KDE 4.9 Is Faster & More Responsive

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Originally Posted by seraphim

KDE is still far to bloated, sluggish and unstable to be considered a usable desktop environment. This latest update does nothing to address these flaws. The only sane desktops for power users and those who want to get work done are Xfce, LXDE and Cinnamon. The rest are junk.

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Actually for power users, the only real sane one IS KDE.. at least out of the full blown DEs. Most power users actually use something like openbox or fluxbox, etc. Most Linux Power users would be happy with a screen full of terminals.

I actually run Gnome-shell simply because it gets out of my way more than any of the other DEs. Although sometimes a little too far out of my way (like missing chat notifications), but there are fixes for that.

Unfortunately now Gnome-shell has programmed my brain to utilize the super key to launch the dashboard, so when I try to use KDE or any other Linux DE, it slows me down.. :(

Anyone know if there still isn't a way to make KDE use that key as a way to open up the launcher?

leech

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Originally Posted by seraphim

KDE is still far to bloated, sluggish and unstable to be considered a usable desktop environment. This latest update does nothing to address these flaws. The only sane desktops for power users and those who want to get work done are Xfce, LXDE and Cinnamon. The rest are junk.

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You must not be using the same KDE I've been using. I find that apps start quickly, the UI is responsive, and it's actually fairly well-organized. I'm getting tired of the trope that KDE is bloated (even though it's measure to be no worse than GNOME or even XFCE these days), that it's slow or that it has too many buttons and menus. If you want a dumbed down interface with no fuss, just buy a Mac.

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Originally Posted by siride

You must not be using the same KDE I've been using. I find that apps start quickly, the UI is responsive, and it's actually fairly well-organized. I'm getting tired of the trope that KDE is bloated (even though it's measure to be no worse than GNOME or even XFCE these days), that it's slow or that it has too many buttons and menus. If you want a dumbed down interface with no fuss, just buy a Mac.

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I think that most of the people who have issues with KDE being slow don't have enough RAM. That is KDE's biggest flaw. It uses huge amounts of RAM. Last I checked nepomuk slows things down too, but that's easy enough to disable. I'd say that KDE isn't bloated so much as it runs too much all the time. For instance, i don't need or want Akonodi (which consumes a huge amount of the RAM I've mentioned) running if I'm not using Kontact or something. I'd rather have the option to only run these components on demand, not all the time. It opens when I open kontact, it closes when I close kontact.

Btw, I can't speak for anyone else, but the Quick Access plasma widget is so amazing. I'm so spoiled on it that any time I use any other desktop envirnment, I get really impatient and flustered because I have to go through all of these extra steps to access documents and what not.

Since we have the KDE fan/expert crowd on here:

Does kwin finally have a decent desktop zoom? Exactly like compiz's Enhanced Zoom Desktop plugin? Pre-defined zoom levels accesible via shortcuts, animated and smooth zoom-in and out to any level, and configurable mouse tracking?

Last time I checked (4.8, I guess) all I could find was some 'effect' (?? wtf? it's not a toy or an 'effect', it's an accessibility feature!!) that did zoom but it was the same horrble un-ergonomic half-baked clumsy crap that was in 4.0, nowhere near the compiz plugin.

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Originally Posted by bug77

I'm not seeing any difference, other then more frequent crashes. Kopete seems to lead the pack. I know Telepathy is supposed to be the new kid on the block, but that doesn't even show me my yahoo contacts; which is a step up because it used to be unable to log in.
It's not all bad, it's just a crash or two in a whole day of using KDE. Hopefully the final version will fix these.

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Is it just kopete that crashes? It's nearly dead project, but still being used, because Telepathy isn't mature yet.

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Originally Posted by seraphim

KDE is still far to bloated, sluggish and unstable to be considered a usable desktop environment. This latest update does nothing to address these flaws. The only sane desktops for power users and those who want to get work done are Xfce, LXDE and Cinnamon. The rest are junk.

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Yeah right... and most people use KDE and Unity from some reasons. I fail to see how KDE is bloated, sluggish and unstable compared to Cinnamon which is based on gnome...

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Originally Posted by Prescience500

KDE's easily has the most potential among the DE's. If it's few rough edges go away, then maybe we can start geting people to come back to KDE from Gnome.

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It already happened. Many Gnome 2 users decided to switch to KDE rather gnome's hell mess. What's more important Unity is not Gnome, so the most popular environments are Unity and KDE.

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Originally Posted by seraphim

KDE is still far to bloated, sluggish and unstable ...

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As opposed to what? CLI? KDE ran perfectly fine on my laptop with GMA950 3 years ago and it's seen a ton of optimization since then.

KDE is nice and all, but it needs to mature a little. They can start by addressing the numerous crashes Gwenview generates on rather simple images (yes, I filed dozens of bug reports - I've never had this happen with Gpicview). Or after I close a random KDE app (especially when the "about" dialog was last displayed), it crashes ungracefully and pops an error message. That alone kills the user experience, especially for new users. I don't know about programming, otherwise I'd help them stabilize these issues myself. :(

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Originally Posted by leech

Unfortunately now Gnome-shell has programmed my brain to utilize the super key to launch the dashboard, so when I try to use KDE or any other Linux DE, it slows me down.. :(

Anyone know if there still isn't a way to make KDE use that key as a way to open up the launcher?

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I don't think it is possible without ugly hacks. AFAIK Qt only reports that key as a modifier and therefore it cannot be used as a hotkey. Maybe if you mess with raw X and somehow make sure you don't lose any keypresses.