Total KDE fan and that's all I run at home. It's an interesting study also in desktop environment and software written in C++ and just how hard it is to get something that works for most people. Mistakes, corrections, building the basic blocks like Qt in the early days and keeping a bunch of people with differing cultures / tastes / backgrounds/needs motivated to make it better every day - fascinating achievement.
Thank you KDE folks - I contribute in terms of bug reports and attempts at fixes sometimes but this time I am signing up for a monthly donation - I encourage people to do what they can to keep a good thing going! https://kde.org/donate/
Been using for over 20 years now. KDE is really the best. Consistent between releases, stable, infinitely customizable, but works great out of the box with features you'd expect and often years ahead of the commercial competition in terms of new features. Every moment I spend in macos or windows for work is pure torture.
I used the betas, KDE 1-3, skipped 4 an 5, and I'm now back on the 6 train. It's really nice, and I try to use something else every now and then and I'm back in KDE a few weeks after.
What I really like right now with 6 is the updates: you kind of don't even notice. Things just work better and faster. Your system works the same as yesterday, updates are not a biggie at all.
Oh for sure. Putting KDE linux on some old hardware and it feels like a brand new computer. Updating from windows 8->10->11 on the other hand was always punishing.
It's crazy how slow and bloated windows has become over the years.
I'm so glad KDE exists to take a stand for the power user and customizability, while GNOME sinks ever more into androidification. Like come on, it's a desktop pc with a mouse and keyboard, not a fucking tablet where every icon needs to be 2 miles wide. Without KDE, linux would not be usable as a daily driver for me.
Its very annoying that some very loud people can not handle the fact that people different have needs. I like to use GNOME. Its fitting me better and dont insult of KDE developers because some people prefer it. The UI systems just have different assumptions and this is just fine.
There is some irony in this statement given that GNOME is built on not letting people chose anything and also happens to be the default on Ubuntu, so it's literally force fed down new adopter's throats. It just rubs me the wrong way ideologically so I have to flame them whenever I get the chance.
The ancient Windows desktops were quite good so if something tried to emulate them that would be a reasonable goal.
I have no idea how modern KDE is, because I abandoned KDE due to the KDE 4 disaster. Nonetheless, KDE 3.5 was much better than Windows XP, even if its default configuration was somewhat similar.
Actually I consider KDE 3.5 the best desktop environment that I have ever seen, much better not only than the contemporaneous Windows XP, but also than the contemporaneous Mac OS X. The reason was that KDE 3.5 had an extreme customizability, so everyone could reconfigure it according to their tastes, so it no longer resembled any other desktop environment. Unfortunately, almost everything that I liked in KDE 3.5 was removed in KDE 4 and replaced with rigid choices that I disliked.
After KDE 4, I never had the courage to try KDE again (I fled to the refuge of XFCE), but I hope that it has recovered and now it is at least at the level of its past glory, if not better.
> ... because I abandoned KDE due to the KDE 4 disaster.
I totally hated that whole mess. It almost ruined KDE for me. The real disaster there wasn't that KDE released v4 prematurely, but that they didn't make it crystal clear to the distro maintainers (and end-users) that it was not ready for "prime time" use yet (it was basically "pre-release"/alpha quality), and the major distros of the time jumped on making it the default (forced it on everyone) when it was still basically utterly broken compared to the prior versions of KDE (which had become overall quite solid and reliable by that point).
Hmm I swear I saw the exact same MacOS minimize/maximize/close buttons and on the left in Cinnamon at one point, but now that I'm looking up the latest screenshots it seems to be the usual. Maybe it was some specific distro only?
I've become a big fan of CultRepo's documentaries. If you enjoyed this one, I highly recommend checking out their catalogue of free, high-quality content (https://www.cultrepo.com/films).
They cover a wide range of topics, from C++ and Java to Node.js, Kubernetes, React, and Vue.js. I particularly enjoyed the Java documentary, which offered fascinating insights into the differences between the Sun and Oracle eras, many of which I never would have expected.
I was a Gnome guy since the 16.04 Ubuntu days even with the transition to 3 and whatnot. Stopped using a linux desktop for a while but came back and used CachyOS - when deciding what desktop to use, everyone online said KDE so I gave it a shot and haven't look back since.
A few times I had to do something on a Gnome system and now it just feels like you're being kneecapped by the devs for no good reason.
Thank you KDE folks - I contribute in terms of bug reports and attempts at fixes sometimes but this time I am signing up for a monthly donation - I encourage people to do what they can to keep a good thing going! https://kde.org/donate/
I remember the switch to KDE4, and it was indeed brutal. I feel bad that they took as much flak as they did for that.
Plasma has come such a long way, y'all deserve so much for the perseverance and vision.
Thank you for sharing the story!
6 has been great. If you are a windows or mac user, it's very close to that experience and very familiar.
Can't say the same of Windows or Mac OS.
It's crazy how slow and bloated windows has become over the years.
I have no idea how modern KDE is, because I abandoned KDE due to the KDE 4 disaster. Nonetheless, KDE 3.5 was much better than Windows XP, even if its default configuration was somewhat similar.
Actually I consider KDE 3.5 the best desktop environment that I have ever seen, much better not only than the contemporaneous Windows XP, but also than the contemporaneous Mac OS X. The reason was that KDE 3.5 had an extreme customizability, so everyone could reconfigure it according to their tastes, so it no longer resembled any other desktop environment. Unfortunately, almost everything that I liked in KDE 3.5 was removed in KDE 4 and replaced with rigid choices that I disliked.
After KDE 4, I never had the courage to try KDE again (I fled to the refuge of XFCE), but I hope that it has recovered and now it is at least at the level of its past glory, if not better.
KDE 6 is really good tho. It's so fast, works great, Dolphin is the absolute best file manager there is...
I totally hated that whole mess. It almost ruined KDE for me. The real disaster there wasn't that KDE released v4 prematurely, but that they didn't make it crystal clear to the distro maintainers (and end-users) that it was not ready for "prime time" use yet (it was basically "pre-release"/alpha quality), and the major distros of the time jumped on making it the default (forced it on everyone) when it was still basically utterly broken compared to the prior versions of KDE (which had become overall quite solid and reliable by that point).
GNOME is the mishmash of macos and, like you said, mobile design.
Want a whole new desktop?
https://www.trinitydesktop.org/
Want a whole new OS with it built in?
https://q4os.org/
Want to keep the KDE 6.x foundations but replace the desktop shell?
https://github.com/neeeeow/Klassik
You probably want Trinity DE then. It's literally KDE 3, forked and maintained.
They cover a wide range of topics, from C++ and Java to Node.js, Kubernetes, React, and Vue.js. I particularly enjoyed the Java documentary, which offered fascinating insights into the differences between the Sun and Oracle eras, many of which I never would have expected.
A few times I had to do something on a Gnome system and now it just feels like you're being kneecapped by the devs for no good reason.