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List:       kde-core-devel
Subject:    Re: KDE fragile?
From:       aleXXX <alexander.neundorf () rz ! tu-ilmenau ! de>
Date:       2000-09-22 17:06:05
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Uwe Thiem wrote:
> 
> That's the question. As long as everything works okay it works. If
> anythings goes wrong the user is without a clue how to get things
> working again.
> 
> I just finished to compile up to kdebase on a somewhat slower Intel
> box. At least KDE starts. After playing a bit around (from a user's
> point of view) kwin and a couple of other processes died. I couldn't
> log out from KDE so I Ctrl-Alt-Del X. kdesktop and dcopserver won't
> die. I killed them and started KDE again. Same result. Again: Same
> result.
> 
> So I shut down the box (the box is unimportant to me right now
> so I can torture it ;-). The process of shutting down hangs. :-(
> 
> Alright, I know I can do things in another way. But what would an end user
> do? Let's see. I'll switch it off now and on again. Alright, did that.
> FS repaired nicely. Starting KDE. Wow, it comes up. That might be
> acceptable to W9X users used to rebooting their boxes, it's definitely
> not acceptable to Unix users.
> 
> My point and summary is: This isn't an RC!
> 
> Uwe

Well, this weekend I tried to do some work with kword and killustrator.
After an hour I had found about 10-20 bugs (mostly not critical, but
inconvinient) and then decided to switch back to Latex and to write a
simple Latex import filter for kword when kword will be released.

Now I read almost this whole thread.

I would suggest something like: release a stable version, but don't call
it 2.0, maybe 1.99, and only let it include kdelibs,base,support, maybe
utils and graphics. 
IMHO kwin, kicker, dcop, konqy, konsole, kwrite and so on are usable and
stable enough. The 1.99 would show "we know it is not perfect yet, but
the base is there and working". 

The other packages should be released at the same time, but not labeled
as stable, but as beta, so people won't expect that everything works
perfectly, but they would start using them.

With having this 1.99 as desktop more people would start to use the apps
(network, multimedia, *very important* koffice).
We would receive more bug reports (ok, we have enough now, but most are
about konqy crashing on some web pages AFAIK), there are very little bug
reports about actual "applications". E.g. if nobody is able to use kword
since kde 2 isn't released yet, there is nobody who will find usability
bugs and there is nobody who might think "maybe I can do something about
it if I have a look at the code".

I was quite frustrated with kword this weekend (ok, it is a 3 weeks old
version). Some time ago I read somewhere something like "kword is
already an old application, it is only waiting for kde 2.0 to become
released", so I expected a matured (is this "ausgereift" ?) application.
It felt more like the desktop from the beginning of this year. :-(
Well, it seems to have a lot of features, and they probably work (I
didn't test everything). But for somebody who simply wants to use it, it
is not ready yet. The same for killustrator (but this one works better
already) and probably all other "productivity" apps.

We should really release a stable base kde (1.99), so people can use the
desktop, we should make it easy to continue using kde 1 apps (I
formyself use kfte and others) and then it will be easy for people to
try the new kde 2 apps (koffice), they don't have to install/compile a
whole new desktop, only a new app.

IMHO we really need developers, especially for these "productivity"
apps.
With a stable ( or better "working" ?) desktop and a frozen libraries we
will get more developers, I am sure. 
Even today if somebody starts to develop a new app, he will still start
a kde 1 app, since this is what he is using.           

Yesterday I wrote a manpage viewing part, it took me with the help of
davids tutorial about a half to one hour, to turn my widget into a part,
and have it display a manpage in konqy (it is now in kdenonbeta/kanu)

To put it in other words, every new part I discover when coding new
stuff for kde 2, is great :-)
Developers will love it, I am sure :-)

And about the speed issue:
I am working on K6 200 with 128 MB, well, KDE2 is slower than KDE 1, but
it is still usable. It has already improved a lot, it was much slower a
half year ago.
I can use KDE 2, but it feels like my machine is the lower hardware
limit.
It would be cool if we could push the limit down to something like a
Pentium 133/32 MB (seems I'm dreaming right now). But probably this is
not possible for the first stable release (1.99 ?).
I also read the KConfig issue: can't we replace in time critical places
the QString stuff with simple char*-stuff ?
This would probably help.

Bye
Alex

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