5 ms·

I haven't touched KDE in maybe 15 years. I just always defaulted to Gnome when I'm on Linux desktop. But this looks more macOS like. Just curious, is there any

I haven't touched KDE in maybe 15 years. I just always defaulted to Gnome when I'm on Linux desktop. But this looks more macOS like. Just curious, is there any reason I should try KDE today?

ChuckNorris89 4y ago
>is there any reason I should try KDE today The DE is a personal preference thing. It's nobody's job to convince you to try anything. It's up to you to decide to try it if you're curious. Since you haven't tried KDE in 15 years, you've probably missed a lot. There are also countless KDE Reviews online and on YouTube.
- sirsinsalot 4y ago
  I went back to KDE after a lifetime using Gnome (and then Cinnamon when Gnome3 ruined things). KDE has been a joy and is now my DE of choice.
warning26 4y ago
I mean, what do you have to lose? Install it and see how you like it!
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
slbtty 4y ago
GNOME is being obsoleted by KDE.
- DivineBicycle 4y ago
  Yeah right
- rs_rs_rs_rs_rs 4y ago
  One can hope...
- ASalazarMX 4y ago
  They're different beasts. In fact, they're different enough that they have their own niches. Gnome is the boring, serious, stop-fiddling-and-get-things-done UI. KDE is the quirky uncle that lets you play with his porcelain figures. These days I prefer KDE, and I accept quirky behavior like losing a widget panel from external monitor 1 if you unplug external monitor 2, because I know it will come back after reboot/relogin. In exchange for that, I get different wallpapers for each monitor, custom/extra panels, several alternatives for application menus and taskbars, lots of widgets, and a few small QOL perks I can't remember right now. If KDE becomes too quirky, I can always go back to Gnome, but right now I'm happy with KDE.
  - midoridensha 4y ago
    >Gnome is the boring, serious, stop-fiddling-and-get-things-done UI. Sure, if you always want each application to be full-screen. Otherwise you can't get anything done.
  - Valmar 4y ago
    > Gnome is the boring, serious, stop-fiddling-and-get-things-done UI. Gnome these days is the my-way-or-the-highway kind of uncle. They're actively hostile to user theming, for example, and keep removing features simply because they don't think users need them, like desktop icons. Their file browser is horrible to use. Their image viewer is anaemic. They keep finding new ways to dumb their applications down, to make things less "confusing" for the users, I suppose. They adopted MacOS-style headerbars, but ignored Apple's solution to the lack of functionality that brings ~ their Menu Bar.
ognarb 4y ago
KDE dev here. From a developer perspective, something I really love with Plasma (the 'new' branding for KDE) is that it's really modular by design. Everything on the screen is pluggable with a very simple api and can theoricaly be be swapped out or experimented with. This includes the widgets but also the visual effects. For example, Marco (a prominent Plasma hacker) just worked on a new basic tilling extension and with a public api that allows other to build more advanced tilling scripts: https://notmart.org/blog/2022/10/kwin-and-tiling/ https://notmart.org/blog/2022/10/kwin-and-tiling/ From an user point of view, I often try to not change too much default settings, but there are some really nice feature I enjoy. kde connect is particularly nice for the media player integration with my phone). Yakuake is a nice dropdown terminal. The wayland port is really smooth, there is a lot of features everywhere and I often make use of a big percentage. Oblivious if you are fine with GNOME, this is also fine. We have some different vision on how a open source desktop should look and behave but we do share a dream to someday be a good replacement for Windows for a large part of the population (not nerds).
- aidenn0 4y ago
  > From an user point of view, I often try to not change too much default settings, but there are some really nice feature I enjoy. kde connect is particularly nice for the media player integration with my phone). Yakuake is a nice dropdown terminal. The wayland port is really smooth, there is a lot of features everywhere and I often make use of a big percentage. The overwhelming majority of the people I know who use KDE also try to not change too much from the default settings, but the settings we change are all different. It's similar with the bells and whistles in Plasma; I probably use a single-digit percentage of them, but they are probably different set from what other users use. I am grateful for those who maintain these features, because I'm sure both that developing would be easier with fewer features and there is probably nobody who uses all of them.
- Lex-2008 4y ago
  To be fair, I believe KDE is already a better desktop than Windows explorer. My fave features are "Wobbly Windows" effect and "Animated Hue" wallpaper. But I'm a nerd, so my needs are likely different from majority of the population, I guess :)
smoldesu 4y ago
If you like MacOS, you might be presently surprised with the direction KDE has been heading over the past few years. Many apps support a global menu (eg. Mac-like menu on arbitrary panels/docks), and the trackpad support with Wayland is almost 1:1 with MacOS (only missing Force Touch). I'm very happy with how things have been headed recently, and have been using it ever since GNOME 40 dropped.
- alex3305 4y ago
  I love the look and feel of macOS and other Apple things, mostly because they just work and seem polished. Also since Apple moved to ARM, I'm having a hard time convincing myself to start something like an Hackintosh. That's why, when looking at some screenshots, KDE has really peaked my interest. It looks like the team has gone in the same direction.
  - smoldesu 4y ago
    On AMD/Intel hardware, you can expect near-Apple levels of stability and polish on Wayland. Nvidia hardware is still getting brought up, but I'd totally recommend checking it out if you're interested.
bityard 4y ago
I've always had a soft spot for KDE but haven't actually used it much in the last decade because I kept running into show-stopping bugs. But this week I decided to try out the latest KDE plasma release on Debian testing and it's all going quite well so far. I love having the ability to configure things how _I_ want them to be, while adhering to a more traditional desktop experience. The easiest way to try out the latest KDE release is to download Neon (https://neon.kde.org https://neon.kde.org), flash it to a thumb drive, and boot it up.
loeg 4y ago
Modern KDE is closer to the experience and usability of GNOME 2 than GNOME 3 is. (And that’s a good thing.) If you prefer a traditional desktop with some configurability over iOS, it’s worth a try.
bluedino 4y ago
KDE isn't perfect but it's nice. GNOME is like some project that wanted to be like the Mac but nobody ever used it, they just saw pictures of it and they worked off that.
weberer 4y ago
Try uploading a file in GNOME. The interface has no thumbnails. This has been an open issue for something like 18 years. Its not a problem in KDE. More info: https://jayfax.neocities.org/mediocrity/gnome-has-no-thumbnails-in-the-file-picker.html https://jayfax.neocities.org/mediocrity/gnome-has-no-thumbna...
- anthk 4y ago
  TBH, now it will.
azubinski 4y ago
Gnome as DE is extremely poor in a "non-windows management" software. Native file manager has no two panels mode, no tabs, thumbnails are too small to be useful. Pdf reader is nothing in comparison with Okular. Terminal... terminal is outdated in comparison with Konsole (no ligatures, for example). The all good points about Gnome are in windows management. KDE's WM is very flexible, of course, you can tune it as you want, or not tune it at all, but Gnome has some hard explained _cuteness_ of windows management. But no more. Because we need more applications than a cute windows management :(
- alex3305 4y ago
  Last time I tried to Gnome I had to copy a file to `/opt/`, but that location wasn't listed in it's file manager, Nautilus. Clicking on the current location didn't work and I couldn't find an address bar anywhere. On a whim I've tried to CTRL+L, which worked, to my surprise. Something like that makes your product feel extremely unpolished to a novice user. While it was probably made that way with a reason.

