While I’m off for Christmas, I thought I’d spend a little time getting to know KDE4. To stop me cheating, I installed the latest KDE version of Mandriva One, which means I’m without a fair few other things I’m very reliant on.
So far I’ve changed a few cosmetic things (desktop wallpaper and window decorations), and installed all available updates. Mandriva 2009 does have Firefox, so I don’t think it is cheating to use it, although I am also exploring Konqueror as an alternative browser, as well as using KWrite, Dolphin, and a few other things I’ve not used before.
After some customisation, my desktop now looks like this:
(time passes)
A few hours later I realise that this experiement has to be at an end for now. Not due to anything to do wih KDE4, but more to do with the fact that the laptop I’m testing it on has several hardware faults which make long-term use non-viable. But in the few hours I’ve had, I’d say that I’m pleasantly surprised. Dolphin is a great file manager, Kmail has come on a lot, and the desktop environment as a whole has the feel of something that can move beyond what KDE3 was and redefine what a desktop environment does.
I’m still not abandoning Gnome though.