unstable kde4: interesting, somewhat tough to use

I think you can read this either as "feedback" or "a cry for help."  I
totally understand that unstable is not supposed to work, so I'm not
complaining.  I'm just asking. What's up with that?

Today I was bored, so I tried your RPM packages for Fedora 8 in the
unstable directory.  I did this by removing a bunch of rpms that had
"kde" in the name, and then I installed kde-4 from the unstable repo.
 I used yum to do the installation, it grabbed dependencies:

Feb 17 14:38:51 Updated: kde-settings.noarch 4.0-8.fc9
Feb 17 14:38:52 Updated: kde-settings-kdm.noarch 4.0-8.fc9
Feb 17 14:38:52 Installed: kdelibs-common.i386 6:4.0.1-4.fc8.1
Feb 17 14:38:53 Installed: qimageblitz.i386 0.0.4-0.4.svn706674.fc8
Feb 17 14:38:54 Installed: exiv2-libs.i386 0.15-5.fc8
Feb 17 14:38:58 Installed: strigi-libs.i386 0.5.7-1.fc8
Feb 17 14:39:03 Installed: raptor.i386 1.4.16-1.fc8
Feb 17 14:39:04 Installed: qca2.i386 2.0.0-1.fc8
Feb 17 14:39:06 Installed: poppler.i386 0.6.2-1.fc8
Feb 17 14:39:06 Installed: clucene-core.i386 0.9.20-2.fc8
Feb 17 14:39:07 Installed: poppler-qt4.i386 0.6.2-1.fc8
Feb 17 14:39:07 Installed: rasqal.i386 0.9.14-2.fc8
Feb 17 14:39:08 Installed: redland.i386 1.0.6-2.fc8
Feb 17 14:39:09 Installed: soprano.i386 2.0.0-1.fc8
Feb 17 14:39:17 Updated: kdelibs.i386 6:4.0.1-4.fc8.1
Feb 17 14:39:20 Installed: kdepimlibs.i386 4.0.1-2.fc8
Feb 17 14:39:36 Installed: kdebase-runtime.i386 4.0.1-1.fc8.1
Feb 17 14:39:39 Updated: kdenetwork-libs.i386 7:4.0.1-2.fc8
Feb 17 14:39:39 Updated: kdeartwork-kxs.i386 4.0.1-1.fc8
Feb 17 14:39:40 Updated: kdemultimedia-libs.i386 6:4.0.1-1.fc8
Feb 17 14:39:41 Installed: libvncserver.i386 0.9.1-2.fc8
Feb 17 14:39:41 Installed: chmlib.i386 0.39-5.fc8
Feb 17 14:39:42 Installed: libzip.i386 0.8-4.fc8
Feb 17 14:39:47 Installed: djvulibre.i386 3.5.19-4.fc8
Feb 17 14:39:56 Installed: kdeartwork-icons-crystalsvg.i386 4.0.1-1.fc8
Feb 17 14:39:59 Updated: kdegraphics-libs.i386 7:4.0.1-2.fc8
Feb 17 14:40:04 Updated: kdegraphics.i386 7:4.0.1-2.fc8
Feb 17 14:40:16 Installed: kdelibs3.i386 3.5.8-22.fc8.1
Feb 17 14:40:17 Updated: kdnssd-avahi.i386 0.1.3-0.5.20080116svn.fc8
Feb 17 14:40:25 Installed: kdebase-workspace.i386 4.0.1-6.fc8
Feb 17 14:40:41 Installed: kdebase3.i386 3.5.8-30.fc8.1
Feb 17 14:40:45 Installed: kdebase3-libs.i386 3.5.8-30.fc8.1
Feb 17 14:40:48 Installed: kdebase-workspace-libs.i386 4.0.1-6.fc

Did I miss something important?

I logged out, logged in on VT1, and removed ~/.kde*.  Then went back
to VT7 and logged in.

Some things I like about KDE still work great.  The ability to
customize the window title bar was still present.  That was nice.
That's one of my favorite things in KDE.

There were some changes I couldn't understand or fix.  I was wondering
"are these problems in KDE4 itself or are they caused by Fedora?"

1. No right click on root window to "open a terminal" anymore. Too
bad.  This one smacks of Fedora/Gnome, not KDE.

2. I know these changes are KDE4:  dcop is gone, kdesktop is gone.  So
how can a person run a command like:

dcop kdesktop KBackgroundIface setWallpaper 4 myimage.jpg

In the desktop background configuration, I can't see any workspace
selector.  kdesktop is altogether gone.

 I need to do things like this because I have scripts that set
backgrounds on various workspaces.

The ability to set different pictures on the workspace backgrounds was
the main reason I adopted kde in the first place.

3. The file manager dolphin has some nice aspects. It runs fine.  In
the preferences, there's a thing where you can choose to have settings
remembered for particular directories, or to use same for all
directories.  That's a great improvement.

But I could not find a way to make it open a terminal in the current
working directory.  It would open up a terminal-panel thing attached
to the bottom of the dolphin.  That was not what I was aiming for.

4. I can't make the kicker panel work properly.  I mean, I can't make
it do hardly anything. It has a workspace pager and a couple of
applets running.   There's no right click configuration--No way add
applets or configure that panel.  I want Firefox in there, and in
KDE3, a right click on Firefox in the K menu will allow it.  In KDE4,
I can't figure it out.

In the top right of the screen, there's an interesting thing.  It can
zoom out or zoom in on the screen, and it can also start applets.
They aren't kicker applets, though.  They appear on the desktop, not
in the panel, although they appear to be the same kinds of components
that used to go into the panel.

The program chooser--under the blue K--is very tough to navigate.  I
don't need a menu to run programs that I use often--I can just open a
terminal and type their names.  I need a menu to help me find/remember
programs that I use only rarely.   This version of KDE goes in exactly
the opposite direction.  It acts as though I remember where things are
among its categories.   It opens a box, and in there some items can be
clicked, but it is much harder to find the programs that I want.  It
is very difficult even to find a place to start a terminal.

5. How do you configure the left-click-button menu for the root window?

6. The keyboard shortcut configuration does not work so well as KDE3.
I want to change the "go to desktop 1" to Alt-1 and so forth for
desktops 2-9.  That's tough to implement.  One problem is that the
config tool displays desktops 11-19 and 20-29 in the list, even though
they don't exist.  And as I navigate around them and try to set the
ones I want, the configurator locked up and disappeared several times.


-- 
Paul E. Johnson
Professor, Political Science
1541 Lilac Lane, Room 504
University of Kansas

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft
Defy all challenges. Microsoft(R) Visual Studio 2008.
http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/vse0120000070mrt/direct/01/