3 ms·

Note that i was never a big fan of KDE in general, i just happen to like KDE 3 more than the other versions (though TBH i haven't used KDE 2 at all and while i

Note that i was never a big fan of KDE in general, i just happen to like KDE 3 more than the other versions (though TBH i haven't used KDE 2 at all and while i do like how KDE 1 looked and behaved - it was the first Linux environment i ever used - it was a bit too rough, though that was also because of Qt1 too) and i used it as a second environment in some computers. But the two main reasons i think KDE 5 is worse than KDE 3 is that as a UI it follows the same pattern as Gnome 3 (and Windows 10's "modern" apps, sadly) for wasting screen space everywhere and it does feel like it has a lot of moving parts everywhere which aren't exactly fitting perfectly with each other even though they are made for each other (i know that KDE 3 was probably also similar, but it always felt solid and stable - i wonder if breaking kdelibs or whatever it was called to a myriad of tiny little libraries that all applications and each other needing to be there anyway made things more brittle, though that might be my bias from whenever i try to install a KDE application in a non-KDE environment and i get a dependency vomit from the package installer). I might sound too hard on KDE 5, but TBH if i absolutely had to choose between it and Gnome and had no other option (or the other option was a tiling WM - which i never liked), then i'd use KDE. It isn't bad, i'd still install it on a computer i do not want to fiddle around with much.

Fnoord 6y ago
I would say if you like KDE 3, you liked KDE 2 as well. KDE 2 was the tick of the tick-tock of KDE 2/3. KDE 5 is the tock of the tick-tock of KDE 4/5. At least that is how I'd describe it (Intel been tock-tock-tock'ing the past years notwithstanding). I have fond memories of KDE 2/3 and GNOME 2. I also ran KDE 1 and GNOME 1 back in the days (initially GNOME cause of RedHat Linux and the license issues with KDE). If you compare them to Windows 9x and early NT they were quite good.
- badsectoracula 6y ago
  I think that with the exception of the kernel being a layer on top of MS-DOS (but that would be comparing with Linux not with KDE), Win9x was better technically than KDE1. For example I do not think to this day there is anything tech-wise like COM with all of its related tech like OLE (which allows documents to embed objects exposed by other applications which themselves can run in 'embedded mode' to edit said embedded objects), ActiveX (which in a similar way allows applications to make use of reusable controls that can describe themselves), Automation (which allows applications to expose scriptable interfaces that can be called by any other application), Active Scripting (which allows applications to embed scripting languages which themselves are registered with the system so that, e.g., you can install a scripting engine for Python which then can be used to script any application that uses Active Scripting even if that application has no idea about Python) and a bunch of other things. (note that DBus does provide the 'expose interfaces' part, but it is only about that whereas COM is a more generic technology that was used for all of the above)
  - emilsedgh 6y ago
    What you're describing for a "dbus but for ui" is one of the core KDE technologies still in use today named KPart [0][1]. [0] https://techbase.kde.org/Development/Tutorials/Using_KParts https://techbase.kde.org/Development/Tutorials/Using_KParts [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KDE_Platform_4#KParts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KDE_Platform_4#KParts
    - badsectoracula 6y ago
      Yeah i know about KParts, however KParts is more limited and the tech is only about KParts whereas COM is used for a lot of things, including even stuff unrelated to the GUI (e.g. Active Scripting). In addition COM defines a binary interface for accessing objects that can be supported by any programming language that can support structs and pointers whereas KParts is only for C++.
  - Fnoord 6y ago
    Windows 9x was a single user operating system; Linux and KDE/GNOME were and are not. Windows 9x is an absolute security nightmare, including ActiveX. Therefore, the comparison is moot (though ironically enough, X is also a security nightmare).
    - badsectoracula 6y ago
      ActiveX is still available on Windows 10, it has nothing to do with security aside from being shoved into IE4 as a way for Microsoft to lock the web into Wintel back when Java's crossplatform-ness was seen as threatening to their desktop dominance - and thus gaining a bad name because it really wasn't designed for such a use. ActiveX is just a standardized way to embed controls, in practice it isn't any difference than any desktop application that has support for plugins nor any less (or more) safer than that. COM in general is just a standardized form of a plugin system with a bunch of predefined interfaces (or binary protocols if you want) for applications that weren't written with each other in mind to still be able to work together and share functionality.

Fnoord 6y ago

I would say if you like KDE 3, you liked KDE 2 as well. KDE 2 was the tick of the tick-tock of KDE 2/3. KDE 5 is the tock of the tick-tock of KDE 4/5. At least that is how I'd describe it (Intel been tock-tock-tock'ing the past years notwithstanding). I have fond memories of KDE 2/3 and GNOME 2. I also ran KDE 1 and GNOME 1 back in the days (initially GNOME cause of RedHat Linux and the license issues with KDE). If you compare them to Windows 9x and early NT they were quite good.

badsectoracula 6y ago
I think that with the exception of the kernel being a layer on top of MS-DOS (but that would be comparing with Linux not with KDE), Win9x was better technically than KDE1. For example I do not think to this day there is anything tech-wise like COM with all of its related tech like OLE (which allows documents to embed objects exposed by other applications which themselves can run in 'embedded mode' to edit said embedded objects), ActiveX (which in a similar way allows applications to make use of reusable controls that can describe themselves), Automation (which allows applications to expose scriptable interfaces that can be called by any other application), Active Scripting (which allows applications to embed scripting languages which themselves are registered with the system so that, e.g., you can install a scripting engine for Python which then can be used to script any application that uses Active Scripting even if that application has no idea about Python) and a bunch of other things. (note that DBus does provide the 'expose interfaces' part, but it is only about that whereas COM is a more generic technology that was used for all of the above)
- emilsedgh 6y ago
  What you're describing for a "dbus but for ui" is one of the core KDE technologies still in use today named KPart [0][1]. [0] https://techbase.kde.org/Development/Tutorials/Using_KParts https://techbase.kde.org/Development/Tutorials/Using_KParts [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KDE_Platform_4#KParts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KDE_Platform_4#KParts
  - badsectoracula 6y ago
    Yeah i know about KParts, however KParts is more limited and the tech is only about KParts whereas COM is used for a lot of things, including even stuff unrelated to the GUI (e.g. Active Scripting). In addition COM defines a binary interface for accessing objects that can be supported by any programming language that can support structs and pointers whereas KParts is only for C++.
- Fnoord 6y ago
  Windows 9x was a single user operating system; Linux and KDE/GNOME were and are not. Windows 9x is an absolute security nightmare, including ActiveX. Therefore, the comparison is moot (though ironically enough, X is also a security nightmare).
  - badsectoracula 6y ago
    ActiveX is still available on Windows 10, it has nothing to do with security aside from being shoved into IE4 as a way for Microsoft to lock the web into Wintel back when Java's crossplatform-ness was seen as threatening to their desktop dominance - and thus gaining a bad name because it really wasn't designed for such a use. ActiveX is just a standardized way to embed controls, in practice it isn't any difference than any desktop application that has support for plugins nor any less (or more) safer than that. COM in general is just a standardized form of a plugin system with a bunch of predefined interfaces (or binary protocols if you want) for applications that weren't written with each other in mind to still be able to work together and share functionality.