I'm absolutely loving KDE since I returned to desktop Linux after a long absence.
What really shocks me is how few of the big distros make KDE a default or "first class" DE choice. If I was a novice user coming from Windows, I'd much prefer KDE, which if you stick to the GUI is very navigable and similar in some ways.
> GNOME essentially gutted itself when it switched away from GNOME 2.
It gutted itself because quite frankly it was anemic at best. I was a heavy KDE 3 user back then and I vastly preferred it compared to gnome 2, but as a long time linux user I also recognize that ALL desktop linux solutions were pretty rough back them. This "gutting" was certainly painful and questionable but what we have today, KDE 6 (it also went trough painful changes in KDE 4) and GNOME 49 are leagues ahead of what we had back them and I honestly think it's important for both of these DE to remain distinct.
> And GNOME lives on as a sorry excuse for a bad copy of MacOS desktop looks without the feel.
It feels nothing like MacOS because it doesn't have 40 years of macintosh baggage in it, resulting in it being much more approachable for PC/windows users. I dare say GNOME earns it's distinction of being neither mac or windows, but it's own thing. It is very usable and approachable across beginners and advanced users, but lacks that depth you encounter in the competition.
MATE was forked around the time GNOME 3 was released and is still going. https://mate-desktop.org
Some people consider Cinnamon to be a GNOME 2 spiritual successor while still using a lot of GNOME 3 stuff under the hood. https://projects.linuxmint.com/cinnamon/
As a long-time GNOME user, I support this sentiment entirely. What a disaster. It keeps getting worse too. Now you can barely even tell foreground from background windows thanks to this Adwaita bullshit. First they removed all the features, now they're removing all of the visual information.
Same, I've using GNOME for a long time and haven't switched yet out of laziness and being busy with other things, but the next time I have to upgrade my laptop I'm giving KDE a spin, I'm tired of GNOME replacing useful features with... nothing.
They deprecate something and replace it with an app that looks sleek because it has no buttons, and it has no buttons because it has none of the features that I use. And this has happened with the file browser, the image browser, the pdf browser, the text editor... I've lost count. GNOME is seriously worse to use now than it was 15 years ago. At this point I'm not sure what they have left to butcher, but every new version they seem to surprise me with something new they found to mess with.
It's not just worse. It's MUCH worse. I'm in the same boat. I want to change but I don't know what to and haven't had the energy to put into that yet. This desktop is dead though and they're just beating it's dead corpse at this point. I've tried KDE a few times and it was just too disorganized for me, so I might just do something simpler like awesome or one of those tiling things and add in what I want. I used to just use openbox. There must be something equally simple for Wayland.
Gnome isn't dead - it looks more consistent, and in my experience, is running smoothet and cleaner than it ever has (including gnome2 days). It's fine that it's not for you, but comments like this are insane, and not healthy. It's 2025, we don't need to I sult software we don't want to use - just don't use it.
(And, threatening to move back to something like openbox, because gnome is too simple and degraded, is extra hilarious)
What GNOME was is completely dead. All of that flexibility and all of those features are gone. This thing here is something else wearing it's dead corpse.
> consistent
Ah yes, very consistent with two entirely different sets of window borders (GTK3 and Adwaita).
By contrast, I find kde/plasma much more confusing for window borders. I see kvantum, dekorator, breeze forks, something called "klassy," etc. I appreciate gnome's ability to sometimes cut the legacy cord.
It’s far from dead. Take a look at the gnome circle apps as a demonstration of how many good applications are being written for gnome these days.
I believe a large part of this is due to the fact that to use QT you are still stuck with either C++ or Python, whereas there are a ton of gnome apps being written in JS and Rust now.
These are pretty small apps. "Binary" converts numbers between bases. Wonderful.
Meanwhile, more than a few large applications have switched away from GTK to Qt including Wireshark, Openshot, and now Audacity. How many large apps have switched the other way?
I finally took the plunge and upgraded from Ubuntu 22.04 to 24.04 on my work laptop. With that come all the gnome package updates and such.
