It's the ultimate power user desktop system, in my opinion it even dwarfs MacOS in terms of how you can customize it and how it looks. It left Windows in the dust a long time ago in terms of functionality and usability (not that this would be particularly hard given how Windows has been degrading over the last decade). Everything is super snappy, smooth, built-in apps like Konsole and Dolphin are super polished, Konsole runs circles around the MacOS terminal app.
Of course running Linux on modern hardware is still a bit fraught with errors, though it has been getting much better. I run a current gen Thinkpad X9 Aura and apart from the webcam which has fundamental driver issues on all Linux kernels everything runs really well, power efficiency is also great at around 10W, not as good as a MacBook (which I also use daily) but close enough for me, and I still prefer Linux over MacOS any day.
Ironically KDE version of COM (KParts and D-Bus integration) is so much easier to use, I don't get why some folks at Microsoft always double down on making it so hard to use from C++, when it is the main API surface since Vista.
Interesting that you call out konsole because I think the UI is horrible, perhaps the worst KDE app. The defaults with multiple toolbars are the opposite of what I want in a terminal and the context menu is stuffed with dozens of irrelevant options like char encoding, which I’ve never changed over a thirty year career.
It’s cluttered enough that even though I prefer a GUI preference dialog, I’ll use e.g. alacri/ghost/ki/tty instead.
It's a positive and a negative. I use Konsole daily and have all the toolbars hidden. Every so often if I need something I toggle them on with Control + Shift + M, but it's once in a blue moon that I need that.
I've tried Kitty and Alacritty but the fact that you have to dive into the config file for everything right when you're starting out with the terminal was just not worth the time investment in my eyes.
Are you asking whether software that's been actively developed has changed since the last time you used it 15-20 years ago? I'd be wary of holding a grudge against something for so long.
I am surprised that you encountered bugs that long ago. KDE was at its buggiest in the early days of KDE 4 2008 onwards. If those dates are not exact and it was early KDE 4 you had problems with, then yes, its much better now.
Same. Hit some bug, tried different distro. Soon after adopted a “live off the land” philosophy, adapting to whatever desktop was default on the chosen distro.
I installed OpenSUSE today on a Mac Pro 5,1. Setup wifi with some drama, but nice, it worked. Realized it was running X11 by default, and I wanted to try Wayland. (I came from Mint Mate).
Switching to Wayland made by wifi not authenticate. Weird. Ok, forget the connection and redo it. Just times out the authentication. Ask Gemini. Common problem apparently.... So you have to setup your wifi via terminal. Oook?
I used OpenSuse with KDE version just until 3 month ago and never had any wifi problems.
I ued the KDE OS before and had no problem.
I am currently using Bazzite (seeing if it is actually better than other Linux OSes) with KDE and never had a problem. Many problems occured, but wifi wasn't one of them.
Does it require? Maybe not if you do it one way vs the other way. Maybe if I had switch to Wayland before setting it up the first time? Who knows. All I know is I could NOT get it to work via the GUI like I had an hour prior. I tried several things. Eventually asked and read that it's a known bug. Maybe that's fake news. But I'm not a total moron and I couldn't get it to work without using the command line.
For example, I tried to forget and then reinput the password and connect. Would just time out.
Maybe if I had forgot connection, restarted the computer, and then tried? I did restart, but not in that exact moment after forgetting but before trying again.
Who knows.
I don't have historic use of kde but I switched to it about a year ago, after a big release, and its been awesome. Very stable for me, allows custom dpi's for each of my monitors, it doesn't break itself like gnome does. I haven't bothered with other DE's since I tried it, not even xfce (old favourite of mine for tablet & low spec pc), kde performs even well on low specs. And highly configurable out of the box. Its the most stable DE I've encountered for daily driving so far.
What was so much better in the old days (besides memory consumption)?
It depended on the release. KDE 3.5.10 from Debian Sarge's backports was rock solid and more stable than several others. Ditto with SuSE, which had a golden stability. Red Hat was a disaster.
