KDE 4.2 "The Answer" Released

THE BIGGEST NEWS FOR THE START OF 2009.

Its finally OUT.

Reviews are praising it a LOT.

Anybody here got it ?

UPDATE:

MY REVIEW OF KDE 4.2:
*thesmallerbang.wordpress.com/2009/01/30/kde-42-the-answer-reviewed/

SCREENSHOT:
*www.kde.org/announcements/4.2/screenshots/desktop_thumb.png

Will get it on 30th when Pardus will be released

No point in d/l and updating cooker now

Visual Tour to KDE 4.2 looks nice.

Installing it

KDEmod 4.2 released the day KDE4.2 released

Is it more stable than 4.1? I certainly hope so. I faced a lot of problems with 4.1. Panel Crashing, slowness,etc.
Unfortunately since I have almost saturated my bandwidth, so I cant download it till the 17th.

Its much much much much more stable than KDE 4.1.
Infact, it was more stable than 4.1 even in its late beta stages

Its almost close to KDE3.5.9 and the KDE team says that most laymen users can now safely upgrade to KDE4.2 from KDE 3.5.9 and not miss out on *most* things. Exceptions like KOffice2 and K3B still in beta exist though.

I miss Kaffeine and K3b

both are in pre-alpha stage

Digikam will be released within few days

Me too. Kaffeine was the best media player ever, if one didn't need VLC's server capabilities.

K3B has NO alternative in the linux world. Its almost like GOD of burning.

In KDE4 I missed Kooka the most.

Kooka was dropped from the kdegraphics module for KDE 4. The reason for this is the lack of active development and maintenance for long time.
However, there have been discussions around that, for example around this dot.kde.org story.

It was somebody speaking up interested in carrying on Kooka development. If you are a friend of Kooka, cross fingers, might be that development continues.

If you are willing to help, please drop a note! The libkscan remains in the kdegraphics module. That means that scanning will be available for KDE 4 for these applications that use the libkscan.

Check out how that works in the API documentation for the KScanDialog class on api.kde.org. The KScanDialog is part of the KIO subsection of the libs.

+

I never used kooka,, Xsane works fine for me

But I think someone should work on kooka

KDE 4.2 is awesome ..it surpassed all Linux distro's
i have read 3 review's about it and it is impressive

^^Lol.. KDE 4 isn't a distro.. Its a Desktop Env..

@ All please post some link to genuine review ..

This is what I found: (though I think it's beta version of 4.2)
*adymo.blogspot.com/2009/01/kde4-review-from-inside-out-part-1.html

^^Arrey apart from that , I have both par1 and 2

waiting to see atanu review

Its almost close to KDE3.5.9 and the KDE team says that most laymen users can now safely upgrade to KDE4.2 from KDE 3.5.9 and not miss out on *most* things. Exceptions like KOffice2 and K3B still in beta exist though.

I wouldn't say that.Downloaded KDEmod 4.2 yesterday.Dolphin has crashed twice on me till now.GTK apps look fugly.No K3b, no Amarok available.You still have to use kdesu systemsettings to edit certain things in System Settings [Administrator mode in 3.5.xx was great] to So, still quite a way to go before it matches 3.5.xx
On a good note, It's seems more responsive than even my XFCE installation while running certain apps.

Huh.. Amarok is available .. 2.0.1.1 .... ALso there might be issue with KDE compilation by Arch team.. Better use openSUSE or Fedora Live cd

Dark Star said:
Huh.. Amarok is available .. 2.0.1.1 .... ALso there might be issue with KDE compilation by Arch team.. Better use openSUSE or Fedora Live cd

Wow...didn't know Amarok 2 was out already.Downloading it right away.!

MetalheadGautham said:
K3B has NO alternative in the linux world. Its almost like GOD of burning.

+Infinite

KDEmod4.2 "The Answer" gets 9/10 - SUPERB.

I am posting right now from KDEmod4.2 in ArchLinux. KDEbase already had an update.

Anyway, KDE 4.2 is simply AWESOME.

Its still somewhat slow on 256MB RAM.

But the visual effects, plasmoids, menus and the whole interface - its simply fabulous. I have never seen a better Desktop Environment in my life, and this beats MacOS 10.5, Windows 7 and Gnome 2.4 hands down. Its ULTIMATE.

And now I am 99.99999% sure that Windows 7 superbar is nothing but an imitation of KDE4's Plasma Panel.

KWin-compositor is much lighter on resources than Compiz Fusion. I suppose this makes it the lightest composite window manager ever next to Xfce4.4-composite.

Konqueror has a spell checker which has a small issue - it checks spelling as I type each letter, and not as I type each word. So for example, when I just typed example, it underlined the word when I had finished typing "exa". But I can live with it.