I reboot, load up my session, and a little while after need to grab a couple files from a zip archive. I double-click it in Nautilus, nothing happens. I give it a couple more clicks before I suspect something broke, right click it, and see "Extract" as... the default cursor action...?
I go back up and see five fresh copies of the folder that was inside the zip. I delete them all, go back to the file itself, right click, open with > file-roller. I try and drag'n'drop the couple files I need: doesn't work, for some reason. Great, they've broken drag and drop, too.
> is drag and drop extraction from Nautilus (or other file managers) really that important?
Why, yes it is! It's even worse if you go and _break_ drag'n'drop support on X11! I'm not even using Wayland!
But, oh well, looks like file-roller is unmaintained and outside of core Gnome scope now. Nautilus' zip capabilities are enough, they say! Why would a user want to inspect the contents of a zip archive before wanting to extract it, or god forbid select specific files, after all? Definitely not worth keeping as a core OS/DE feature.
And the PR on file-roller that fixes this on wayland with... a custom fuse virtual filesystem?! has been untouched for the past 2 years, never to be merged.
zfs on Linux has not been production ready for decades. People have lost data from it. There's no real reason to allow the default installer to do this.
If you understand the risks, you can do it yourself.
> zfs on Linux has not been production ready for decades. People have lost data from it.
I don't think that's true. Other than with ZFS-native encryption, which I grant has been less reliable, it's been rock solid for a very long time. And I've run >1PB of postgres databases on it professionally, so I feel fairly comfortable in that assertion.
> There's no real reason to allow the default installer to do this.
The default Ubuntu installer at least used to support ZFS, which is the point.
I feel like the difference is that Kubuntu installer is specifically intended for users wanting the Desktop experience via KDE, whereas the Ubuntu installer can be used for multiple use-cases such as headless Servers or Desktops. Server admins might have reason to run zfs for root, but typically Desktop users are not really needing zfs when they have 1 or maybe 2 disks. There are other filesystems that provide some of the primary features without the overhead of zfs.
If one knows they want/need a zfs root on their Desktop, then they are likely capable of getting the KDE packages setup through the main Ubuntu installer without needing the Kubuntu installer.
As a desktop user I definitely have a lot of benefit of ZFS even with one drive. It's got bitrot check, copy on write (better crash protection than journals) and snapshots. All life savers especially on desktop. ZFS doesn't only shine on big arrays.
And yes you can do that but I don't use Ubuntu a lot and I hate gnome so obviously I tried setting it up through kubuntu when I wanted to give it a spin.
I'm not a fan of Ubuntu anyway due to systemd and snap but these days I'm on FreeBSD as daily driver and very happy with it. It was just when I was last deciding on an OS that I tried it. Also tried arch and manjaro and a few others but I didn't feel at home there either.
> And GNOME lives on as a sorry excuse for a bad copy of MacOS desktop looks without the feel.
This is an inaccurate description. GNOME is a copy of (the worst parts of) Windows 8 and Mac OS, not just Mac OS.
But seriously, GNOME isn't that bad, and there are people who genuinely enjoy it over KDE. Choice is what makes the Linux ecosystem great.
However, I do agree that KDE is probably a saner default than GNOME, if the goal is to make the transition from Windows to Linux easier. GNOME is (probably) less buggy than KDE, simply due to having less features overall, but the UX is going to be completely alien and off-putting to most casual users.
If I look back at it, GNOME is likely responsible for me abandoning all of my attempts to transition to linux when I was younger. I had no idea KDE or alt desktop environments even existed back then and even now distros don't make it easy to discover/experiment with them. It's to the point I have some internal bias against trusting any distro that uses GNOME as the default.
I hope in the future KDE overtakes GNOME to become the "standard linux" experience.
Personally I really like GNOME, and don't in any way consider it a "sorry excuse".
It's not perfect, of course, and it may not be to your liking, but that's just personal preference. I don't particularly care for KDE, but I don't go around spouting vitriol about it for no good reason.