SuSE employed several KDE developers at the time while Red Hat employed many Gnome developers. In fact, Gnome was inofficially a Red Hat project back then.
Thank you for saying this! I agree. KDE 1.x was great. KDE 2.x was cluttered but it did the job; with a major rework, such as Corel LinuxOS and Xandros gave it, it was a good desktop.
Xandros never managed to tame KDE 3. It released a tech preview, with a basically unmodified copy of KDE 3, and then stopped putting out new versions of the desktop OS.
KDE is the poster child for creeping featuritis: it has dozens and dozens of skins and app launchers and other relatively pointless chrome that does not extend its functionality.
And yet, over the major releases from 4 to 5 to 6, it has gradually lost useful features, such as tabbed title bars and window grouping; title bars on the side of windows (like in wm2 and wmx), or on the bottom; and panels that could span screens.
20 years ago, there was a parody of KDE versus GNOME:
[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48552535
Oh yeah, maybe 15-20 years ago, i started by Linux journey with Kubuntu, just because i loved how KDE looked, much better than the alternatives.
Sadly it was not difficult to encounter a bug at that time, so i gave up on it quickly. I wonder if it is in better shape now?
It's the ultimate power user desktop system, in my opinion it even dwarfs MacOS in terms of how you can customize it and how it looks. It left Windows in the dust a long time ago in terms of functionality and usability (not that this would be particularly hard given how Windows has been degrading over the last decade). Everything is super snappy, smooth, built-in apps like Konsole and Dolphin are super polished, Konsole runs circles around the MacOS terminal app.
Of course running Linux on modern hardware is still a bit fraught with errors, though it has been getting much better. I run a current gen Thinkpad X9 Aura and apart from the webcam which has fundamental driver issues on all Linux kernels everything runs really well, power efficiency is also great at around 10W, not as good as a MacBook (which I also use daily) but close enough for me, and I still prefer Linux over MacOS any day.
Yeah I don't really use desktop systems any more. I just use a window manager and a few other things, and I'm happy with it
Ironically KDE version of COM (KParts and D-Bus integration) is so much easier to use, I don't get why some folks at Microsoft always double down on making it so hard to use from C++, when it is the main API surface since Vista.
Interesting that you call out konsole because I think the UI is horrible, perhaps the worst KDE app. The defaults with multiple toolbars are the opposite of what I want in a terminal and the context menu is stuffed with dozens of irrelevant options like char encoding, which I’ve never changed over a thirty year career.
It’s cluttered enough that even though I prefer a GUI preference dialog, I’ll use e.g. alacri/ghost/ki/tty instead.
It's a positive and a negative. I use Konsole daily and have all the toolbars hidden. Every so often if I need something I toggle them on with Control + Shift + M, but it's once in a blue moon that I need that.
I've tried Kitty and Alacritty but the fact that you have to dive into the config file for everything right when you're starting out with the terminal was just not worth the time investment in my eyes.
Are you asking whether software that's been actively developed has changed since the last time you used it 15-20 years ago? I'd be wary of holding a grudge against something for so long.
Seriously? KDE is probably one of the best, if not strictly the best, desktop in computing right now.
It's beautiful. It has various useful desktop widgets. File manager is very powerful. Window rules make it very customizable.
It's like asking a relative whose baby you last saw 15 years ago if said baby can now walk. ^_^
Yes, most things are better (or at least too different) than they were 15-20 years ago.
I am surprised that you encountered bugs that long ago. KDE was at its buggiest in the early days of KDE 4 2008 onwards. If those dates are not exact and it was early KDE 4 you had problems with, then yes, its much better now.
Yes, 2008 is roughly 15~20 years ago; and yes: typing that makes me feel old.
me too!
Same. Hit some bug, tried different distro. Soon after adopted a “live off the land” philosophy, adapting to whatever desktop was default on the chosen distro.
FWIW I now use i3wm and some custom log off screen and rofi and ST and I am happy with it.
