A smooth desktop experience

Aug 7, 2009 21:11 GMT  ·  By

On the 4th of August, 2009, the KDE community released KDE 4.3.0, delivering its user base the first iteration of this next-generation KDE desktop environment. It boasts a modern and beautiful desktop, with over 10,000 bugs fixed and close to 2,000 features implemented over the older versions, such as the more buggy KDE 4.2.

Our test machine isn't an extreme performer, but it fits pretty well the description of the typical office computer. These are its hardware specifications:

· GigaByte GA-8IP900 Motherboard · Intel Pentium 4 @ 2.4 GhZ Processor · Nvidia GeForce FX5500 Video Card · 1024 MB of RAM · LG CD-RW/DVD-ROM Drive · 19" Samsung Syncmaster 910n Monitor

For the KDE test we decided to use the KDE Four Live 1.3.0 Build 3.1 ISO image, which is based on OpenSuSE 11.1, since it has a stable base system for KDE to run on. We can't say the same thing for Kubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) Daily Build, a moving target that may introduce its own set of bugs into the KDE desktop environment.

The first thing that we laid our eyes on was the login screen of the Air theme, which was a bit too clunky for our taste. However, it fits in the general KDE 4 look – glossy graphics and transparent panels.

The desktop is quite impressive, even with all the gloss and shading; there is no menu lag or window dragging slowdown, which was to be expected since the proprietary graphics card driver wasn't installed. Even so, the memory usage was not great, KWin alone using more than 250 megabytes of memory and the whole system topping at more than 700 megabytes. Our test system's hardware configuration doesn't feature an Nvidia graphics card from the 8000 or 9000 series, so we weren't able to test KDE's performance after the recent bugfixes for those cards when hardware acceleration was enabled.

There were no widgets on the desktop by default, so we proceeded to add some, especially the system monitoring ones and the different clock styles. Upon rebooting to install the Nvidia graphics driver we stumbled upon a bug: adding and then removing the System Monitoring Applet will cause the other widgets from the same category (RAM, Network, Hardware Info and so on) to appear independently on the desktop after the system starts up. Even so, that is only a minor problem that can be easily corrected by the user.

Another impressive feature is the way thumbnails are generated for a folder's contents and displayed on that directory's icon in Dolphin. Also, previewing media files directly in Dolphin is a handy feature of KDE's file manager.

File transfers are handled by a system tray indicator that has the option to remain hidden in the panel, showing a progress indicator and some details on the lower left-hand corner of the screen. It can also display the full details, including the file sizes. Impressively enough, downloads initiated in the Konqueror web browser are handled in the same manner, removing the need for a built-in download manager. Multiple simultaneous actions are stacked, giving an unobtrusive way to monitor them.

After you get hardware acceleration working, the desktop goes from impressive to breathtaking. You get all the usual Compiz effects, like transparent windows while moving and resizing, but the animations are especially smooth. Windows close with a brief fade-out, switching to another virtual desktop is done with a distinct scrolling effect and tooltips slide and fade. The panels are slightly transparent too and in the System Settings panel you will notice a cool pop-up with the content of the respective entry.

Switching windows with Alt-Tab is done via an expose-type effect, with the open windows getting real-time reflections on the lower part of the screen, while the upper part of the screen shows the wallpaper.

The Social Desktop integration is done via the openDesktop widget. Upon adding that to the desktop you are required to provide a user account or API key for the opendesktop.org website. After filling those and opening the configuration window for the widget we got to see the new Geolocation DataEngine, which pin-pointed where we were quickly and accurately. This is also true for the World Clock widget from what we saw.

Still on the social networking side, we were pleased to see that the Microblogging widget supports both Twitter and its open-source counterpart, Identi.ca. It's a bit of a hassle that you have to supply your credentials twice when logging in to Identi.ca, once to log on to the service and a second time to access its API. We don't know if it was an error on our part or a KDE bug, but on both of those widgets the "Configure" button remained visible even after logging in.

The RSS widget is useful in helping you keep up with your feed subscriptions, right on your KDE desktop. Also, an interesting feature that we thought was worth mentioning is the ability to include multiple RSS feeds, creating an impromptu aggregator.

In conclusion, this latest installment in the K Desktop Environment's development continues the ongoing trend of the KDE 4 branch: it keeps getting faster and more feature-filled, while gaining visual effects that are evermore stunning.

If you want to have a go with the new KDE 4.3.0 download the openSUSE 11.1 Live CD right now from Softpedia. If you are an Ubuntu Jaunty user, we've prepared a step-by-step tutorial with screenshots, about How to Install KDE 4.3 on Ubuntu 9.04.

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