Not surprising, when gnome it's already the default everywhere.
GNOME is polarizing with its feature minimalism and non-traditional desktop, and many people therefore are unhappy it's the default choice in all the big distros.
I respect all other DE's and window managers, I only hate Gnome.
And I only hate it for being the default option. I believe it hasn't gotten its position based on technical merit or user preference but because Ubuntu is pushing it at such, plus I also hate Ubuntu and the company behind it.
Like if people genuinely like Gnome, I don't understand it but that is fine, we are all different. I would just love to see more fair play.
Please. The only thing that's stayed constant through GNOME's history is that the developers have been rooting for other Linux projects to fail, like when System76 announced they were starting COSMIC (since completed and released) [0][1].
> It is very rare that people who use Gnome feel the need to shit on other DEs, but the opposite seems to be pretty common.
You know what they say. If you encounter one jerk, then you encountered one jerk. But if you meet 1000 jerks, and you think everyone who isn't your ally is a jerk, then maybe it's because you have a pattern of user-hostile and developer-hostile decisions which have given people reasons to dislike what you've done to their software ecosystem.
Also, parent comment wasn't "shitting on" GNOME. They were criticizing the design, the first time user experience, and the decisions of downstream projects on which software to center. You are kinda shitting on other users though, IMO, by reframing valid criticisms of GNOME in terms of personal attacks.
"Please. The only thing that's stayed constant through GNOME's history is that the developers have been rooting for other Linux projects to fail, like when System76 announced they were starting COSMIC (since completed and released) [0][1]."
Discussing in semi-private forums if other projects have enough resources to implement certain features is not rooting for other projects to fail. But good that you could dig up a quote from 3 years ago!
"You know what they say. If you encounter one jerk, then you encountered one jerk. But if you meet 1000 jerks, and you think everyone who isn't your ally is a jerk, then maybe it's because you have a pattern of user-hostile and developer-hostile decisions which have given people reasons to dislike what you've done to their software ecosystem."
That's a wild anecdote. I avoided KDE for YEARS because the guy that got me into desktop Linux told me it was terrible and I took his advice as a given. He and the folks he introduced me to all talked massive shit about KDE, and they used Gnome.
This was back around the time Gnome 3 came out.
Oh and when I switched to Plasma two years ago, a GNOME user I used to be friends with came out of the woodwork to tell me how shit KDE is
keep your anecdotal stereotypes to yourself bud. Maybe the real anecdote is that the people you know are unpleasant?
notably, I'm not in contact with the people I've told this story about, anymore.
To be fair, the transition to KDE 4 was super painful. It was basically the Python 3 moment for KDE but worse because they removed a lot of features and gave you a buggy mess instead.
Considering Gnome 3 released like three years after that it makes sense that he you would have discouraged you from using KDE.
It took KDE many years to recover from that. Of course using Gnome 3 instead is a bit extreme. Even broken KDE 4 was probably preferable to that. He should have recommended Xfce or something.
KDE these days is pretty amazing and for sure worth checking out. Though I sometimes still mourn the greatness that was KDE 3.5 even to this day and I am rocking Cinnamon these days.
"To be fair, the transition to KDE 4 was super painful. It was basically the Python 3 moment for KDE but worse because they removed a lot of features and gave you a buggy mess instead."
That is not an excuse to talk shit about a FOSS project. You can say that "you found it buggy and don't recommend using it, but try it out if you want to".
It’s the default because it’s much easier to provide a consistent desktop with gnome compared to KDE. Let’s face it, most quality Linux desktop apps use GTK. Even Firefox uses gtk.
So you can make KDE the default but you’re going to be forced to ship a smattering of gnome/gtk apps anyway with different ui/ux and looks.
On the other hand, you can easily ship a GNOME desktop without even shipping qt libraries at all.
> Let’s face it, most quality Linux desktop apps use GTK.
As I wrote above, more than a few large applications have switched away from GTK to Qt including Wireshark, Openshot, and now Audacity. How many large apps have switched the other way?