I installed OpenSUSE today on a Mac Pro 5,1. Setup wifi with some drama, but nice, it worked. Realized it was running X11 by default, and I wanted to try Wayland. (I came from Mint Mate).
Switching to Wayland made by wifi not authenticate. Weird. Ok, forget the connection and redo it. Just times out the authentication. Ask Gemini. Common problem apparently.... So you have to setup your wifi via terminal. Oook?
Are you trying to tell me KDE requires you to configure wifi at the command line?
No. No, it absolutely does not.
I have used Plasma on at least four different distros in the past 2 months and that has not been true for any of them.
I used OpenSuse with KDE version just until 3 month ago and never had any wifi problems.
I ued the KDE OS before and had no problem.
I am currently using Bazzite (seeing if it is actually better than other Linux OSes) with KDE and never had a problem. Many problems occured, but wifi wasn't one of them.
Does it require? Maybe not if you do it one way vs the other way. Maybe if I had switch to Wayland before setting it up the first time? Who knows. All I know is I could NOT get it to work via the GUI like I had an hour prior. I tried several things. Eventually asked and read that it's a known bug. Maybe that's fake news. But I'm not a total moron and I couldn't get it to work without using the command line.
For example, I tried to forget and then reinput the password and connect. Would just time out. Maybe if I had forgot connection, restarted the computer, and then tried? I did restart, but not in that exact moment after forgetting but before trying again. Who knows.
Nowadays I don't care about KDE, GNOME or XFCE. I just use cwm+uxterm+tmux or windowmaker+gnustep+gap for nice visuals.
All KDE after 2 and 3 is awful to use.
I remember running KDE 1 running flawlessly on 32mb of RAM having a better desktop experience than today...
I don't have historic use of kde but I switched to it about a year ago, after a big release, and its been awesome. Very stable for me, allows custom dpi's for each of my monitors, it doesn't break itself like gnome does. I haven't bothered with other DE's since I tried it, not even xfce (old favourite of mine for tablet & low spec pc), kde performs even well on low specs. And highly configurable out of the box. Its the most stable DE I've encountered for daily driving so far.
What was so much better in the old days (besides memory consumption)?
classical UI without fancy non intuitive stuff.
I remember few years ago that i didnt understand how to use the plasma deskrop out of the box. Person with experience of many different oses...
If its not intuitive it sucks.
All KDE before 5 is buggy, slow, unstable, ugly, and generally unpleasant to use.
I remember running KDE3 and it consumed too much ram for too little stability. Much worse desktop experience than today.
It depended on the release. KDE 3.5.10 from Debian Sarge's backports was rock solid and more stable than several others. Ditto with SuSE, which had a golden stability. Red Hat was a disaster.
SuSE employed several KDE developers at the time while Red Hat employed many Gnome developers. In fact, Gnome was inofficially a Red Hat project back then.
> All KDE after 2 and 3 is awful to use.
Thank you for saying this! I agree. KDE 1.x was great. KDE 2.x was cluttered but it did the job; with a major rework, such as Corel LinuxOS and Xandros gave it, it was a good desktop.
https://www.linux.org.ru/images/9832/original.png
Xandros never managed to tame KDE 3. It released a tech preview, with a basically unmodified copy of KDE 3, and then stopped putting out new versions of the desktop OS.
KDE is the poster child for creeping featuritis: it has dozens and dozens of skins and app launchers and other relatively pointless chrome that does not extend its functionality.
And yet, over the major releases from 4 to 5 to 6, it has gradually lost useful features, such as tabbed title bars and window grouping; title bars on the side of windows (like in wm2 and wmx), or on the bottom; and panels that could span screens.
20 years ago, there was a parody of KDE versus GNOME:
https://koplowicz.com/content/kde-vs-gnome-2
Now, it feels to me like the roles are reversed.
> I remember running KDE 1 running flawlessly on 32mb of RAM having a better desktop experience than today...
Also agreed.
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