5 ms·

"KDE is my desktop of choice. I feel like it captures the spirit of computing in the Windows 9x era." I was trying to find the right words to describe why I pr

"KDE is my desktop of choice. I feel like it captures the spirit of computing in the Windows 9x era." I was trying to find the right words to describe why I prefer KDE over other DE's but this captures my feelings perfectly.

pxc 4y ago
I find this quite strange. I was a kid (and heavy computer user) when Windows 9x was current. I'd been a user of MS-DOS, Windows 3.x, Windows 9x, and Windows XP before I got into Linux and KDE, back in the KDE 3.4 days. I love KDE, but I have no positive feelings about Windows 9x, and I don't really think KDE reminds me of it at all. In fact, some of the developments and workflows that excited me back in the day were divergences away from Windows 9x, like the replacement of the old Kicker menu with Lancelot. The KDE application that eventually won my heart as a teenager was Amarok, which simply had no equivalent in any other ecosystem. To me, what is great about KDE is best described with reference to KDE itself, not some other desktop experience.
- FeepingCreature 4y ago
  Amarok is a distant descendant of WinAmp, which was indeed developed for Windows 95. :) WinAmp -> X11Amp -> XMMS -> Amarok ... -> Clementine -> Strawberry, if you want a current player that looks like Amarok 1.4.
  - seba_dos1 4y ago
    Describing Amarok as a descendant from XMMS feels like describing Firefox as a descendant from Lynx.
    - FeepingCreature 4y ago
      That's fair, there's no code lineage, and it's hard to see Amarok's XMMS/Winamp descent from 1.4. But the design lineage is maybe more credible if you look at historic screenshots like https://amarok.sourceforge.net/amarok_20040203.png https://amarok.sourceforge.net/amarok_20040203.png . (Note the "PL EQ" buttons, straight off the Winamp main widget.) edit: Even further https://web.archive.org/web/20030815185552/http://amarok.sourceforge.net/screenshots.php https://web.archive.org/web/20030815185552/http://amarok.sou...
      - pxc 4y ago
        Those are cool to see! I got into Amarok in the 1.3 days, so I never saw the Winamp-like interfaces. For the same reason, I also never used it before it had collection support, so I always used it to manage my collection and didn't browse the filesystem with it. FWIW, my favorite Amarok design is the 2.x one. The initial rewrite sucked in all the ways that KDE 4 did, but it had better defaults and it was more flexible. Once the plugin ecosystem mostly recovered, it was awesome again!
        FeepingCreature 4y ago
        Glad you got a good player. For me, the big dense screen-filling freeform playlist was the main selling point, so 2.0 was a huge letdown.
        pxc 4y ago
        I remember feeling disappointed and frustrated with the 2.0 layout as well. I think it was around 2.3 that the player got some UI tweaks which let you make use of screen space in similar proportions to 1.4.x. It's been super long since I really used a local player, but IIRC later versions of Amarok 2.x let you rearrange the panes that make up the single window interface, including IIRC stacking them into tabs which is similar to the vertical, collapsible tabs on the left side of 1.4.x. What was exciting for me about the 1.4.x player and earlier was the contextual information provided for songs— especially lyrics fetching and Wikipedia embedding. I used the lyrics fetching to learn and sing along to hundreds of songs when I was a teenager. It took decades for streaming services to catch up on lyrics display and trivia. I also heavily utilized the collection management features and patterns, which were so excellent. Amarok was my primary tool for organizing a collection of MP3, Vorbis, and eventually Opus files that grew into the hundreds of gigabytes, on spinning rust. The metadata fetching and editing and file renaming functions were vital for me, although later I did do a lot of maintenance with Musicbrainz Picard. The dynamic playlists in 2.x were great for parties, and I liked moodbars for showing people specific sections of songs and the cool visuals. Anyway, to me Clementine feels like a very cluttered hodgepodge of features and menus, in a way that Amarok never did.

pxc 4y ago

I find this quite strange. I was a kid (and heavy computer user) when Windows 9x was current. I'd been a user of MS-DOS, Windows 3.x, Windows 9x, and Windows XP before I got into Linux and KDE, back in the KDE 3.4 days. I love KDE, but I have no positive feelings about Windows 9x, and I don't really think KDE reminds me of it at all. In fact, some of the developments and workflows that excited me back in the day were divergences away from Windows 9x, like the replacement of the old Kicker menu with Lancelot. The KDE application that eventually won my heart as a teenager was Amarok, which simply had no equivalent in any other ecosystem. To me, what is great about KDE is best described with reference to KDE itself, not some other desktop experience.

FeepingCreature 4y ago
Amarok is a distant descendant of WinAmp, which was indeed developed for Windows 95. :) WinAmp -> X11Amp -> XMMS -> Amarok ... -> Clementine -> Strawberry, if you want a current player that looks like Amarok 1.4.
- seba_dos1 4y ago
  Describing Amarok as a descendant from XMMS feels like describing Firefox as a descendant from Lynx.
  - FeepingCreature 4y ago
    That's fair, there's no code lineage, and it's hard to see Amarok's XMMS/Winamp descent from 1.4. But the design lineage is maybe more credible if you look at historic screenshots like https://amarok.sourceforge.net/amarok_20040203.png https://amarok.sourceforge.net/amarok_20040203.png . (Note the "PL EQ" buttons, straight off the Winamp main widget.) edit: Even further https://web.archive.org/web/20030815185552/http://amarok.sourceforge.net/screenshots.php https://web.archive.org/web/20030815185552/http://amarok.sou...
    - pxc 4y ago
      Those are cool to see! I got into Amarok in the 1.3 days, so I never saw the Winamp-like interfaces. For the same reason, I also never used it before it had collection support, so I always used it to manage my collection and didn't browse the filesystem with it. FWIW, my favorite Amarok design is the 2.x one. The initial rewrite sucked in all the ways that KDE 4 did, but it had better defaults and it was more flexible. Once the plugin ecosystem mostly recovered, it was awesome again!
      - FeepingCreature 4y ago
        Glad you got a good player. For me, the big dense screen-filling freeform playlist was the main selling point, so 2.0 was a huge letdown.
        pxc 4y ago
        I remember feeling disappointed and frustrated with the 2.0 layout as well. I think it was around 2.3 that the player got some UI tweaks which let you make use of screen space in similar proportions to 1.4.x. It's been super long since I really used a local player, but IIRC later versions of Amarok 2.x let you rearrange the panes that make up the single window interface, including IIRC stacking them into tabs which is similar to the vertical, collapsible tabs on the left side of 1.4.x. What was exciting for me about the 1.4.x player and earlier was the contextual information provided for songs— especially lyrics fetching and Wikipedia embedding. I used the lyrics fetching to learn and sing along to hundreds of songs when I was a teenager. It took decades for streaming services to catch up on lyrics display and trivia. I also heavily utilized the collection management features and patterns, which were so excellent. Amarok was my primary tool for organizing a collection of MP3, Vorbis, and eventually Opus files that grew into the hundreds of gigabytes, on spinning rust. The metadata fetching and editing and file renaming functions were vital for me, although later I did do a lot of maintenance with Musicbrainz Picard. The dynamic playlists in 2.x were great for parties, and I liked moodbars for showing people specific sections of songs and the cool visuals. Anyway, to me Clementine feels like a very cluttered hodgepodge of features and menus, in a way that Amarok never did.