Then there are the "quality" apps that have always been on the Qt / KDE side of the fence: Kdenlive, FreeCAD, Krita, Scribus, qBittorrent, Qt Creator, Dolphin... And that's free software. It is a slam dunk for Qt on the commercial side.
> Let's face it, most quality Linux desktop apps use GTK.
My only dependents of GTK are Qalculate, Chromium and Firefox. I do not use the GTK version of Qalculate (but the Arch package includes it anyway) and I would never count modern web browsers as having a significant dependency on any UI toolkit. Am I missing out on a high quality Linux desktop experience?
1. Like yours, KDE is similar to Windows so it's less scary for new users.
2. KDE is similar to Windows so will confuse users when it doesn't run Windows software or doesn't quite behave in the same way. Macs don't look the same and people don't get scared or expect their Windows software to run on it.
I can see both arguments, and I've definitely seen internet complaints about both KDE and Gnome being either too similar or not similar enough and they are confused.
KDE looks different enough to windows in its default install though. And you can make it look like whatever you want, that's the best thing about it. Mine is heavily customised.
I like KDE a lot, and yes you can configure it to look and act just abut any way you like, but it's default definitely has a lot in common with Windows.
It's the other way round, at least some, if not all, of these screens were in KDE before they were released in Windows.
In general, KDE tends to be widely copied. Even macOS has borrowed a lot from KDE.
It has been over 10 years since I stopped being a KDE fanboy and became just a regular fan, but I remember that during my flame-war era, many features from KDE would often appear in Mac OS and Windows and their most popular applications (such as iTunes).
These days I don't care so much, I use KDE and I'm too old to switch.
In common yes but it's not windows, that's pretty obvious.
Especially that start menu with the tiles on windows is very different (and horrible because the default doesn't look like that screenshot, it's filled with ads, news and other crap)
I migrated my non-technical mom from windows to Ubuntu in 2005 and my daily support questions on how to do this and that went to once a few weeks. Gnome 2 and Firefox was very simple. The OpenOffice stability was also great when Microsoft switched to ribbon.
Eventually I got her on a Mac and she hasn’t asked a question since. She keeps buying new ones ever since.
Many people (myself included) seem to get the impression that software that used to run on MS Windows before version 11 doesn’t enjoy the same level if backwards compatibility and forwards compatibility like it used to. People were half-joking that Linux/WINE now runs some older games better than Windows 11.
Maybe I need to lower my expectations a bit but I feel like someone who is explicitly leaving windows for Linux by that point would understand it can’t run everything windows does right? In the same way basically everyone gets that a lot of software doesn’t operate on Mac and Windows.
> I feel like someone who is explicitly leaving windows for Linux by that point would understand it can’t run everything windows does right?
I get it, but it's unfortunately not true.
The amount of folks I've seen complain about their Windows pirate copy of Photoshop CS6 not working on Linux so they will go to Mac over the years has been quite silly.
They’re complaining but I think they at least knew that it wasn’t going to work out the box if at all, they just tried anyway. I work in film production so I’ve seen this exact scenario multiple times and you’re absolutely right, but they weren’t surprised IME. They just thought they could figure it out.
I usually tell them “if you have to use Adobe, then move on. If you don’t care that much, there are plenty of free/affordable programs with feature parity (or better) for Linux against CS6.” I mean it’s pretty old!
I can easily see a novice user coming from Windows accidentally getting into the edit mode of Plasma and being completely confused. I like KDE as an advanced user but I wouldn't install it on my grandma's laptop.
I agree that it would be great to have it as a first-class citizen in more distros, but I guess the maintenance burden is not negligible. I'm glad Fedora promoted it though.
The average Linux user is not your grandma and lets not overstate how easy it is to mess up your KDE config. Most of the config ui in KDE is delightful compared to other desktop environments, and most non-technical users would shy away from even trying to fiddle with technical stuff. And those that do fiddle and mess up are likely to have a technical person at hand to help them, because someone had to install Linux for them in the first place.
