5 ms·

I am nostalgic for the days of KDE (1999-2000 ish) when we believed Linux on the desktop would happen for real, and also believed KDE would take the flag. Gnome

I am nostalgic for the days of KDE (1999-2000 ish) when we believed Linux on the desktop would happen for real, and also believed KDE would take the flag. Gnome was so obviously clunky and bad, KDE felt like a breeze and reasonably feature complete. Since then, KDE has evolved into maybe the best API interface ever for desktop programming, but the most confusing experience possible for actual users. (This may not be true anymore, but KDE lost its mindshare among users in relative terms a long time ago. I know of no-one who runs KDE on their Linux desktops. Also, desktops are specialist tools now - we have mobile phones instead and web apps for the rest.) Yeah, I'm cranky. :)

jhauris 7y ago
You are right that kde lost a lot of mindshare, but these days it is really good (I prefer it to the other DE options). My whole family runs kde, from running a small business to children of a wide range of ages playing games and doing school work. I don't think computers are any more of a specialist tool now then 20 years ago, really. Mobile phones have just expanded the number of people who are able to do things like listen to digital music which used to be limited to a relatively elite minority on desktops.
- usrusr 7y ago
  Precisely 20 years ago you might be right, but the year 2000 later turned out to be that one year where mp3 piracy crossed over from still somewhat niche to utter mainstream. And before practical portable mp3 solutions, that was entirely a desktop PC experience. People who could barely type in January would have built their own PC from components by the end of that year. (Some regional shifts related to internet availability and pricing models might apply) Changes happened crazy fast in those days.
Santosh83 7y ago
I've tried several KDE distros over the years and they have all been quite easy and pleasant to use, despite the occasional crash. There was nothing particularly bad about the UX. The reason it has not been successful is of course the largest Linux companies choosing deliberately to back GNOME. The initial reasons may have been legal but they stuck with GNOME despite the latter removing features during 2 to 3 transition and despite the legal situation resolving and KDE becoming better and better over the years. Corporate steering of s/w is very real though most seem to tiptoe around the matter...
dTal 7y ago
I run Plasma on all my desktops (you must have anticipated this comment, hah). I avoided KDE until a couple years ago because its performance was always atrocious for me, even on high end machines. But when I gave it another go, I was blown away - this, right here, is the Premium Desktop Linux Experience(tm). And more than anything else, where it shines is its thoughtful approach to human factors. You can see that every aspect of the system has been subjected to the question "is this pleasant to use? how can we make it better?" And, wonderful relief, it's also fast and light now. Since I've instituted a Qt-first policy when choosing apps, and themed everything the same, Qt and GTK, I've had a superbly consistent look and feel as well. KDE deserves its mindshare back - there is nothing else like it on Linux today.
- Fnoord 7y ago
  I know it is a loaded comment, but I genuinely wonder: how does KDE compare with GNOME these days? I'm familiar with GNOME 3.34.
  - jrepinc 7y ago
    In my opinion, it is faster, more light-weight, and at the same time has more features and is more customizable so you can set it up the way you want to work with. In my opinion it is the best desktop currently available on computers even ahead quite a bit compared to commercial ones.
    - olavgg 7y ago
      I agree, KDE Plasma 5 is really awesome. It is fast, flexible, looks great and is by far the most stable desktop enviroment I have ever used, including all Windows versions and OSX.
    - pzone 7y ago
      The main downside is that it is buggy. This includes KDE's slow crawl toward Wayland support. I love KDE's features but accept I will be experiencing more resets with Plasma than even buggy Windows Explorer.
    - 7y ago
simion314 7y ago
>but the most confusing experience possible for actual users What do you mean? I think KDE is not confusing at all, you have the bottom taskbar, you have the start menu you alt+tab betwen applications. The only complaints similar to yours are from people that dislike the Settings section, there is a reason that section is complex and that is the Linux desktop is complex, there are many parts like(Qt,GTK, window manager, shell etc) but you could always have a distribution hide the settings by default and provide a KDE for newbs with almost no options and rename Settings to KDE Tweaks and you install the features from internet or hack plasmoids to add or remove paddings and features.
- jacobush 7y ago