KDE4.2 is much much more responsive compared to KDE4.1. Hats off to the KDE team.

And yeah, I am still sticking to Xfce4.4 because I have less RAM, however, when I get an upgrade, I am coming back to KDE4. And hopefully, KDE4.3 will be out by the time my new rig arrives, around June-July.

^Thanks for the small review.

^^Thanks for inspiring me to write a bigger review.
*thesmallerbang.wordpress.com/2009/01/30/kde-42-the-answer-reviewed/

I LOLed reading your short review here

thanks. never written anything bigger in the 60 seconds I got while the thing was lagging like sh!t.

00:00 - me starts comp
00:20 - login menu
00:21 - startx
05:00 - KDE starts
08:00 - KDE stops lagging and konqueror opens
09:00 - I am replying
10:00 - enough of this madness
13:00 - the comp is finally off.

but thats a gazillion times better than KDE4.1 I must add.

Wow.. i think that i need to rethink my decision of no KDE on OpenSUSE 11.1.. i need to download it now.. waise.. KDE guys ruined AmaroK 2.. it doesn't have the powerful capabilites of the previous 1.x version.. like it doesn't has that equalizer thing and the Wikipedia's info font is aweful..

^^wait for 2.1 version.. It will have revamped UI and nearly as powerful as 1.4.9

Look at these brainstorm. .Looks fantastic for a complete ultimate media player *kde-look.org/content/show.php/A+Media+Player+for+KDE4?content=94472 | *kde-look.org/content/show.php/Amarok2+Look+and+Feel?content=93854 | *kde-look.org/content/show.php/Analog+DVB+TV+Recorder+for+KDE4?content=94534

looks good but I will wait for next key version

H

Except for a few glitches attributed to the continual development, it kicks capitol arse! Period. Miles ahead of every desktop in every OS in today's world. 4.2 is the real 4.

This makes me very excited for next OpenSUSE KDE4.

BTW Would Kubuntu 9.04 come with KDE 4.2? I would hope so.

Yes, the next Kubuntu (Jaunty) will come with 4.2.0

Official announcement is at their website. For now its in the kubuntu-experimental PPA to try.

Is it really THAT good or we, linux users, are being too biased here?

rahimveron said:
Is it really THAT good or we, linux users, are being too biased here?

Best thing would to try it out and see for yourself whether you like it or no.If you want a platform as stable as KDE 3.5.9, with all the awesome KDE apps at their stable best [Amarok, K3b, Konqueror etc.], this version *may* not be for you.I say this because I installed Amarok 2 on my Arch box and it crashes right after the splash screen.Posting on Amarok forums, I was told to install debug packages to generate a backtrace.The debug packages are way too huge for me to download.So, I can effectively bid farewell to this version of amarok.Am using Exaile instead.

I am downloading it

^ Don't forget to post your experience.

I can just yet download it due to bandwidth woes.

^After 17th, right? Poor Anurag

Rag koro naa!!
The default interface is mind blowing. I am definitely booked this sunday over KDE 4.2

Downloaded Pardus 2008.2 Live and Install discs

I think its really good. KDE 4 has come a long way from 4.0 to 4.2.

this is not "the answer" for me. kde 4.1 was better although with less features. plasma crashes for no worthy reasons, even when knotify shows a notification!!!

abhinandh said:
this is not "the answer" for me. kde 4.1 was better although with less features. plasma crashes for no worthy reasons, even when knotify shows a notification!!!

Try clearing ~/.kde/ and/or ~/.kde4/

Not good solutions, but cheap and easy.

^^Yeah. Delete any folder associated with KDE in your home folder after enabling hidden files view.

I too had the same issue. You need to then recustomize KDE4.2. But I doubt it would take a lot of time.

Upgraded to KDE 4.2 in OpenSUSE 11.1 but my system tray's icons like kinternet, klipper, volume, etc are invisible, only rectangular blocks

Sorry dont know how to post thumbnails

Image Below
*i15.photobucket.com/albums/a388/rahimveron/taskbar1.png

^^Try changing the theme ... and check if the system tray works.. Also if that doesn't work unlock widgets and remove system tray and re -enable it by right clicking and adding widgets..

you were using wrong site .. Try Imgx.rog or imageshack.us to post thumbnails.. They will provide codes to use thumbnails in forums..

^Did all that but no luck. Is it opensuse 11.1 related? I even deleted ~/.kde & ~/.kde4 folders. The icons are there and it works, but it looks ugly with those empty boxes

PS: Dont photobucket provides codes for thumbnails?

^^it provides, check account options at top right

Click on Link Options in Album Setting and check appropriately

I am using KDE 4.2 on OpenSUSE 11.1.

