KDE 2.0 - My experiences

[Cymbeline]

Have any of you tried KDE 2.0?

I've been using it for the past month, and believe me, it is a definite improvement over the previous version. It also have some weird bugs, however. If you are thinking about upgrading, though, here are some caveats....

1. The artS sound server that KDE 2.0 will clash with RealPlayer. However, if you want sound with KDE events, you have to run the sound server....so I disabled it.

2. If you do not compile Qt with the correct flags, your JPEG/GIF wallpapers will NOT work. Figures.

3. Logging out sometimes does not work.

4. Your old KDE programs do not work. The good news that many of the developers of those programs are porting to KDE 2.0 right at this moment.

Otherwise, KDE 2.0 looks a lot slicker and more powerful than its predecessors, and I enjoy using it.

Cymbeline

[Statica]

Been using it on workstations .. none of the bugs that you had documented .. but its creeping up to be Windoze with the bloat of the whole thing. I always thought that KDE lost to Gnome on a light footprint but KDE2 is insane.

[Cymbeline]

Did you install KDE from sources or from binary distributions?

[Statica]

Sources .. if I can help it I dont touch binaries .. especially with core components

[Dave22]

Just got it up and running with the binaries (I'm an RPM lazy kinda guy). While the interface is MUCH improved, the bloat is most certainly creeping in.

My only real complaint is that since the upgrade, I have to manually "startx". Apparently the prefdm script doesn't work correctly on RedHat. A little tweaking of inittab and desktop helped out but it's still a manual process. I don't log out or reboot much at all so it isn't a big deal.

Most of my apps still worked. I only really cared about StarOffice and JPilot anyway!

Things I really like so far:
-Ability to change file types
-Better, more responsive font control
-More consistent look
-KMail (Multiple identities FINALLY!!)
-Konqueror (not a "world class" web browser, but the file management is slick)
-Better clipboard

Things I really hate (I'll add to it, I'm sure!):
-More resource intensive
-They STILL haven't created a decent way to edit the menu!

Overall, it's not as "clunky". That's as technical as I'll get for a first impression.