5 years of support..!!??

[Mark Greenwood]

On 2 Mar 2012, at 12:58, Billie Walsh wrote:

> On 03/02/2012 03:42 AM, Mark Greenwood wrote:
>> Well yes and no. Let's compare where I am with Kubuntu today to where I
>> was when I had Kubuntu with KDE 3.5 on it, which must be 3 years ago now.
>> 
>> Back then, the laptop power management options worked. Today the 'shut
>> down after x minutes of inactivity' is broken, the 'sleep when I close
>> the lid' is broken, and even if it does sleep I have no networking when
>> it wakes.
>> 
>> Back then I had an email client that worked. Today I have one that, with
>> a great amount of annoying fiddling, will retrieve my email but not
>> without using 75% of my CPU for about two hours. (Honestly, I'm not
>> making that up, that is really what happens when I start KMail, every
>> time. And I know I'm not alone.)
>> 
>> I could go on but it would turn into a rant and that's not the point.
>> The point is that Kubutnu - or rather KDE - today is less functional
>> than it was 3 years ago. That's not a subjective statement - it's a fact.
> 
> I think your issues, as well as others, are somewhat subjective. It depends on the machine and software to some extent. I have Kubuntu 11.10, fully up to date, installed on a desktop, a laptop and a netbook and I experience none of the issues you talk about. Sleep works flawlessly on my laptop, haven't tried it on my netbook. Power management, low battery, works flawlessly. With all the issues I see everyone having with Kmail, and because I've used Thunderbird since it's very first release, I have never used kmail, and most likely never will. Networking is flawless, both wired and wireless [ I just wish they would make the GUI for it standard from one update to the next - it's a pain trying to find the right "button" after an "update" ]

I understand you, but bugs aren't subjective. They're bugs. What works on one machine doesn't work on another and that's a bug not an opinion. If it's incorrect behaviour that I can reproduce every time by doing the same thing, then it's not subjective.
> 
> I sit here day after day and read all about how this person has issues with this and that person has an issue with that. I wonder to myself, "what have these people done to their machine." Mine works great. No issues.

That's great. For you. Doesn't help me though. I'm running 11.10 on a laptop that ran whatever-release-last-had-KDE3 flawlessly, and I have all the issues I mention. Most of it works in Ubuntu (where there is an equivalent) so the issues are with KDE. I haven't done anything to the machine except a clean install of 11.10. And the attitude of "works for me so you must be doing it wrong" is what I mostly get when I log bugs at KDE so I've given up logging bugs. There doesn't seem to be any commitment to making KDE4 stable and reliable, they just keep inserting new stuff that hasn't been tested properly (or at all) and expecting us to lump it. We've had two years (at least) of this since we last had a really stable KDE desktop and there doesn't look to be any imminent chance of getting back to something stable any time soon, so when people say quality is diminishing, that's why. It's gone on too long.

I sit here all day and read all about how this person uses Thunderbird to get around the KMail issues and that person got something to work by hand-crafting shell scripts and I wonder to myself "Why do we put up with this?".  (My answer is, I don't put up with it any more, I use a Mac for all my day-to-day stuff that I need to just work. KDE4 made me an Apple customer.)

Mark

> 
> OK, I'll admit that none of my machines are bleeding edge. Just basic, off the shelf, consumer grade hardware. I don't go in for whiz-bang stuff like spinning desktops and such.
> 
> -- 
> “The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the  people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government lest it come to dominate our lives and interests”.
> 
> - Patrick  Henry -
> 
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