I tried so many times recently to install KDE 3.5.2 and then 3.5.4 and finally had to give up. Here's the sad story . . .

When I read at the KDE web site that version 3.5. was on the way, I was very keen to give it a try . . . too keen, perhaps. First, I tried the Mandriva Enhanced version and had to go for a complete re-install. Then I tried Mandriva's 3.5.2 and it seemed OK, but I was unable to log in as root (not very helpful).

So I reinstalled from my discs (again) and back in KDE 3.4, everything seemed fine. Then the 3.5.4 Bundle was withdrawn temporarily because - we were told - it had been released without checking fully that all of the components were actually 3.5.4 rather than, er, 3.5.2. So I waited for the proper Bundle to become available again and tried again and guess what? I couldn't log in as root (again). And even when I changed the system security level using draksec, it made no difference: "Logging in as root is not allowed".

So, disillusioned, I went over the road for some more beers and resigned myself to yet another reinstallation of 2006.0 with KDE 3.4.x. And now the system is fully updated, including more recent updates, and it works fine. So the question foremost in my mind is this: there are people in the Linux community who think that frequent "upgrades" and "updates" are a good idea. Why? It is understandable from the point of view of security holes, but when the result is imperfect and essentially prevents the user from getting root access, how is this maintaining the safety of the system? After all the repeated hassle of a KDE upgrade, I think it's better to wait for the final release of Mandriva 2007.0, which is probably going to be better-tested and better integrated.

I can't help feeling that at the heart of this is a common hatred of Micro$oft and everything that it stands for and produces. This is understandable - otherwise we would have a single OS the world over and no choice about what functions it would permit or even what we could run on it (just think about the DRM debate, for example). But M$'s big problem, historically, has been its failure to accept that its inbuilt security arrangements were inadequate and that something should be done to address it. Linux has inherited a seemingly much better security system and the difference can be seen when you compare direct software costs between OSes which relate to this. I just ended up with what was apparently a serious infection of my Windoze Registry and when I went to download another copy of the software concerned (for which I was a paid and registered customer), it turned out that they had brought out a new version and I had to pay for it. Now the cost is actually fairly low and is always a single, one-off subscription. But all of this happened as problems with mailings from my bank caused them to "freeze" my accounts yet again. But if Windoze had had a better security paradigm in the first place, this kind of problem would never have emerged, and perhaps ordinary users might not have started to ask themselves whether there was anything "better" out there.

So alternatives which have nice, easy user interfaces and can be used just as well as their proprietary equivalents basically have a waiting market. There is no mystery about this. It is a simple fact that an initial Mandriva installation comes complete with a firewall which stops virtually everything stone dead; virtually all malware, spyware and viruses are designed specifically for the Win32 environment - recently I was reading that there are maybe 100 viruses for the _NIX environment compared to perhaps over 70,000 for Windoze - so it's hardly surprising that a simple change like this can be so beneficial. This is a tremendous advantage. I also read recently that because Micro$oft has been happily allowing some users to download their pre-release Vista RCs, there are already multiple hacks and exploits waiting for when the Real Thing comes out.

A while back, I was ranting about the difference between GUIs when you compare Linux with Windoze. Windoze has almost no choice of user interface in comparison with Linux. They have their proprietary GUI (which is associated with their public corporate image, hence needs to be less configurable) whereas under Linux, you can have KDE, GNOME, Xfce, Enlightenment, Fluxbox, the list is endless. The difference is that although these are freely available, documentation is often minimal or even lacking completely. With KDE, which of course works fine, it's often the case that I install something interesting and then if I need to look something up in the KDE Help, there are no documents installed automatically alongside the bit that I am using which could then be accessible via the KDE Help system. How is it that there is an extensive HTML-based doc system with so little by way of contents?

The same can be said of the HOWTOs. Many of them are incomplete, having been dropped by their creators at some point, presumably because they are too busy in their lives away from their computers. Or perhaps they realise, as they progress, that they have bitten off more than they can chew and abandon it? So the documentation for Linux apps (with the exception of things like Nessus or Smoothwall, for example) is often lambasted for its inadequacy, and rightly so.

So we come back to this trivial problem of RP8 no longer playing properly. The RP8 program itself is fine; there's just some "disconnection" between it and the sound system. But I can't find where this is; it's not apparent to me. But I wouldn't want to reinstall RP10 on my system because, quite frankly, it's not good enough. The codecs may be fine but the interface interacts poorly with KDE. I'm not stuck, media-wise, but I prefer RP8 for some files. What's the answer?

Similarly with the default settings on the KDE 3.5.4 Bundle; if I can't log in as root and I can't change this even by resetting system-wide security levels with draksec, what alternative is there but a backward migration - reinstallation of the previous version? Not being able to get in as root, on my own system, is perhaps too dangerous. If this is an intentional design feature, then I as the user and the system administrator as well as being a customer, do not want it. The Bundle installation appears to be entirely automatic, with no prompting of the user during the process to change settings which might be injurious or otherwise non-beneficial (each Bundle installation makes it almost impossible to "unhide" my panels, for example). This needs to be more interactive. Installation of KDE 3.5.x has always killed KMPlayer, for example. Why?

I suppose the bottom line is that testing is not extensive enough prior to public issue. How can a new version of KDE be issued with faults in it that prevent parts of it from actually working? If there is a setting which is required to be changed, where is that information? As a user with a job, I am busy and cannot afford to be forever rectifying these things.

So please, Mandriva, more extensive testing before release. You know it makes sense.

Update: A bit of tinkering around nudged the system into output from RP8 using the "zero input device" or whatever it's called. Now it's working fine. Strange . . . but ain't Linux fun? ^_^