# KDE 4 Released/Preview : The future GUI ?



## Dark Star (Jan 11, 2008)

*www.imgx.org/pfiles/4550/kde40.png​
The KDE Community is thrilled to announce the immediate availability of KDE 4.0. This significant release marks both the end of the long and intensive development cycle leading up to KDE 4.0 and the beginning of the KDE 4 era. 

The KDE 4 Desktop has gained some major new capabilities. The Plasma desktop shell offers a new desktop interface, including panel, menu and widgets on the desktop as well as a dashboard function. KWin, the KDE Window manager, now supports advanced graphical effects to ease interaction with your windows.

Lots of KDE Applications have seen improvements as well. Visual updates through vector-based artwork, changes in the underlying libraries, user interface enhancements, new features, even new applications -- you name it, KDE 4.0 has it. Okular, the new document viewer and Dolphin, the new file manager are only two applications that leverage KDE 4.0's new technologies. 

*www.imgx.org/pthumbs/large/4546/kickoff-favorites.jpg​
 Plasma is the new desktop shell. Plasma provides a panel, a menu and other intuitive means to interact with the desktop and applications.
KWin, KDE's proven window manager, now supports advanced compositing features. Hardware accelerated painting takes care of a smoother and more intuitive interaction with windows.
 Oxygen is the KDE 4.0 artwork. Oxygen provides a consistent, easy on the eye and beautiful artwork concept.
*www.imgx.org/pthumbs/large/4544/dashboard.jpg​
*Panel : *The Plasma Panel holds the menu, the systray and a list of tasks. The taskbar, located in the panel, can show live thumbnails of windows that are currently hidden, the Taskbar Thumbnails. 

*www.imgx.org/pthumbs/large/4553/panel.jpg​
*Dolphin :  *is KDE4's new file manager. You can browse, locate, open, copy and move files with it. Dolphin concentrates on ease of use and replaces Konqueror's filemanagement component, which was used in KDE 3 and earlier. While Konqueror can still be used as file manager, and in fact shares the fileview functionality with Dolphin, the KDE team has decided to introduce an application that is optimized for file management: Dolphin.

 *www.imgx.org/pthumbs/large/4551/dolphin-groups.jpg *www.imgx.org/pthumbs/large/4552/dolphin-splitview.jpg​
*Desktop Switcher  : * The Panel holds an applet that provides similar functionality and is also available when Desktop Effects have been disabled. Right click on the "Pager"in the panel to configure the number and arrangement of your virtual desktops. Drag the pager applet from the applet browser to the panel or to the desktop. 

*www.imgx.org/pthumbs/large/4549/pager.jpg​
*Taskbar Thumbnail : *The effect Taskbar Thumbnails enables live previews of windows when you move the mouse over their entry in the taskbar. This makes for easy monitoring of activity in hidden windows and application activity. Taskbar Thumbnails also provide visual hints to ease locating the application you want to switch to.

*www.imgx.org/pthumbs/large/4547/kwin-taskbarthumbnails.jpg​
*Okular and Gwenview: *Gwenview is KDE's image viewer. While it was available in KDE3, the KDE4 version has a simplified user interface, making it more suitable for quickly browsing through your collection of images. Gwenviev is also used to display images. It provides a nice full screen interface that can be used to display your images as a slideshow.

Okular is KDE4's document viewer. It supports a multitude of formats, ranging from PDF files to OpenDocument files. Okular is not limited to only reading file


 *www.imgx.org/pthumbs/large/4555/gwenview.jpg *www.imgx.org/pthumbs/large/4554/okular.jpg​
* Marble Desktop Globe* Marble is an application which shows you a three-dimensional map globe which you can rotate and view. Use your mousewheel to zoom in and out. Grab the globe with your mouse to drag it around.

*www.imgx.org/pthumbs/large/4556/marble.jpg​
* KStars Desktop Planetarium*: KStars is an application which you can use to view the nightsky above. It can be used to control digital telescopes, even remotely over the internet. When you start it, you will be presented with a dialog asking you to select the your location.