I haven't touched KDE in maybe 15 years. I just always defaulted to Gnome when I'm on Linux desktop. But this looks more macOS like. Just curious, is there any reason I should try KDE today?

ChuckNorris89 4y ago

>is there any reason I should try KDE today The DE is a personal preference thing. It's nobody's job to convince you to try anything. It's up to you to decide to try it if you're curious. Since you haven't tried KDE in 15 years, you've probably missed a lot. There are also countless KDE Reviews online and on YouTube.

sirsinsalot 4y ago
I went back to KDE after a lifetime using Gnome (and then Cinnamon when Gnome3 ruined things). KDE has been a joy and is now my DE of choice.

warning26 4y ago

I mean, what do you have to lose? Install it and see how you like it!

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

slbtty 4y ago

GNOME is being obsoleted by KDE.

DivineBicycle 4y ago
Yeah right
rs_rs_rs_rs_rs 4y ago
One can hope...
ASalazarMX 4y ago
They're different beasts. In fact, they're different enough that they have their own niches. Gnome is the boring, serious, stop-fiddling-and-get-things-done UI. KDE is the quirky uncle that lets you play with his porcelain figures. These days I prefer KDE, and I accept quirky behavior like losing a widget panel from external monitor 1 if you unplug external monitor 2, because I know it will come back after reboot/relogin. In exchange for that, I get different wallpapers for each monitor, custom/extra panels, several alternatives for application menus and taskbars, lots of widgets, and a few small QOL perks I can't remember right now. If KDE becomes too quirky, I can always go back to Gnome, but right now I'm happy with KDE.
- midoridensha 4y ago
  >Gnome is the boring, serious, stop-fiddling-and-get-things-done UI. Sure, if you always want each application to be full-screen. Otherwise you can't get anything done.
- Valmar 4y ago
  > Gnome is the boring, serious, stop-fiddling-and-get-things-done UI. Gnome these days is the my-way-or-the-highway kind of uncle. They're actively hostile to user theming, for example, and keep removing features simply because they don't think users need them, like desktop icons. Their file browser is horrible to use. Their image viewer is anaemic. They keep finding new ways to dumb their applications down, to make things less "confusing" for the users, I suppose. They adopted MacOS-style headerbars, but ignored Apple's solution to the lack of functionality that brings ~ their Menu Bar.