KDE is a much more sensible default for the highly technical person who is likely to install Linux themselves. There are other great options if you want something more locked down and noob proof. KDE really is the most relevant choice for default for most distros atm.
Playing devil's advocate, KDE settings are clear but there might be a possibility for a "Advanced Mode" button (with a first-time click warning) on the top-right of the "Quick Settings" screen that opens up when we launch the Settings. That can hide the "risky" stuff (e.g. "Window Management" etc). There might be value in adding a "Lock Panels" options to handle accidental modifications/removal etc.
I agree with the “Advanced Mode” button. That’d solve a great deal of the issues that KDE Settings suffers.
On the other hand I think it could use a fair deal of work on the clarity front. There are a number of settings that are confusing or ambiguous even for some technical users.
The problem with advanced modes is that it is easy for a chaos monkey to get into them, and at scale that will happen all the time.
A mitigation for advanced modes is to have a big bright red "get me the hell out of this to a normal state" button. Making it easy for a human to get back to the normal steady-state reduces the risk of an advanced mode and gently encourages exploration and experimentation, if it is always trivial to get back to what you're used to. This means that configuration changes can't ever be fully destructive though, which requires quite a bit of design and engineering.
I've had the opposite experience. I installed KDE on a new desktop I built for my mom, and outside of a handful of growing pains (mainly things Windoze had vendor locked), she's been happy as a lark with it. She hasn't gone very far off the beaten path and really doesn't have too much of a need to.
For novice users there's already other more opinionated environments anyway. I get KDE because it's powerful not because I want my grandma to use it.
In fact I don't understand why people are rooting for Linux on the desktop. I personally don't even want that to happen because it would quickly become so dumbed down and commercialised that it would become the same trash that is windows and mac. Because normal users just want to pay someone to take care of things for them and that someone will want to make ever more money. Meaning app stores, services, lock-in, advertising and such crap. So what you get is basically like ChromeOS. Easy mode for users, totally locked in to their warm and fuzzy walled garden, total corporate surveillance and completely evil to power users like you and me.
I'm very happy if the majority of consumers stays away because their wants and needs are completely opposite to ours. All the things that make Linux great will not apply to whatever they will use.
20 years ago, my late dad (then aged 69) had a desktop PC that couldn't run Windows anymore in his store business.
Problem solved: Installed the latest Slackware stable (with yours truly as root for essential maintenance) equipped with the latest KDE 3.x environment.
Had no complaints.
I second this. Once and once again I saw new distros being created, some with quite ambitious goals for the desktop, and then crippling themselves by choosing Gnome. I have nothing against it, but it seems to me clearly inferior in functionality and customizability.
What’s up with this constant insistence that the Linux desktop should be familiar to windows users? I feel like people are just as likely to be familiar with OSX at this point.
Also I’m not sure why sticking with a 30 year old mouse driven desktop metaphor is a hard requirement.
I’ve been trying it out coming from the Mac recently, mostly because I had to do stuff that didn’t play well with an arm processor.
It is surprisingly elegant and polished now. There’s a couple rough edges - the settings menu needing the apply button on every change like a form is weirdly ancient, and notifications are a bit noisy, but overall I could see myself ditching macOS for it.
I loved the KDE 3.x series, it felt like the future to me. It was _way_ ahead of both Windows and Mac at the time in terms of features and power.
KDE 4 was a dud. Too much of a radical make-over instead of iterating on what worked. Ugly. Very crashy. I'm not sure how close KDE 4 came to killing KDE altogether, but it must have been pretty close.
KDE 5 was a vast improvement over 4, going back to what made 3 so good. Earlier releases left a bit to be desired and still had a few stability issues. Later releases were pretty well refined. I switched (back) to KDE at this point, when I switched to Debian 12 (bookworm) at the same time.
KDE 6 is just a continuation of KDE 5, but using Qt 6 under the hood and defaulting to Wayland. It's very solid, fast, and just gets out of your way so you can do real work with it.
