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Yep. I used windowmaker then enlightenment ( I fell prey to shiny baubles ) then kde3 ( yes, in my mind still the single best desktop environment I’ve ever used

Yep. I used windowmaker then enlightenment ( I fell prey to shiny baubles ) then kde3 ( yes, in my mind still the single best desktop environment I’ve ever used ), and now i3. I love i3.

aryonoco 2y ago
KDE3 will always be the pinnacle of Desktop Linux for me as well. The functionality that was there at the time is astounding. Kmail was better than Evolution (minus the Exchange support), KOffice was half decent and a lot more performant than OpenOffice. KDevelop was a quite progressive IDE. Heck even Konqueror was a decent browser, with an engine that was so well designed and portable, that when Apple decided to make a browser, they forked KHTML. Everything was cohesive, used a unified design language, worked great on a system with 1GB of RAM. I don't understand how all these years later, on systems infinitely more powerful, desktop Linux is yet to get to a similar state. KDE4 was such a disaster, I left KDE and have never really gone back since.
- notpushkin 2y ago
  If you feel ever nostalgic, there's Trinity! https://www.trinitydesktop.org/ https://www.trinitydesktop.org/
- jraph 2y ago
  The last versions of KDE 4 had fixed a lot of issues and were a solid DE IMHO. I had left KDE for a while when KDE 4 was first released indeed, but came back later. They decided they would not do the same mistake of releasing such unstable versions again in the future, and indeed, plasma 6.0 was usable since day one. Have you tried Plasma 6 or a recent plasma 5? If you liked KDE 3, you might like it. I find it's a really pleasant environment, I'm not sure something from KDE 3 is missing. It's also quite lightweight, I run it on a tablet with 1GB of RAM, it's a bit slow but quite usable. The web is pretty much unusable though for the most part unfortunately. There's also a big work of ironing out the small bugs and they are working on making things more cohesive with a design system and some work to unify qml-based and qtwidget-based components (yes, on that front, qml was not a thing when KDE 3 was released, the UI was probably more cohesive - though Breeze, KDE's theme, already does a lot for this and is beautiful). I don't know Trinity but that's of course another option.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- hulitu 2y ago
  > I don't understand how all these years later, on systems infinitely more powerful, desktop Linux is yet to get to a similar state. CADT ? They redesign the whole thing every couple of years instead of fixing bugs.
throwaway89988 2y ago
Another vote for KDE3 as the best Linux desktop environment. I forgot how it was called, but one could easily automate the whole desktop back then via scripts and an interface to the KDE3 programs. KDE IMHO never returned to that level of polish and quality (yes, I tried 6). Today I am a GNOME user and its killer feature for me is provisioning via dconf and Evolution is my favorite email client on any platform.
- kombine 2y ago
  I only started using KDE 4, then quit and came back for KDE 5. Now I'm running KDE 6 on Wayland and it the most stable it ever has been. There is a significant push for bug fixing and polish. Port to Qt 6 started a major release cycle and I expect it to mature a lot in the next few releases.

Yep. I used windowmaker then enlightenment ( I fell prey to shiny baubles ) then kde3 ( yes, in my mind still the single best desktop environment I’ve ever used ), and now i3. I love i3.

aryonoco 2y ago

KDE3 will always be the pinnacle of Desktop Linux for me as well. The functionality that was there at the time is astounding. Kmail was better than Evolution (minus the Exchange support), KOffice was half decent and a lot more performant than OpenOffice. KDevelop was a quite progressive IDE. Heck even Konqueror was a decent browser, with an engine that was so well designed and portable, that when Apple decided to make a browser, they forked KHTML. Everything was cohesive, used a unified design language, worked great on a system with 1GB of RAM. I don't understand how all these years later, on systems infinitely more powerful, desktop Linux is yet to get to a similar state. KDE4 was such a disaster, I left KDE and have never really gone back since.

notpushkin 2y ago
If you feel ever nostalgic, there's Trinity! https://www.trinitydesktop.org/ https://www.trinitydesktop.org/
jraph 2y ago
The last versions of KDE 4 had fixed a lot of issues and were a solid DE IMHO. I had left KDE for a while when KDE 4 was first released indeed, but came back later. They decided they would not do the same mistake of releasing such unstable versions again in the future, and indeed, plasma 6.0 was usable since day one. Have you tried Plasma 6 or a recent plasma 5? If you liked KDE 3, you might like it. I find it's a really pleasant environment, I'm not sure something from KDE 3 is missing. It's also quite lightweight, I run it on a tablet with 1GB of RAM, it's a bit slow but quite usable. The web is pretty much unusable though for the most part unfortunately. There's also a big work of ironing out the small bugs and they are working on making things more cohesive with a design system and some work to unify qml-based and qtwidget-based components (yes, on that front, qml was not a thing when KDE 3 was released, the UI was probably more cohesive - though Breeze, KDE's theme, already does a lot for this and is beautiful). I don't know Trinity but that's of course another option.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
hulitu 2y ago
> I don't understand how all these years later, on systems infinitely more powerful, desktop Linux is yet to get to a similar state. CADT ? They redesign the whole thing every couple of years instead of fixing bugs.

throwaway89988 2y ago

Another vote for KDE3 as the best Linux desktop environment. I forgot how it was called, but one could easily automate the whole desktop back then via scripts and an interface to the KDE3 programs. KDE IMHO never returned to that level of polish and quality (yes, I tried 6). Today I am a GNOME user and its killer feature for me is provisioning via dconf and Evolution is my favorite email client on any platform.

kombine 2y ago
I only started using KDE 4, then quit and came back for KDE 5. Now I'm running KDE 6 on Wayland and it the most stable it ever has been. There is a significant push for bug fixing and polish. Port to Qt 6 started a major release cycle and I expect it to mature a lot in the next few releases.