And so my quest for a working desktop just took a step forward. I've got a pure KDE4 install by taking a commandline only ubuntu box, and aptituding my way to KDE4 + all the apps that I use (and none of the *buntu*-desktop bundles crap that I don't use). Seems to be working really well. There are some nice dark themes for KDE4 that work out of the box, and Phonon is simply awesome. I now have the sound from 'notifications' and the like going to the little speakers in my monitors via the Azalia card, leaving my M-Audio card for Jack to manage. The result? No more random desktop sounds threatening to deafen me as I'm busy writing music.

Yeah, KDE4 has some ruff edges, but it's finally coming together. The 4.0.1 release seems to have fixed most of the horrible breakages, and I'm busy wondering How can this be so fast yet look this nice?. Yes it's fast, really fast. I'm trying to think of a desktop transition that was comparable. Maybe from KDE 3.5 to fluxbox+ROX on my old 2xPII-400 box.

And yes I know I'm running pidgin as well and it looks all default-themey. I'm working on that, but I have 1 problem with kopete: I can't (AFAIK) encrypt in a gaim/pidgin compatible way and the people I have encrypted chats with use the gaim/pidgin method.