What do KDE 4.2 and Windows 7 have in common?

Computer World ^ | January 26th | Steven J Vaughan-Nichols

[Halfmanhalfamazing]

I tried, I really did, to like KDE 4.2 I really didn't like the early versions of KDE 4. I then tried KDE 4.1. I hated it. I kept getting told by people that I just didn't get it.

OK, I thought. Maybe I didn't get it. So, I gave the last KDE 4.2 beta and release candidate another try for a month on one of my openSUSE 11.1 desktops. Historically, SUSE and KDE developers work closely with each other, so openSUSE is a great distribution for any version of KDE. Well, they may work well together, but openSUSE with KDE 4.2 doesn't work for me.

Just like Windows 7 beta, which I'm running on another PC, my fundamental problem is each desktop's fundamental interface changes. In both cases, I find that, instead of helping me to get my work done, the interfaces are actually getting in the way.

[pctech]

I still want to try out a Linux OS but there are so many and this whole KDE mess has me wondering if it's even worth it. I've tried Redhat, Xandros and a few others I can't remember but none did anything for me.

But as for Windows, I'm sticking with W2K & XP until Microsoft wisens up and gives it back to us in a future OS. If they don't, I'll stay with W2K & XP until I go to the grave I guess.

[pctech]

If it's merely better than Vista, I won't waste my money.

Steve Ballmer made the statement that Windows 7 is based upon Vista. Do the math, and you'll likely come to the realization like everyone else that it's just more glamour and glitz put on a bad product. How many ways can a they paint up a frog and try and pass it off as a princess?

[B Knotts]

I’ve been using KDE for many years. I tried 4.1, and I don’t like it at all.

[Dead Corpse]

A BIG complaint of mine is that they dropped telnet form their "virtual" DOS mode. I had to copy over the exe from my XP box.

Kinda makes me wonder what else will blowup once I start putting more of my net/sys admin tools on the Win7 testbox. Wireshark, RDP clients, Cisco managers, etc...

So far, I like that it's faster than Vista. It seems cleaner and things are better laid out. Some of the things they took out for Vista are back in for 7.

Control panel is still a mess. Device manager, services mmc, networking tools, etc... still feel as clunky as the Vista tools, but at least you can find them now without having to go through MS's scripted install dialogs.

Including Mahjong in the Games was a nice touch. About time...

[usconservative]

Actually one of the great improvements with 7 is improved backwards functionality with software and components, but hey lets not let facts get in the way.

Really? I loaded the latest Win7 Beta and my NIC dropped dead. No driver available for it in the latest release.

Same NIC worked flawlessly in XP SP2/SP3 and Vista Business Premium.

It's a Marvell Yukon Gig-E NIC onboard a Shuttle SG31G2. Any ideas? I looked around for a few hours trying to find anything to help me get the NIC going to no avail. The Win7 Interface is a little cleaner (and faster.) I loaded up my most commonly used software and noticed a smaller memory footprint vs. a similar configuration in Vista Business Ultimate. That's a step in the right direction for MS anyway....

[dayglored]

> I've tried Redhat, Xandros and a few others I can't remember but none did anything for me.

Fedora Core (nee RedHat) 3, 4, and 10, have worked acceptably for me. I used FC for about four years as my primary home workstation with overall good results, but eventually traded up to a Mac and have been happier, since I can still run FC in a VM on the Mac using VMware Fusion.

> But as for Windows, I'm sticking with W2K & XP until Microsoft wisens up and gives it back to us in a future OS. If they don't, I'll stay with W2K & XP until I go to the grave I guess.

Same here. Ballmer can take his lipstick-on-a-pig rehashes and stick 'em, as far as my personal use.

I'll have to support NT 6.1 Win7 at my company once XP is yanked out of our hands for new machines, but I can take comfort in knowing that we missed the main Vista bullet.

[pctech]

We didn't dodge the Vista bullet where I work. They are still trying to get me to take a Vista box and I refused because all our Autocad products on are XP boxes and I have Autocad on my XP box now. I'm still trying to convince them to reimage a computer with XP and give it to me.

I'm not much into running VM. I still want to run Linux on something, it's just a matter of getting enough parts to put together another tower and try it out. Still not sure which version I'll try but I hear that Fedora is a good one. Guess we'll see what happens.

[dayglored]

> We didn't dodge the Vista bullet where I work.

You have my condolences. The outfits which adopted Vista at the enterprise level will be feeling the pain for years to come.

> I'm not much into running VM. I still want to run Linux on something,...

Understood. Linux-on-metal is stable and easy to tune.

But that same Linux-on-metal makes a great VM host platform, too. I suggest taking a look at VMware Server (free) for Linux. I'm using it on a couple metal boxes at work, to host a dozen or so VMs of various other OSes, including Windows, Linux, and Unix.

> I hear that Fedora is a good one.

It's not bad at all; I like it best, but tastes differ. I'm solidly in the RedHat camp (RH, RHEL, Fedora, CentOS, etc.) and prefer Gnome to KDE as a GUI. YMMV...

That said, IMO none of the Linux GUIs really beat Win2K's Classic, much less the Mac OSX Leopard GUI, which is great. But the Linux GUIs are entirely adequate for 95% of what I need to do.

And last night I finally found a "Macintosh Explorer" app -- I like the Windows Explorer 2-pane view, and somebody made one for the Mac. Funny, it looks a lot like the Linux explorers... ;-)

Good luck with it, whichever you pick!

[Señor Zorro]

How does KDE compare to OSX performance-wise?

It's been a little sketchy on nvidia cards (which happens to be all I run it on). From what I hear, ATI cards had no problem--which is an ironic reversal in its own right. The problems seem to be mostly resolved in 4.2, though.