  "Could" have, is the key. There is no push from the project itself. I'm not saying there needs to be, but I think KDE lost millions of users because of it. Imagine if ElementaryOS also were the people behind Gnome, or behind KDE. THAT would be spell quality software. Alas, this is not how open source works.
  - simion314 7y ago
    KDE developers and contributors are (or were) mainly interested in features and not looks or how to remove things, I submitted fixes and patches to add things and most of the time this were welcomed(the only issue I and the community had was with a former maintaqiner of Plasma that did not want to add option to remove the Cachew thing because he had a vision and similar GNOME like bullshit, I am happy he is gone), so I think KDE attracts this more advanced contributors and users and also GNOME people when asked to add X they will tell you to use KDE if you don't like the GNOME way, but ont he other hand you have other GNOME people demanding KDE be like GNOME, There is an effort in KDE to fix usability issues and improve things but it is all or mainly non paid people, but if more similar contributors would be attracted we will probably get some more polish but int he end the KDE will always have all the features it's developers and current users want.
usrusr 7y ago
In hindsight it feels like KDE was fighting the last war's battles, eagerly marching on on the path towards an OOP modularity promised land, still trying to one-up Microsoft's OLE and COM long after those fell out of the hype spotlight at Redmond. I'd be surprised if there wasn't even a lot of CORBA in KDE at one point.
- makomk 7y ago
  If I remember rightly, one of the big differences between KDE and GNOME was that GNOME fell for CORBA in a big way whereas KDE rejected it.
  - gioele 7y ago
    GNOME went for proper CORBA (in the form of Bonobo [1]), KDE preferred something non-standard but easier to work with and much more performant (what is now KParts [2] + DCOP [3]). Bonobo has been abandoned around GNOME 2.4. KParts are still used in KDE 5 and you have probably heard of DCOP's child: D-Bus. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonobo_(GNOME) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonobo_(GNOME) [2] https://api.kde.org/frameworks/kparts/html/index.html https://api.kde.org/frameworks/kparts/html/index.html [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DCOP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DCOP
    - gmueckl 7y ago
      D-Bus is now mandatory system level software on Linux thanks to systemd. KHTML became the grandfather of practically all modern browsers except Firefox. In those terms, parts of the KDE project were extremely successful. It's a bit sad that the desktop as a whole didn't profit that much fron that success.
      - dTal 7y ago
        >D-Bus is now mandatory system level software on Linux thanks to systemd Oh, it was mandatory before that, if you wanted a graphical desktop, or the ability to print, or Network Manager to work. Quite a lot of "magic" that doesn't obviously happen through files or sockets, happens over D-Bus.
theodric 7y ago
I dropped Linux in favor of IRIX on the desktop, because I found GNOME clunky and KDE a Windows ripoff, and ran that until I could get a Mac. When I got the Mac, despite being new, it was so slow that I installed Linux and WindowMaker on it instead. I soon broke the Mac, and got a cheap ThinkPad and ran Windows until I could afford a Mac again. I've had a Mac since 2008 now. I'd occasionally play with Linux, but especially once Unity appeared and perverted everyone's expectations of what Linux looked like, I thought the war was lost. A couple years back, I decided to try out Plasma. Ho lee schitt. Plasma is good. Not as good as macOS, but Linux-good.
ognarb 7y ago
This days KDE is trying quite hard to improve the default user experience and letting the world know about these improvements. This is mostly thanks to the work of Nate Graham and his blog posts https://pointieststick.com/ https://pointieststick.com/, but also tons of new contributors coming each week. Here is his roadmap for 2020: https://pointieststick.com/2020/01/01/kde-roadmap-for-2020/ https://pointieststick.com/2020/01/01/kde-roadmap-for-2020/ and his review of the year 2019: https://pointieststick.com/2019/12/31/2019-the-year-in-review/ https://pointieststick.com/2019/12/31/2019-the-year-in-revie...
- Fnoord 7y ago
  Nate Graham! His posts often get quoted by Phoronix (which is in my RSS feeds). I love reading them even though I don't use KDE myself (right now; in the past I ran KDE 1/2/3 on Linux and KDE 2 on Windows). Why? Because I like to keep a little up-to-date in Linux UI land (why I visit Phoronix). Nate Graham's weekly post are well written summaries which link to additional in-depth information if you prefer. You gave two good, relevant examples of that.
mindcrime 7y ago
I know of no-one who runs KDE on their Linux desktops I run a KDE desktop exclusively...

