!)
But surely something can be improved. Maybe it's that testing at the very end of the dev cycle? Maybe all kde devs should get free happy medicine? :p Maybe something entirely else?
i also should mention that i fixed 1. by removing some section of a file in .kde4 2. fixed itself when updating to qt 4.5 and 3. i don't care about.
I am on the same page as Jorg (http://www.blogger.com/profile/14553254608744284438), on the new KDE 4.2.
Many others also feel the same- that KDE 4.2 has sacrificed functionality (first consideration for an OS/ Desktop Environment), for a complex & difficult-to-navigate visual appeal and an unstable desktop that crashes often.
Have seen the same feelings about 4.2 in quite a few other places too, eg http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse/2009-02/msg01855.html.
Hopefully, the KDE 4.3 release will be a stable one, even if it may mean giving up plasmoid/tubby-looks for better function and stability.
Jay
@jaylinux53: that link to the open suse forums says "help me make it look like 3.5", and the answers are simple:
* use the simple app launcher menu (it's even in the right click of kickoff to make it easy to find for people too $WHATEVER to actually try)
* use the folderview as the activity
* use konqueror as the default associated app for inode/directory
contrary to your comment's assertion, there is no "missing functionality" here.
some things are different, but here's the shocking news for you: some people enjoyed the defaults in 3.5, a lot more people struggled with them. we've provided improved components, while keeping the option for ones that either are the old ones or are clones of the old ones.
you and the rest of the people who have a hard time with that need to find peace with it. the world has moved on and we aren't going to let you keep KDE back on the short bus just because you liked it that way.
be thankful we kept things flexible enough to allow for your personal preferences.
in the meantime, if you want to actually list what features are missing, i'll be happy to show you, one by one, the light.
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