Opinions: KDE 4.X on slackware

mfillpot

As I have stated in a few posts I am a proponent of including KDE 4.X in future releases because I don't like hte lack of configrability, but fortunately with Slackware many Window Managers are installed and when the day comes I will just move to XFCE.

I want to know the opinions of other Slackware user on KDE 4.X. Please share your experiences and opinions of KDE 4.X compared to KDE 3.X.

mlangdn

I have a month old iso of current that I am running in virtualbox. KDE 4x will not run in vbox - just freezes the thing up. I don't know why, and I have not tried to find out. I really need to put it on its own partition and try it there.

That said, KDE 3x is no longer in the -current tree, so 4x will be the only KDE choice in future Slackware. That's probably not a bad thing, and I will have to get used to it sooner or later. KDE 3x would probably run in the next release, but will have to be done by the user compiling it and all the dependencies. That will be no small task since KDE is a beast to compile normally.

Oh yea - XFCE runs flawlessly in vbox with the month old current iso. I think its time to mirror the tree again for changes.

mfillpot

I was having the same issue with current in vbox, KDE 4 keep having issues with teh DCOP server (which is a dependancy of KDE, not xfce), additionally EXT4 would not allow any writing to the filesystem in vbox.

I switched my virtual machine app to VMware and both problems disappeared. If you want to try KDE4 without switcihng virtual systems your current options are to setup a physical install or try if from a live cd of another distro.

mlangdn

I've never used VMware - time to go exploring!

vonbiber

I've been a slackware user for quite a while and I always
selected kde as the default for x.
But recently I tested a live distro called kongoni that is
based on slackware. It comes with kde4 as the default.
I didn't like it at all and I think when slackware will
have kde4 I'll switch to xfce
One thing I like is having a clean desktop: no friggin icons
lying around, no plasma thingies
I usually have my launch bar to the left of the screen
It took me a while to figure out how to get close to that with
kde4. Besides, I find it ugly and probably bloated

mlangdn

I am now running Slackware64-current as my main production machine. Also using KDE 4x (I forget the version) and it is way different! It will take some getting used to, but I will pass judgement after I find my way around.

At first glance, I really just didn't like it, but after using this a bit, I may find I prefer this KDE 4x.

Ambercroft

I got tired of KDE long time ago.

Any machine I do an install for gets XFCE.

d0glesby

KDE4 looks promising. It's been a while since I used Slackware, but I'm heading back that direction now that there's an official 64-bit version in the works.

XFCE isn't a bad choice, as it's lightweight and performs well while looking good.

amnesia

KDE seems to be slow, waaay slow with all that jumbo mess they put with it, 60% of processor with XCompositing (transparent windows, etc).. Granted, I realize that is a resource hog by it's own right.. I have an AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual core Processor 6000+ and 8GB of ram and 9800 GT nVidia -- Don't believe it should suck that bad.. XMMS was dragging around like a bug stuck in hot wet tar o_0 I removed that -- Installed 3.5, worked fine.... downloaded KDE 4.3 source from KDE compiled myself and made install.. NOT MUCH FASTER KDE was awesome when it wasn't so fat, looks like XFCE for me aswell

dragonefyre

I tried to like kde4, no chance. Not a cat in hells chance. it's so bloated it's ridiculous, it takes so long to load. I switched to xfce and haven't looked back. I never thought I would dump kde. I just need to do a clean install without any kde stuff. Kmail was really good, that's been replaced with thunderbird. Just need a decent replacement for k3b. Bye bye kde.

vtel57

I used to be a KDE user up to 3.5. My experiences with 4.x were not good. I went to Xfce. Happy as a clam.

Current Slackware/Xfce desktop:

mlangdn

I'm running Slackware64-current with KDE-4.4.1 - its very slick and well-polished. KDE is definitely getting better.

mfillpot

mlangdn wrote:

I'm running Slackware64-current with KDE-4.4.1 - its very slick and well-polished. KDE is definitely getting better.

I have been using -current myself. With the progress that the KDE team has been making it really looks like they will be offering good competion to the windows and mac user interface developers. Their work may be what is needed to push Linux based systems to being accepted for desktop use by regular users.