jhauris 7y ago

You are right that kde lost a lot of mindshare, but these days it is really good (I prefer it to the other DE options). My whole family runs kde, from running a small business to children of a wide range of ages playing games and doing school work. I don't think computers are any more of a specialist tool now then 20 years ago, really. Mobile phones have just expanded the number of people who are able to do things like listen to digital music which used to be limited to a relatively elite minority on desktops.

usrusr 7y ago
Precisely 20 years ago you might be right, but the year 2000 later turned out to be that one year where mp3 piracy crossed over from still somewhat niche to utter mainstream. And before practical portable mp3 solutions, that was entirely a desktop PC experience. People who could barely type in January would have built their own PC from components by the end of that year. (Some regional shifts related to internet availability and pricing models might apply) Changes happened crazy fast in those days.

Santosh83 7y ago

I've tried several KDE distros over the years and they have all been quite easy and pleasant to use, despite the occasional crash. There was nothing particularly bad about the UX. The reason it has not been successful is of course the largest Linux companies choosing deliberately to back GNOME. The initial reasons may have been legal but they stuck with GNOME despite the latter removing features during 2 to 3 transition and despite the legal situation resolving and KDE becoming better and better over the years. Corporate steering of s/w is very real though most seem to tiptoe around the matter...

dTal 7y ago

I run Plasma on all my desktops (you must have anticipated this comment, hah). I avoided KDE until a couple years ago because its performance was always atrocious for me, even on high end machines. But when I gave it another go, I was blown away - this, right here, is the Premium Desktop Linux Experience(tm). And more than anything else, where it shines is its thoughtful approach to human factors. You can see that every aspect of the system has been subjected to the question "is this pleasant to use? how can we make it better?" And, wonderful relief, it's also fast and light now. Since I've instituted a Qt-first policy when choosing apps, and themed everything the same, Qt and GTK, I've had a superbly consistent look and feel as well. KDE deserves its mindshare back - there is nothing else like it on Linux today.

Fnoord 7y ago
I know it is a loaded comment, but I genuinely wonder: how does KDE compare with GNOME these days? I'm familiar with GNOME 3.34.
- jrepinc 7y ago
  In my opinion, it is faster, more light-weight, and at the same time has more features and is more customizable so you can set it up the way you want to work with. In my opinion it is the best desktop currently available on computers even ahead quite a bit compared to commercial ones.
  - olavgg 7y ago
    I agree, KDE Plasma 5 is really awesome. It is fast, flexible, looks great and is by far the most stable desktop enviroment I have ever used, including all Windows versions and OSX.
  - pzone 7y ago
    The main downside is that it is buggy. This includes KDE's slow crawl toward Wayland support. I love KDE's features but accept I will be experiencing more resets with Plasma than even buggy Windows Explorer.
  - 7y ago

simion314 7y ago

>but the most confusing experience possible for actual users What do you mean? I think KDE is not confusing at all, you have the bottom taskbar, you have the start menu you alt+tab betwen applications. The only complaints similar to yours are from people that dislike the Settings section, there is a reason that section is complex and that is the Linux desktop is complex, there are many parts like(Qt,GTK, window manager, shell etc) but you could always have a distribution hide the settings by default and provide a KDE for newbs with almost no options and rename Settings to KDE Tweaks and you install the features from internet or hack plasmoids to add or remove paddings and features.

