facti.net

Tried out KDE 4.3.2 on the latest Ubuntu, and what occurs to me is "wow - that's bad".  After the 4.0 release fiasco I thought they could only go uphill, so I was quite disappointed with the latest version. KDE has really gone downhill from 3.5.x.  I think it should be seen as an example of how not to do things. It seems to have focused on eye candy at the expense of usability.

From a user perspective the ideal desktop should let you just get things done.  A good desktop should let you configure things whichever way you like and then be 'invisible'.  Unfortunately KDE does neither.  It now constantly gets in the way.  It hinders rather than facilitates:

• It is difficult to hunt through the menus to find the right application
• It is not intuitive to configure
• You cannot get rid of the foolish cashew without recompiling things

 Sad.  I cannot recommend the latest KDE.

I've installed and have been trying to use F9 on one of my machines for a while now, and if you are thinking of trying it I would suggest that you do not.   It is the worst release in a very long time, maybe of all time for Fedora.  I have used Fedora since it started, and there is something fundamentally worse about this release than all the others. 

Just some of the issues: removal of some important configuration options during install, quite unstable wi-fi drivers, terrible GDM, and the removal of KDE 3 for what can only be described as the currently dreadful KDE 4 implementation.  Stick to F8 until some of the really significant fixes have been implemented, or maybe skip F9 altogether and wait for F10.  F8 was quite a good release.

KDE4 in particular is disappointing. KDE used to be (pre 4) quite a fast and pragmatic desktop that conformed well to the way one worked.  Very configurable and stable and one could configure it just right so one was free to 'just get the job done'. 

The K-Desktop Environment. Fast and snappy, works well, looks good. I use it.  Many many utilities.  Easy to install in Fedora, just use yum group-install KDE

Image of Kontact from http://kontact.kde.org/

Desktop related software. Most users interacting with computers use desktop software.  The software normally runs within a Desktop Environment that allows for the interaction of the software with the user.  There are several Desktop Environments to choose from.