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Before switching to MacOS I used Linux on my desktop for a decade. KDE has always been the one with the better foundation, except that ... it never worked ok.

Before switching to MacOS I used Linux on my desktop for a decade. KDE has always been the one with the better foundation, except that ... it never worked ok. Every time I tried it, it had a ton of issues that would make me go into this rabbit hole, trying to fix it via endless configuration options and it never worked. And the migration from KDE 3 to KDE 4 was a complete clusterfuck. Whereas Gnome always lacked configuration options, people always complained about its state, but it kept compatibility and it worked well out of the box. The Linux desktop never took off due to immaturity. Microsoft did not abandon Windows, they didn’t rewrite from scratch, every release is basically an iteration of the previous one and Windows 10 for example is simply an iteration of Windows 7, which was XP with some lipstick on it. Same can be said of MacOS. In open source however people just want to work on the new shiny all the time. As soon as something with more sex appeal comes along, people move to it. The desktop Linux is freaking horrible and obviously what people have been doing in the last two decades doesn’t work. So yes, let’s corporatize it, let’s make it boring and reliable. Because people want a working desktop, not freaking widgets. Speaking of desktop widgets, this is yet another example of immaturity. Do you know how many times per week I see my MacOS desktop? Never. My apps are always on and I restart my laptop like once per month, otherwise it’s in standby all the time. Such reliably is unheard of with the Linux desktop.

Latty 8y ago
That's completely counter to my experience. I run my KDE desktop 24/7 in very much the way you are describing and it works very reliably.
- dreix 8y ago
  Same with my GNOME 3. All I ever see is the gdm login screen.
lph 8y ago
I'd always had the same kind of buggy KDE experience whenever I experimented with it, so I used Gnome for years. And then I tried KDE Plasma... it works fantastically, at least for me, on the latest stable Ubuntu. So it's sad to see RH moving away. Gnome is such a dumpster fire right now (and has been since the inception of Gnome 3)
adbge 8y ago
> My apps are always on and I restart my laptop like once per month, otherwise it’s in standby all the time. Such reliably is unheard of with the Linux desktop. Bullshit. I'm at 42 days on a ThinkPad running Void Linux. > 19:19:22 up 42 days, 19:53, 1 user, load average: 2.37, 0.98, 0.56
- Evidlo 8y ago
  Since we're whipping out our uptimes for all to see: > 20:41:21 up 58 days, 57 min, 2 users, load average: 0.25, 0.36, 0.38 Fedora 28 - Thinkpad T420
- paavoova 8y ago
  So do you not use FDE? I'd think that to protect data at rest, especially on a laptop, it's good practice to power down whenever you're away. Otherwise keys are just sitting there in memory.
  - michaelmrose 8y ago
    It's actually possible to suspend io to the encrypted data and remove the keys from ram and prompt for the passphrase at resume to unlock. Check out go-luks-suspend
SubiculumCode 8y ago
My Ubuntu Mate 16.04 often gets up into the several months of uptime before I find some reason to reboot, and none of that has something to do with Gnome/Mate
michaelmrose 8y ago
KDE has never worked fantastically on Ubuntu especially its long term support release. Ubuntu persistently ships out of date libraries with bugs that have in fact already been fixed in newer versions that wont be updated for months/years until the next long term stable release. KDE's releass aren't delivered in sync with ubuntu's calendars so it has always worked better with a more up to date distro. Widgets on the desktop seem to be a pointless dead end that we keep revisiting in lots of different environments. Maybe faddish stuff like that is more interesting to work on than spit and polish. That said "Microsoft did not abandon Windows, they didn’t rewrite from scratch," They actually did this more than once in more ways than one that you believe this is so is more of an indication of their obsessive focus on backwards compatiability. Fro example Windows started out as an app running on dos, windows NT/XP was a completely different OS from 95 98. The underlying layers used to build the windows experience have changed multiple times. The ui has been given a substantial overhaul with vista/8. The way drivers worked changed a lot with vista. "The desktop Linux is freaking horrible and obviously what people have been doing in the last two decades doesn’t work. So yes, let’s corporatize it, let’s make it boring and reliable. Because people want a working desktop, not freaking widgets." As someone who has been using desktop linux for 15 years now I'm a little confused. KDE 3 was quite usable. KDE 4 was kind of annoying to use 4.0 - 4.3 which was about the begining of 08 through mid 09 but at the time kde + compiz was a thing and was honestly much better. There are now actually a variety of simple and complete environments all of which work well. Of the ones I have currently sampled. Cinnamon, Plasma, i3wm, bspwm, mate all work well. I have 3 different linux distributions running in my house right now. All work well. The only one that was work to install or maintain is a derivative of gentoo which honestly has been less effort than running windows. What's horrible? We have an embarassment of riches. We have too many aweesome things to choose from.
hawski 8y ago
The Linux desktop never took off because it lacked preinstalls. This could be due to immaturity, but at the time Microsoft was strong-arming OEMs, so it was unlikely to happen either way. Now it's too late.