*www.imgx.org/pthumbs/large/4557/kstars.jpg​
* Download : *
        An alpha version of KDE4-based *Arklinux 2008.1* is expected        shortly after this release, with an expected final release within 3 or 4 weeks.
 *Debian* KDE 4.0 packages are available in the experimental branch.        The KDE Development Platform will even make it into _Lenny_. Watch for        announcements by the Debian KDE Team.        Rumours are that a Live CD is planned as well.
 *Fedora* will feature KDE 4.0 in Fedora 9, to be released        in April, with Alpha releases being available from        24th of January.  KDE 4.0 packages are in the pre-alpha Rawhide repository.
 *Gentoo Linux* provides KDE 4.0 builds on        Gentoo Linux Projects -- Gentoo KDE Project.
 *Kubuntu* packages are included in the upcoming "Hardy Heron" (8.04) and also made available as updates for the stable "Gutsy Gibbon" (7.10). A Live CD is available for trying out KDE 4.0. More details can be found in the                  announcement on Kubuntu.org.
 *Mandriva* will provide packages for                  2008.0 and aims                 at producing a Live CD with the latest snapshot of 2008.1.
 *openSUSE* packages are available                  for openSUSE 10.3                  (one-click                  install), openSUSE Factory                  (one-click                  install) and openSUSE 10.2. A KDE                  Four Live CD with these packages is also available. KDE 4.0 will be part of the upcoming                  openSUSE 11.0 release.


----------



## gxsaurav (Jan 11, 2008)

Not to downplay, but yeah...good thing they copied the good features from Vista & Mac OS X


----------



## Pat (Jan 12, 2008)

@Darkie: Dont call it a GUI yaar  Its a lot more than that 
btw, have you made a new distro yourself ?  Lol!

Actually,there is new distro out there in the blocks with the name "Darkstar" 
*www.darkstarlinux.ro/en/content/darkstar-linux-20081-0


----------



## sourav123 (Jan 12, 2008)

This looks cool...I have decided to postpone my switch to linux in favour of KDE 4.0 stable release


----------



## praka123 (Jan 12, 2008)

hmm..kde4   released!will have to get a livecd!still a satisfied Gnome user! 
wait!here is the opensuse kde4 livecd(500+MB),if u wanna give a try 


> *Description*
> 
> The current installable Live-CD contains only packages which are part of the KDE 4.0 release.
> *Checksums*
> ...


*home.kde.org/~binner/kde-four-live/
KDE-Four-Live.i686.1.0.iso (Torrent)


----------



## axxo (Jan 12, 2008)

^Thanks for the Link....KDE is my taste since RHL 9....


----------



## Dark Star (Jan 12, 2008)

Here is a small How to which will let you install KDE 4 in Ubuntu Gutsy 

DO these in Terminal 


```
sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list
```
Add these lines at the bottom 


```
deb *ppa.launchpad.net/kubuntu-members-kde4/ubuntu gutsy main
```
Then


```
sudo aptitude update
```

If you have any pre-release of KDE 4 remove it by


```
sudo apt-get remove kdelibs5 kde4base-data kde4libs-data
```

*Now install kde4.0*


```
sudo aptitude install kde4-core
```

This will complete the kde4.0 installation



Now use KDE 4 after log out and change Desktop Manager via Sessions in Log In Screen


----------



## Net007 (Jan 12, 2008)

Thanks for the screen shots.


----------



## axxo (Jan 12, 2008)

Dark Star said:


> Here is a small How to which will let you install KDE 4 in Ubuntu Gutsy
> 
> DO these in Terminal
> 
> ...



so does that mean we need not have kubuntu for KDE experience....Ubuntu is just enough?


----------



## Dark Star (Jan 12, 2008)

^^yep


----------



## x3060 (Jan 12, 2008)

nice screens...., beautifullllllll


----------



## praka123 (Jan 13, 2008)

kubuntu seems for me a little buggy!i feel,better install kde in ubuntu.remove Gnome DE and gnome-gtk packages which ur not gonna use.still,even in kde only distros,ppl needs gtklibs as dep for many packages


----------



## khattam_ (Jan 13, 2008)

Where can I get the link to Offline install pack for OpenSuse 10.3?


----------



## drgrudge (Jan 13, 2008)

Looks very good. But Atleast 2 of the above feature seems to be copied from Mac OS X.


----------



## praka123 (Jan 13, 2008)

^yeah,the  very OS X itself is copied and forked from freebsd,safari browser webkit is copied and ripped off from KHTML(kde) of Konqueror browser and still relies on kde and Linux/ open source community for almost 50% of basic tools like CUPS etc .so we can see who has copied whom  happy ?
OS X is just a bad fork of freebsd if to be answered frankly!


----------



## drgrudge (Jan 13, 2008)

^^ 
Hey, chill out man. Got Honey inside you?  

I've neither used FreeBSD nor Safari to comment on your statement. 

But either way 1. KDE 4 copied from OS X or 2. OS X copied from FreeBSD is a good product (atleast OS X is). Look at Vista. MS gave a copy of OS X Tiger (released back in 2004/5) to their developers and they screwed it!


----------



## praka123 (Jan 13, 2008)

^wrote in a jiffy!