The 4.x series was the one where the ideas still making Plasma so powerful were seeded. While I loved KDE 3 the design for 4 seemed revolutionary. Too bad it was alpha/beta quality up until the 4.6 release years later. I fared through all the bugs, crashes and performance issues with a young student's determination (while running Fluxbox on the side) but I can very well understand people doing serious work had limited patience for the issues.
Anyhow, happy anniversary from a long-time KDE user!
It's a story that's very similar to Windows Vista. It gets a lot of hate for breaking stuff at the time it was originally released, but the reason it broke stuff is because it put in a new foundation for later releases to build upon. The later releases were better because of the breakage. Something something gotta breaks some eggs to make an omelette something something.
It feels good to donate to a high quality sane default that has been serving my needs as a daily driver. The more I see the mistreatment of Windows users by Microsoft, the more I am grateful for Linux and KDE.
I've been running KDE plasma with wayland in arch for over a year now, it's been an absolute dream come true. Everything just works. Gaming with Proton, dual monitors with different resolutions, Japanese input, I only need to hop onto windows when my son wants to play Minecraft.
I maintain the AUR package for this. `mcpelauncher-linux` and `mcpelauncher-ui`. If you just do a simple `paru -S mcpelauncher-ui`, it should build just fine.
Since MS bought it, aren't there two versions, a legacy one called "Java" and the newer one from MS, probably not in Java and with all the cool kids (multiplayer mode) on it?
I use KDE on my home PC since about a 15 years, exclusively. I like it a lot but it still has some rough edges here and there. For example, the network config interface is a bit messy. Sure you can configure many things with it, but it's hard to understand). Dolphin is the best file manager I have ever used, nothing come close nowadays (I have tested windows and macs). The desktop configuration is quite nice and the look and feel is really good too.
Unfortunately, it still crashes sometimes (about 2 or 3 times over 500 hours of usage, but my PC is 15 years old, so this may explain that).
And as many here, I sure don't think about changing.
Dolphin is a real gem. Split windows, tabs, open terminal in current location, etc. Going back to Windows Explorer is painful once you've gotten used to Dolphin.
Thanks KDE - I always liked the Windows-like design (that's what I would call it coming from Windows like many people).
Instead of hiding "power-user" features so well you have to google them to find them, I can interact with the OS on gui or command-line level - really depending mostly on my mood.
Although KDEConnect to easily connect a Windows PC, a Linux laptop and an android phone to share files and control my pc while watching a movie was the "step-up". When they are in the same network and approved, they simply connect.
My first introduction to Linux was through Knoppix, the first “live CD” if I recall correctly. Maybe there was something before it, but I remember it as something new and magical at the time: being able to test a full Linux desktop directly from a CD.
From there, as I was learning Linux (I was 16 years old), I used KDE a lot. It was such a cool experience. I especially loved how easy it was to create custom themes, the desktop widgets, and Amarok! the big “killer app” back then. A music player that could show you song lyrics, album art, and even the band’s history by pulling data from Wikipedia and other APIs. It felt futuristic.
Later on, I switched to GNOME as it became more popular in the mid 2000s, but I’ve always had a soft spot for KDE. It’s been part of my Linux journey for nearly three decades.
Glad they keep using the mascots to help brand and punch up their images.
Both artist links are either private or show closed commissions, so the artists aren't fishing for exposure to do lead gen, they have a passion to help make KDE be a better marketable product.
I daily drive KDE, but I'm glad that in part thanks go the KDE projects approach to accessibility to newcomers and these artists' desires to help out, we get visual aids for the masses, which are pleasant for those of us who live in walls of text and can help humanize an otherwise dry technical subject, aiding newcomers considering joining the project to have an easier time understanding what they are looking at.
Happy birthday KDE, outside XFCE, KDE is the desktop I would go back to if I ever reconsider building a Linux desktop again.
Has all the developer goodies with KDevelop, written with tooling that empowers UI/UX development workflows, has a proper component system with much better tooling than COM, quite configurable without extensions all over the place.
