Next Gen KDEPIM Coming in June with KDE 4.6.4

KDEPIM users have been suffering through a variety of bugs and lagging development releases since KDE 4 first hit download mirrors. Developers tried to fix some, but others were just ignored or given up on. Now word is coming out of the project that KDEPIM 4.6 is finally coming, but will that fix users' problems?

Bugs have plagued KDEPIM ever since KDE 4 was released over three years ago. Some did get some attentions, but for the most part users were told to wait for the next major release. Well, that next major release is immenent, but according to a recent developer's blog post, some of the same issues experienced in 4.4 will rear their wiggly heads in 4.6. In addition, other regressions are being reported as well.

Details are sparse, but one issue known is "problematic communications with Exchange servers."  One persistent issue that made use of previous versions taxing is resource usage spikes. When I click upon the Akregator "Fetch Feeds" button, I just get up and walk away from the computer until it's done because I know that nothing else will work while it is. It's the same condition when starting Akregator cold just waiting for it to display the list of feeds. Crashing has been a major issue since KDE 4 was introduced until 4.4.10. . According to that same developer, resource usage spikes are still present in the upcoming 4.6.

Now it is said that most users should be able to downgrade back down to 4.4 should it be necessary, but the word "most(ly)" is troubling. Will user data be in jeopardy?

In comments to the post users describe other issues such as icon integration issues, default browser click fail, no ability to order Kmail 2 folders, and resource usage spikes when using Kmail 2. Of course, checking the actual bug tracker reveals quite a few more such as poor performance, data loss, hanging processes, and lots of crashes. In fact, looking over the open bug reports might convince users not to try to upgrade at all.

 But there's still a little bit of time left, so cross your fingers and hope most get ironed out before release.