I have to agree that 4.2 is much better than the joke that KDE team provided to us in form of 4.0 but it still doesn't come in "STABLE" category. If anything, it has graduated from being Alpha quality to Beta. Wouldn't even call it a "Release Candidate" either. Plasma and Konqueror still crash randomly, few plasmoids would just hang when you try to open or close them making you go through the logout and login routine (Such a WINDOWey thing to do), Kickoff performance is sluggish and the MacOS imitations like Grid Desktop and Expose clones are just not polished enough yet.

I hate to say it but I am doing things much quickly and efficiently in a minimalistic environment like XFCE than in KDE 4.2. Just my 2 cents.

P.S. BTW to get everything working properly you just HAVE to delete your home folder. Save the files you need to some folder and do a 'rm -Rf' on your home folder.

^I agree

Maybe an update isssue.. Never had similar problem with KDE 4.2 Live CD of SUSE

vista__n00b said:
I am using KDE 4.2 on OpenSUSE 11.1.

I have to agree that 4.2 is much better than the joke that KDE team provided to us in form of 4.0 but it still doesn't come in "STABLE" category. If anything, it has graduated from being Alpha quality to Beta. Wouldn't even call it a "Release Candidate" either. Plasma and Konqueror still crash randomly, few plasmoids would just hang when you try to open or close them making you go through the logout and login routine (Such a WINDOWey thing to do), Kickoff performance is sluggish and the MacOS imitations like Grid Desktop and Expose clones are just not polished enough yet.

I hate to say it but I am doing things much quickly and efficiently in a minimalistic environment like XFCE than in KDE 4.2. Just my 2 cents.

P.S. BTW to get everything working properly you just HAVE to delete your home folder. Save the files you need to some folder and do a 'rm -Rf' on your home folder.

The stability actually depends on the distro. SuSE often uses lots of patches, many unverified. Try something with vanilla KDE4.2 like ArchLinux.

As for home folder removing, DONT. Just remove .kde, .kde4 folders. That will do.

MetalheadGautham said:
As for home folder removing, DONT. Just remove .kde, .kde4 folders. That will do.

Actually that doesn't "DO". There are folders like .icons, .Apps and other cache folders that will cause problems. An example of this is there in this thread only where a user cannot see icons in his system tray.

MetalheadGautham said:
The stability actually depends on the distro. SuSE often uses lots of patches, many unverified. Try something with vanilla KDE4.2 like ArchLinux.

As for home folder removing, DONT. Just remove .kde, .kde4 folders. That will do.

Same set of stability issues here.Will wait for 4.3 to be released this summer before trying out KDE again.Back to XFCE for now...

Try something with vanilla KDE4.2 like ArchLinux.

Well, me is on Arch with KDEmod 4.2[not much changes from stock KDE]....

MetalheadGautham said:
The stability actually depends on the distro. SuSE often uses lots of patches, many unverified. Try something with vanilla KDE4.2 like ArchLinux.

I guess that is a good excuse for me to try out Arch next.

I remembered when i tries KDEmod 4 in Arch few months ago and it was "makhkhan"

rahimveron said:
Upgraded to KDE 4.2 in OpenSUSE 11.1 but my system tray's icons like kinternet, klipper, volume, etc are invisible, only rectangular blocks
Sorry dont know how to post thumbnails

Image Below
*i15.photobucket.com/albums/a388/rahimveron/taskbar1.png

aha! by chance do you use an intel card???

cos i just rectified the same issue

^Yes i do. Intel 845 Tell me the fix yaar.

rahimveron said:
^Yes i do. Intel 845 Tell me the fix yaar.

comment out the "MigrationHeuristic" "greedy" option from /etc/X11/xorg.conf

As my FAI broke my blog i couldn’t wrote any news.

For the last few weeks, we worked a lot on kde4, first we, now, have kde 4.2.0 final so now we will able to work on design, and stabilize our kde4. For that we started by backporting some trunk features for solid ( bluez ), simpleapplet menu ( the recent application feature ) and Nepomuk.

Secondly, i work a lot on the first login ( but i know there is still a lot of work to do). Now users will be happy to find a kde4 which looks like to kde3 with folderview in full screen.

Regarding the open bugreports we have only a few “mdv” specific bugs which is good but we need more testers to be sure to not have a lot of bugreport against Spring when final version will be available.

