KDE 4.0 RC2 much better, but still not perfect

You might have read my personal experience with KDE 4.0 RC1 3 weeks back. I installed RC2 in my Kubuntu system and used it intermittently for the past 2 weeks. The installation was simple as explained here. RC2 was much better than RC1, though it was not perfect. There were few bugs that popped out during that time.

Here was my list of complaints about RC1 and the status about those in RC2.

• The K Menu (KDE menu) was aligned to the left of the task bar when I logged in (normal). When I logged in the 2nd time, it moved little to the right and I couldn’t get it back to it’s original position. This didn’t happen with RC2.
• Nothing happens when you right click the taskbar. No option. This stays the same in RC2. I’m not sure if it’s an intended functionality.
• Right clicking the desktop gives you options to add widget, logout and one more. There’s no option to change the desktop background or anything else useful. RC2 has an option to change the desktop background. I don’t remember if the menu has changed otherwise.
• I added 3-4 widgets that came with KDE 4.0. All of those widgets were added to the same area on the desktop and I couldn’t move them. The battery widget couldn’t find my laptop battery. Widget problem got fixed in RC2. I could move them and reposition them. The battery widget still shows no battery.
• Lot of options were missing in the system settings. Some of the options didn’t work. It’s much better now with RC2 though it needs polishing.
• When I open a new program, that program gets displayed to the right in the taskbar instead of starting from the left. This got fixed in RC2.
• The print screen command didn’t work. It still didn’t work in RC2.
• I get a run command box when I login. Once you start entering a command or application name, It’ll display the available applications or commands containing the word I’m typing, so you can select the one you want. That box goes away after I use it once, for each login. I didn’t get that box in RC2.

As I said, it’s much better. I enabled the new windows effect that was implemented in KDE 4 (in RC2? I didn’t see that option under system settings in RC1), but it didn’t work perfectly. It worked couple of times, but it didn’t most of the time. KDE 4.0 is getting better and I hope KDE team will release a stable product on time. My best wishes to the KDE team.

Update: I forgot to add this important point. When I tried to open Adept or Synaptic, KDE prompted me to enter the root password. I entered my login password and it didn’t work. I’m not sure if it expects me to create a root password or not, but it didn’t work the way it works in KDE 3.5.x or GNOME. This problem prevents me from opening anything that requires super user authentication.

Update 2: The battery widget worked after today’s (04th Jan 2008) update (Picture below). Right clicking the taskbar now gives you options to view taskmanager settings and remove the taskmanager. If you select taskmanager setting, you get one option and that’s to enable or disable tooltips (Picture below). The splash screen is changed now and it looks very good.

Technorati Tags: Kubuntu, KDE 4.0, RC1, RC2, taskbar, Widgets