KDE 4.2 impressions

[Christoph Burgmer <christoph.burgmer@stud.uni-karlsruhe.de>]

While KDE 4.2 is out for some days now, we still lack a feedback (or more precise an impressions) thread. I'd like to list some points, to
a) encourage other people to switch/not to switch
b) ask for help
c) rant/share enjoyment

1) KDE 4.2 brings in new eyecandy, like a normal "major" release does. IMHO mostly positive.
2) More options available in many corners, some speak of feature parity with KDE 3.5, plasmoids on screensaver, message grouping in kmail
3) Some under the hood changes (akonadi...), which show that things get done, no major impact until now? though.
4) regressions like MSN settings lost, plasma crashes playing with new options
5) some KDE 4.0 and 4.1 bugs fixed, some bugs I was hoping somebody else would report still not fixed
6) new plasmoids, /me missing a TODO and _nice_ weather plugin, rssnow is cute but IMHO not functional
7) open/save dialogue still unusable, doesn't save settings and needs 10sec to load up (I guess due to nepomuk, running here on a Thinkpad R50e).

Overall I'm rather disappointed, as the additional features don't make my average work easier, and the anoying bugs/performance issues persist. KDE 4.2 is bettern than 4.1 no doubt about that, but it is hyped as _the_ KDE4 release. Others might have a different opinion. Anyway, on the way to KDE 4.3 nepomuk hopefully gets faster.

On a site note, as I pointed out in 5) there are bugs that I can't be bothered to report, though KDE devels keep pushing people to file bugs. I just get tired of waiting 2 years to have IMHO reasonable bugs fixed (not wishlist). Are there any receipts for getting a better experience? I actually got the kopete devels to quickly fix a Unicode bug for me, bad side of the story is I had to logon to IRC first.

Christoph