KDE 4.4.4… or not.

A week ago or so, KDE 4.4.4 was released. So far there are NO binary packages at all, except for (k)ubuntu 10.04… One might wonder why.

Let’s have a look at the changelog: Some sorting bugs in dolphin fixed… Lots of bugs in games and toys fixed… The height of the kopete contact list fixed…

Let’s have a look at the KDE bugtracker now, something like the "most hated bugs" report or something like that… We’ll find that some of the most hated bugs have in fact been around since KDE3, and will stay with us for quite some time longer… For example that nasty bug in kmail/imap that duplicates mails. Has been around since TWOTHOUSANDANDFOUR (2004).

Or how about the incomplete total lack of SSL certificate management for konqueror. That has been around since KDE 4.0.0, makes Konq4 unfit to be used in any serious environment, and noone seems to care. Instead, the KDE devs squabble endlessly over how to file bugs about this on the kde bugtracker…

I am starting to think that most big binary providers think "so what" about KDE 4.4.4.

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12 thoughts on “KDE 4.4.4… or not.

  1. That’s why I use Gentoo: I can do it myself… basically I HAVE to do it myself. All the time.

    Protip: Use tissues. 😉

  2. Actually you will find binary packages for Opensuse and Arch too.

    Arch is the only OS I know that has it in their stable repos (i.e in Kubuntu you have to add an entry to sources.list to get the latest version).

    Personally I think KDE4 has been awesome since KDE4.2.

  3. No binary packages? I’ve been running KDE 4.4.4, for days now, from updating via my only repository on my PCLinuxOS install.

  4. Agree with you on both counts. I use Kmail daily and it has some bugs which are left running around since 3.x series.

    Forget Konqueror, no KDE-based browser seems to have remotely usable certificate manager — i am looking at Rekonq as I write this.

    Basically (i have posted this elsewhere) KDE needs to get business/corporate friendly. Enough of flashy/zingy stuff already. If they don’t get their act together on this front, Evolution mail will appear like the best thing since sliced bread (it definitely isn’t) and an excellent product like Kontact will wither away.

    Same with Kopete. When are they freaking going to add support for something like SIPE? I am forced to use Pidgin at work because Kopete only talks to fluffy protocols of teenagers.

    Plasma and all the other KDE4 technologies are excellent … but they are not winning any new users for KDE … and this appears to be because in the “real” world, KDE seems like a toddler’s desktop. Lot of cuteness but no real meaning for anyone above 7 years of age.

    Having said that, I do use it if only to post bug reports etc hoping the devs will finally hear us!

  5. I can add the good old “but now we have a semantic desktop :-(” to your comments about most hated bugs not being fixed. On my personal list is the following bug:

    https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=219873

    basically a drop-down menu where one can only see the first two of the 8 or so items (powersave profiles). Been there a looooooong time!

  6. just a little pingback to all you guys who told me that there are binary packages somewhere for some distros…

    “no binary packages except for kubuntu” was referring to what was listed on http://kde.org/info/4.4.4.php by the time I wrote that little post.

    @moo: home: is excluded from search on software.opensuse.org by default. I’d say that makes those packages hidden.

  7. by now (june 19) opensuse has official kde 4.4.4 packages on the build service… And i don’t think there are ANY fixes to any of the SERIOUS bugs in 4.4.4.

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