----------



## Zeeshan Quireshi (Jan 13, 2008)

KDE 4 might make me install Linux on my PC rather than in a Virtual Machine(as i currently do) .


----------



## Tech_Wiz (Jan 13, 2008)

on GG I am kinda happy with GNome than KDE. Btw Whats the size of the KDE package I fi want to download it through Apt


----------



## praka123 (Jan 13, 2008)

^around 200mb


----------



## Tech_Wiz (Jan 13, 2008)

k Idea Dropped then


----------



## CadCrazy (Jan 13, 2008)

For me its 132 MB


----------



## blueshift (Jan 13, 2008)

Kool.


----------



## Pat (Jan 13, 2008)

For me kde4-core was 117 MB on Gutsy


----------



## The Conqueror (Jan 14, 2008)

kde 4 is cool and it rocks


----------



## NucleusKore (Jan 14, 2008)

I wonder if the final version is here. Any way of knowing before I mirror the repository? The last modified dates look recent.


----------



## CadCrazy (Jan 17, 2008)

Ok installed. My advice to vista fanboys. 
" Do not install it otherwise you'll start hating your Vista "


----------



## Dark Star (Jan 17, 2008)

^^ Installed over 113 Mb of D/l...am not happy with what I got.. I would rather love to have a KDE 4 based distros


----------



## amitava82 (Jan 17, 2008)

Ok then its my time to download..


----------



## FilledVoid (Jan 17, 2008)

If I recall everyone on Ubuntu IRC is recommending to use KDE4 based distros rather than Installing kde core on Gutsy. Not sure why. I recall someone recommending trying Kubuntu and then upgrading kde4 ?


----------



## amitava82 (Jan 17, 2008)

I just downloaded Kubuntu Live cd with KDE 4. It does not have any application, not even web browser. Total useless. I'll just wait for the final full functional release.


----------



## FilledVoid (Jan 17, 2008)

> I just downloaded Kubuntu Live cd with KDE 4. It does not have any application, not even web browser. Total useless. I'll just wait for the final full functional release.



The second release candidate of KDE 4 has been released and packages are available for Kubuntu 7.10.

If you want to test KDE 4 without installing packages download the live CD (466MB). This CD includes a preview of the Konqueror Webkit engine.

Source: *www.kubuntu.org/announcements/kde4-rc2.php


----------



## praka123 (Jan 17, 2008)

^well i am trying the kde4 Open suse livecd(much better!)


----------



## ray|raven (Jan 17, 2008)

Could someone post the memory usage?
Is KDE 4 more resposive than KDE 3?

Regards,
ray


----------



## infra_red_dude (Jan 17, 2008)

^^^ Yeah, me too wanna know!


----------



## Dark Star (Jan 17, 2008)

On my system its taking an average of 300-400 Mb while total physical memory is 768 Mb. So I guess its pretty heavy

Note: the usage are noted while Desktop effects were On


----------



## infra_red_dude (Jan 17, 2008)

Thats heavy!


----------



## ray|raven (Jan 17, 2008)

Dark Star said:


> On my system its taking an average of 300-400 Mb while total physical memory is 768 Mb. So I guess its pretty heavy
> 
> Note: the usage are noted while Desktop effects were On



Is that just for the DE?
In that case its very heavy.
Compare that with xfce, which uses ~40megs in idle state on my system 

Regards,
ray


----------



## Pat (Jan 18, 2008)

I hope you guys are aware of the interesting things happening around the new KDE release:

Just a gist:

1:> Thom from OSNews posts a mini-review of KDE 4 which supposedly doesnt go down well with a KDE Developer

Link to review on OSNews:
*www.osnews.com/story/19159/KDE_4.0.0:_Sweet_Follows_Sour

2:> The "angry" developer responds to the criticism

*www.osnews.com/story/19161/No_Good_Would_Have_Come_From_Delaying_the_Release

Dont forget to read the comments on OSNews..There are lots of comments by both the original reviewer and the developer as they both try to put their point across.Interesting read!!

Bottomline: KDE 4.0 is *still* just a developer release or more of a preview and hence should not be considered as a stable,mature desktop environment!


----------



## praka123 (Jan 18, 2008)

^what the..long time man!Gnome had released 3 versions at the same time,although most are bug-fix releases


----------



## CadCrazy (Jan 18, 2008)

KDE4 core is on heavier side. Althogh never used KDE before.This may be due upgraded version


----------



## Pat (Jan 18, 2008)

I was looking forward to try KDE 4.0! But after the initial reviews and bug reports,I have given up!


----------



## praka123 (Jan 18, 2008)

^even i read kde devels says that this is again another "beta"


----------