jacobush 7y ago
"Could" have, is the key. There is no push from the project itself. I'm not saying there needs to be, but I think KDE lost millions of users because of it. Imagine if ElementaryOS also were the people behind Gnome, or behind KDE. THAT would be spell quality software. Alas, this is not how open source works.
- simion314 7y ago
  KDE developers and contributors are (or were) mainly interested in features and not looks or how to remove things, I submitted fixes and patches to add things and most of the time this were welcomed(the only issue I and the community had was with a former maintaqiner of Plasma that did not want to add option to remove the Cachew thing because he had a vision and similar GNOME like bullshit, I am happy he is gone), so I think KDE attracts this more advanced contributors and users and also GNOME people when asked to add X they will tell you to use KDE if you don't like the GNOME way, but ont he other hand you have other GNOME people demanding KDE be like GNOME, There is an effort in KDE to fix usability issues and improve things but it is all or mainly non paid people, but if more similar contributors would be attracted we will probably get some more polish but int he end the KDE will always have all the features it's developers and current users want.

usrusr 7y ago

In hindsight it feels like KDE was fighting the last war's battles, eagerly marching on on the path towards an OOP modularity promised land, still trying to one-up Microsoft's OLE and COM long after those fell out of the hype spotlight at Redmond. I'd be surprised if there wasn't even a lot of CORBA in KDE at one point.

makomk 7y ago
If I remember rightly, one of the big differences between KDE and GNOME was that GNOME fell for CORBA in a big way whereas KDE rejected it.
- gioele 7y ago
  GNOME went for proper CORBA (in the form of Bonobo [1]), KDE preferred something non-standard but easier to work with and much more performant (what is now KParts [2] + DCOP [3]). Bonobo has been abandoned around GNOME 2.4. KParts are still used in KDE 5 and you have probably heard of DCOP's child: D-Bus. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonobo_(GNOME) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonobo_(GNOME) [2] https://api.kde.org/frameworks/kparts/html/index.html https://api.kde.org/frameworks/kparts/html/index.html [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DCOP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DCOP
  - gmueckl 7y ago
    D-Bus is now mandatory system level software on Linux thanks to systemd. KHTML became the grandfather of practically all modern browsers except Firefox. In those terms, parts of the KDE project were extremely successful. It's a bit sad that the desktop as a whole didn't profit that much fron that success.
    - dTal 7y ago
      >D-Bus is now mandatory system level software on Linux thanks to systemd Oh, it was mandatory before that, if you wanted a graphical desktop, or the ability to print, or Network Manager to work. Quite a lot of "magic" that doesn't obviously happen through files or sockets, happens over D-Bus.

theodric 7y ago

I dropped Linux in favor of IRIX on the desktop, because I found GNOME clunky and KDE a Windows ripoff, and ran that until I could get a Mac. When I got the Mac, despite being new, it was so slow that I installed Linux and WindowMaker on it instead. I soon broke the Mac, and got a cheap ThinkPad and ran Windows until I could afford a Mac again. I've had a Mac since 2008 now. I'd occasionally play with Linux, but especially once Unity appeared and perverted everyone's expectations of what Linux looked like, I thought the war was lost. A couple years back, I decided to try out Plasma. Ho lee schitt. Plasma is good. Not as good as macOS, but Linux-good.

ognarb 7y ago

This days KDE is trying quite hard to improve the default user experience and letting the world know about these improvements. This is mostly thanks to the work of Nate Graham and his blog posts https://pointieststick.com/ https://pointieststick.com/, but also tons of new contributors coming each week. Here is his roadmap for 2020: https://pointieststick.com/2020/01/01/kde-roadmap-for-2020/ https://pointieststick.com/2020/01/01/kde-roadmap-for-2020/ and his review of the year 2019: https://pointieststick.com/2019/12/31/2019-the-year-in-review/ https://pointieststick.com/2019/12/31/2019-the-year-in-revie...

Fnoord 7y ago
Nate Graham! His posts often get quoted by Phoronix (which is in my RSS feeds). I love reading them even though I don't use KDE myself (right now; in the past I ran KDE 1/2/3 on Linux and KDE 2 on Windows). Why? Because I like to keep a little up-to-date in Linux UI land (why I visit Phoronix). Nate Graham's weekly post are well written summaries which link to additional in-depth information if you prefer. You gave two good, relevant examples of that.

mindcrime 7y ago

I know of no-one who runs KDE on their Linux desktops I run a KDE desktop exclusively...