Hi Timothy,

please excuse my poor english, but my german is much better.

> A hypothetical poll for users here....
>
> If TDE were to close down, which desktop would you use instead?  You would
> be allowed to abandon Linux entirely in this scenario. ;-)

Never ever KDE4, because it is to unsecure to use and didn't met my 
needs. For example if I pull off the clock (or window list) from the 
control panel it is a horror to reconfigure it. So I usually use a 
backup of the .kde directory with the settings.

On my Laptop - the most powerfull computer in my environment (Core-duo 
and 2 GB RAM) - I have Squeeze installed, with modified KDE4. Modified 
means that mysql, nepomuk and akonadi are disabled by renaming them so 
that they could not be started, because if they should be deinstalled, 
kde will be deinstalled to.

Of course the modification didn't allow the usage of KMail - so I now 
uses Icedove.

Usually in KDE4 I only start a xterm or kvm machines to work with, 
except for iceweasel and icedove.

> Please state why you have not already switched; i.e. what item are missing
> or suboptimal in the other environment.
>
> I am curious as to why TDE still exists and need some concrete examples to
> fall back on to counter detractors.

On my workstation I still use Lenny connected to a two monitor system 
with twinview/xinemera configuration and this is great. KDE 3 scales 
excellent i.e. panorama pictures are spread across both monitors and the 
control panel could be adjusted, where to stay - on left or right or 
scaled across both or where ever I want. Also for the greeter dialog 
screen coordinates could be given that it stays on on of the monitors.

KDE4 allways handle the screen as two different monitors. I have two 
control panel which stay on each monitor. Pictures didn't scale across 
the screens and the arrogant KDE4-boys realy say "the split your picture 
and install the splits separat for the two screens" - grrrr! I need to 
work with two screens and if the desktop environment can't handle them, 
I can't use them. (BTW Gnome also handle my screens like KDE 4, so it is 
no alternativ.)
It's even more terrible, if I connect a second monitor to my laptop and 
use it. After switch off the second monitor and even reboot the laptop 
(!), the greeter stays on the turned off monitor! I have to switch on 
the monitor to log in and have to disable more than once the second 
monitor via xrand - that is terrible!

Also the windowmanager kwin is buggy! If I logout from a xdm-session of 
a KDE 4 computer (i.e. my laptop) there is a line with around 8 to 10 
pixels of the background picture left on screen. Also if a kvm window 
switches from full screen mode back to windowed mode there are pixel 
errors in the window frame. So someone didn't count or calculate the 
screen or window high correctly.

One of the features I realy miss in KDE 4 is the ability to drag a 
desktop icon into the control panel. KDE 4 only allows to pull elements 
out of the control panel - grrrr!

Rolf
PS: I used KDE since Version 0.8