ognarb 4y ago

KDE dev here. From a developer perspective, something I really love with Plasma (the 'new' branding for KDE) is that it's really modular by design. Everything on the screen is pluggable with a very simple api and can theoricaly be be swapped out or experimented with. This includes the widgets but also the visual effects. For example, Marco (a prominent Plasma hacker) just worked on a new basic tilling extension and with a public api that allows other to build more advanced tilling scripts: https://notmart.org/blog/2022/10/kwin-and-tiling/ https://notmart.org/blog/2022/10/kwin-and-tiling/ From an user point of view, I often try to not change too much default settings, but there are some really nice feature I enjoy. kde connect is particularly nice for the media player integration with my phone). Yakuake is a nice dropdown terminal. The wayland port is really smooth, there is a lot of features everywhere and I often make use of a big percentage. Oblivious if you are fine with GNOME, this is also fine. We have some different vision on how a open source desktop should look and behave but we do share a dream to someday be a good replacement for Windows for a large part of the population (not nerds).

aidenn0 4y ago
> From an user point of view, I often try to not change too much default settings, but there are some really nice feature I enjoy. kde connect is particularly nice for the media player integration with my phone). Yakuake is a nice dropdown terminal. The wayland port is really smooth, there is a lot of features everywhere and I often make use of a big percentage. The overwhelming majority of the people I know who use KDE also try to not change too much from the default settings, but the settings we change are all different. It's similar with the bells and whistles in Plasma; I probably use a single-digit percentage of them, but they are probably different set from what other users use. I am grateful for those who maintain these features, because I'm sure both that developing would be easier with fewer features and there is probably nobody who uses all of them.
Lex-2008 4y ago
To be fair, I believe KDE is already a better desktop than Windows explorer. My fave features are "Wobbly Windows" effect and "Animated Hue" wallpaper. But I'm a nerd, so my needs are likely different from majority of the population, I guess :)

smoldesu 4y ago

If you like MacOS, you might be presently surprised with the direction KDE has been heading over the past few years. Many apps support a global menu (eg. Mac-like menu on arbitrary panels/docks), and the trackpad support with Wayland is almost 1:1 with MacOS (only missing Force Touch). I'm very happy with how things have been headed recently, and have been using it ever since GNOME 40 dropped.

alex3305 4y ago
I love the look and feel of macOS and other Apple things, mostly because they just work and seem polished. Also since Apple moved to ARM, I'm having a hard time convincing myself to start something like an Hackintosh. That's why, when looking at some screenshots, KDE has really peaked my interest. It looks like the team has gone in the same direction.
- smoldesu 4y ago
  On AMD/Intel hardware, you can expect near-Apple levels of stability and polish on Wayland. Nvidia hardware is still getting brought up, but I'd totally recommend checking it out if you're interested.

bityard 4y ago

I've always had a soft spot for KDE but haven't actually used it much in the last decade because I kept running into show-stopping bugs. But this week I decided to try out the latest KDE plasma release on Debian testing and it's all going quite well so far. I love having the ability to configure things how _I_ want them to be, while adhering to a more traditional desktop experience. The easiest way to try out the latest KDE release is to download Neon (https://neon.kde.org https://neon.kde.org), flash it to a thumb drive, and boot it up.

loeg 4y ago

Modern KDE is closer to the experience and usability of GNOME 2 than GNOME 3 is. (And that’s a good thing.) If you prefer a traditional desktop with some configurability over iOS, it’s worth a try.

bluedino 4y ago

KDE isn't perfect but it's nice. GNOME is like some project that wanted to be like the Mac but nobody ever used it, they just saw pictures of it and they worked off that.

weberer 4y ago

Try uploading a file in GNOME. The interface has no thumbnails. This has been an open issue for something like 18 years. Its not a problem in KDE. More info: https://jayfax.neocities.org/mediocrity/gnome-has-no-thumbnails-in-the-file-picker.html https://jayfax.neocities.org/mediocrity/gnome-has-no-thumbna...

anthk 4y ago
TBH, now it will.

azubinski 4y ago

Gnome as DE is extremely poor in a "non-windows management" software. Native file manager has no two panels mode, no tabs, thumbnails are too small to be useful. Pdf reader is nothing in comparison with Okular. Terminal... terminal is outdated in comparison with Konsole (no ligatures, for example). The all good points about Gnome are in windows management. KDE's WM is very flexible, of course, you can tune it as you want, or not tune it at all, but Gnome has some hard explained _cuteness_ of windows management. But no more. Because we need more applications than a cute windows management :(

alex3305 4y ago
Last time I tried to Gnome I had to copy a file to `/opt/`, but that location wasn't listed in it's file manager, Nautilus. Clicking on the current location didn't work and I couldn't find an address bar anywhere. On a whim I've tried to CTRL+L, which worked, to my surprise. Something like that makes your product feel extremely unpolished to a novice user. While it was probably made that way with a reason.