Latty 8y ago

That's completely counter to my experience. I run my KDE desktop 24/7 in very much the way you are describing and it works very reliably.

dreix 8y ago
Same with my GNOME 3. All I ever see is the gdm login screen.

lph 8y ago

I'd always had the same kind of buggy KDE experience whenever I experimented with it, so I used Gnome for years. And then I tried KDE Plasma... it works fantastically, at least for me, on the latest stable Ubuntu. So it's sad to see RH moving away. Gnome is such a dumpster fire right now (and has been since the inception of Gnome 3)

adbge 8y ago

> My apps are always on and I restart my laptop like once per month, otherwise it’s in standby all the time. Such reliably is unheard of with the Linux desktop. Bullshit. I'm at 42 days on a ThinkPad running Void Linux. > 19:19:22 up 42 days, 19:53, 1 user, load average: 2.37, 0.98, 0.56

Evidlo 8y ago
Since we're whipping out our uptimes for all to see: > 20:41:21 up 58 days, 57 min, 2 users, load average: 0.25, 0.36, 0.38 Fedora 28 - Thinkpad T420
paavoova 8y ago
So do you not use FDE? I'd think that to protect data at rest, especially on a laptop, it's good practice to power down whenever you're away. Otherwise keys are just sitting there in memory.
- michaelmrose 8y ago
  It's actually possible to suspend io to the encrypted data and remove the keys from ram and prompt for the passphrase at resume to unlock. Check out go-luks-suspend

SubiculumCode 8y ago

My Ubuntu Mate 16.04 often gets up into the several months of uptime before I find some reason to reboot, and none of that has something to do with Gnome/Mate

michaelmrose 8y ago

KDE has never worked fantastically on Ubuntu especially its long term support release. Ubuntu persistently ships out of date libraries with bugs that have in fact already been fixed in newer versions that wont be updated for months/years until the next long term stable release. KDE's releass aren't delivered in sync with ubuntu's calendars so it has always worked better with a more up to date distro. Widgets on the desktop seem to be a pointless dead end that we keep revisiting in lots of different environments. Maybe faddish stuff like that is more interesting to work on than spit and polish. That said "Microsoft did not abandon Windows, they didn’t rewrite from scratch," They actually did this more than once in more ways than one that you believe this is so is more of an indication of their obsessive focus on backwards compatiability. Fro example Windows started out as an app running on dos, windows NT/XP was a completely different OS from 95 98. The underlying layers used to build the windows experience have changed multiple times. The ui has been given a substantial overhaul with vista/8. The way drivers worked changed a lot with vista. "The desktop Linux is freaking horrible and obviously what people have been doing in the last two decades doesn’t work. So yes, let’s corporatize it, let’s make it boring and reliable. Because people want a working desktop, not freaking widgets." As someone who has been using desktop linux for 15 years now I'm a little confused. KDE 3 was quite usable. KDE 4 was kind of annoying to use 4.0 - 4.3 which was about the begining of 08 through mid 09 but at the time kde + compiz was a thing and was honestly much better. There are now actually a variety of simple and complete environments all of which work well. Of the ones I have currently sampled. Cinnamon, Plasma, i3wm, bspwm, mate all work well. I have 3 different linux distributions running in my house right now. All work well. The only one that was work to install or maintain is a derivative of gentoo which honestly has been less effort than running windows. What's horrible? We have an embarassment of riches. We have too many aweesome things to choose from.

hawski 8y ago

The Linux desktop never took off because it lacked preinstalls. This could be due to immaturity, but at the time Microsoft was strong-arming OEMs, so it was unlikely to happen either way. Now it's too late.