Concerning K3b we will work to have a working kde4 version before spring

Siince MDV is the main sponsors and developers of k3b its gr8 to know it will be ready before major distro release

*planetmandriva.zarb.org/

Thatss spring is the MDV next ver. 2009.1 Sprinf ed.

abhinandh said:
comment out the "MigrationHeuristic" "greedy" option from /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Here is my xorg.conf file. Tell me which portion to edit:

# /.../
# SaX generated X11 config file
# Created on: 2009-01-12T20:33:33+0530.
#
# Version: 8.1
# Contact: Marcus Schaefer <sax@suse.de>, 2005
# Contact: SaX-User list <*lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/sax-users>
#
# Automatically generated by [ISaX] (8.1)
# PLEASE DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE!
#

Section "Files"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/misc:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/local"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/75dpi:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/100dpi:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/Type1"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/URW"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/Speedo"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/PEX"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/cyrillic"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/latin2/misc:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/latin2/75dpi:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/latin2/100dpi:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/latin2/Type1"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/latin7/75dpi:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/baekmuk:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/japanese:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/kwintv"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/truetype"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/uni:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/CID"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/ucs/misc:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/ucs/75dpi:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/ucs/100dpi:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/hellas/misc:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/hellas/75dpi:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/hellas/100dpi:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/hellas/Type1"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/misc/sgi:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/xtest"
FontPath "/opt/kde3/share/fonts"
InputDevices "/dev/gpmdata"
InputDevices "/dev/input/mice"
EndSection

Section "ServerFlags"
Option "AIGLX" "on"
Option "AllowMouseOpenFail" "on"
Option "ZapWarning" "on"
EndSection

Section "Module"
Load "dri"
Load "dbe"
Load "freetype"
Load "extmod"
Load "glx"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Driver "kbd"
Identifier "Keyboard[0]"
Option "Protocol" "Standard"
Option "XkbLayout" "us"
Option "XkbModel" "microsoftpro"
Option "XkbRules" "xfree86"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Driver "mouse"
Identifier "Mouse[1]"
Option "Buttons" "5"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "Name" "ImPS/2 Generic Wheel Mouse"
Option "Protocol" "explorerps/2"
Option "Vendor" "Sysp"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
DisplaySize 267 200
HorizSync 30-55
Identifier "Monitor[0]"
ModelName "SAMSUNG SAMTRON 55V"
Option "DPMS"
Option "PreferredMode" "1024x768"
VendorName "SAM"
VertRefresh 43-120
UseModes "Modes[0]"
EndSection

Section "Modes"
Identifier "Modes[0]"
Modeline "1024x768" 73.89 1024 1080 1192 1360 768 769 772 799
Modeline "800x600" 57.97 800 840 928 1056 600 601 604 631
Modeline "800x600" 51.73 800 840 928 1056 600 601 604 628
Modeline "800x600" 44.85 800 840 920 1040 600 601 604 625
Modeline "800x600" 38.22 800 832 912 1024 600 601 604 622
EndSection

Section "Screen"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Depth 15
Modes "1024x768" "800x600"
Virtual 2048 1200
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "1024x768" "800x600"
Virtual 2048 1200
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1024x768" "800x600"
Virtual 2048 1200
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 8
Modes "1024x768" "800x600"
Virtual 2048 1200
EndSubSection
Device "Device[0]"
Identifier "Screen[0]"
Monitor "Monitor[0]"
EndSection

Section "Device"
BoardName "845"
Driver "intel"
Identifier "Device[0]"
Option "EXANoComposite"
VendorName "Intec"
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Layout[all]"
InputDevice "Keyboard[0]" "CoreKeyboard"
InputDevice "Mouse[1]" "CorePointer"
Option "Clone" "off"
Option "Xinerama" "off"
Screen "Screen[0]"
EndSection

Section "DRI"
Group "video"
Mode 0660
EndSection

Section "Extensions"
Option "Composite" "on"
EndSection

a_rahim said:
^After 17th, right? Poor Anurag Rag koro naa!!
The default interface is mind blowing. I am definitely booked this sunday over KDE 4.2

Ha...Got it finally today with KDEmod.
I've got to say it WAAAAY better than KDE 4.1 and better in usability than KDE 4.1. No crashes in 4 hours which is huge improvement as I got more crashes than hours in KDE 4.1

And its the BEST looking desktop I've used so far...
The only problem is that plasma crashes quite frequently with new widgets but that's not much problem that it loads back again...

But it crawls in openSUSE 11.1

with 512 MB RAM

a_rahim said:
But it crawls in openSUSE 11.1 with 512 MB RAM

Yeah...KDE 4.1 in OpenSUSE was slow as HELL...

But Arch is blazing fast I would say...
I have 2GB RAM BTW...

w00t...Downloading KDE 4.2 again.Will try it with Nvidia 180.29 drivers this time since lots of Arch users who, like me, had issues with 180.22 drivers and KDE 4.2 had it sorted with 180.29.Keeping my fingers crossed....
I *tried* switching to GNOME for a while, but it doesn't match up to the mighty KDE.!

Most GNOME apps have only bare minimum options to configure, much like the environment itself.Though, I kind of liked Nautilus more than Dolphin.Hoping it works fine on KDE....