Signed, a disillusioned former Gtkmm user, with how GNOME turned out.
I'm still surprised at how smooth KDE Plasma + Wayland + Input actions on Arch feels on a fresh install on my new HP AMD laptop.
The Only slightly wonky thing has been the fingerprint reader. Other than that my Linux set up now feels smoother than my office Mac. AND I get way better battery life compared to Windows on the same machine.
Special call outs to: kwin, dolphin, yakuake, kde-connect
I was pleasantly surprised, that a recent update for plasma fixed the fingerprint reader for my thinkpad t15.
It previously had an issue, where it didn't work after waking from suspend.
I am used to having "Emacs key-bindings" on both gnome and Mac (so that for example ctrl-a will always go to the beginning of a textbox no matter the application, such as chrome).
For some strange reason this seems to be very hard thing to set up on KDE or am I missing something?
> so that for example ctrl-a will always go to the beginning of a textbox no matter the application
And Control-W will always erase word no matter the application?
This is actually a major reason I use KDE: I can, with some effort, change keyboard shortcuts to avoid conflicting with terminal Control keys. It doesn't solve the textbox problem, though.
(I don't use Emacs bindings, but Control-W erase word came in the ‘new’ TTY driver in BSD2 in 1983 — predating Windows 1.0, incidentally — likely copying TOPS-20.)
There are projects like kinto that achieve very good results at making Linux behave like macOS on shortcuts (cmd instead of ctrl only when it makes sense, etc).
I’m not sure how they do it, i suspect it’s mostly a manual grind for configuring the most common shortcuts and apps, but there might be some idea there that can be reused for the eMacs setup.
On paper KDE's system is more elegant and practical than GNOME's. In practice the keyboard shortcut management via exporting and importing is rather unwieldy. Then again, if you want to go deep into setting up your shortcuts to something properly usable, it's a fair bit more convenient with KDE, where all your shortcuts are in a single place, than with GNOME, where you have to look in all the gconf categories and it's a right pain to find conflicts.
I'm not sure this is the reason or a big reason, but I think this is very difficult to do in Linux, sadly.
What makes Linux great is also its biggest handicap, in my opinion, when it comes to User Experience: the fragmentation of UI frameworks and libraries.
I imagine having this control between Qt, GTK and other UI libraries and electron-type-apps os difficult if not impossible.
It works perfectly on Gnome (ubuntu) though. There is simple toggle you have to do in one of the standard control panels as well.
I am surprised this issue is not gaining traction with the KDE crowd, as I imagine a substantial part of the userbase are emacs users and used to emacs keybindings.
As I thought: you can set a different shortcut for "Beginning of line" and it will work in Qt input fields but, sadly, not others. I don't know if this is the step you're on.
omg I found my people. Ctrl+A and Ctrl+E are so engraved into my muscle memory that it always takes a moment to readjust when using non Mac OSes. I didn't know Gnome also uses those as a KDE fan
This seemed like something relatively easy for chatgpt to handle. The response is a bit complicated compared to what it sounds like you are looking for (it's not from the kde settings gui), but still a two minute "fix".
It was easy enough and I have enough experience with kde and linux to know it would work. I have no interest in doing this although I do similar things with "Input Remapper". My point, which I tried to state kindly, was it is not that hard and not worth complaining about - basically a 2025 "Let me google that for you".
For the same reason I would use gpt to solve something basic like this: It is the simplest and fastest way to get it done right now. I was not trying to be inflammatory, although apparently I did not understand it would be a big deal to people.
I've installed two KDE+Tumbleweed machines in the past two days. One for a friend into retro gaming and the other time for older family into solitaire/youtube. KDE is an easy drop-in for Windows. If you have a better recommendation than Tumbleweed for new people, I'm open to looking into it, but so far it's been easy and I'll probably be the one to support it.
KDE has been my daily driver since 2008. The upgrade from KDE2 to KDE3 was a nightmare, but once the dust settled, KDE became quite good... One of my favorite things about KDE is how they have left the user a wide berth to customize their experience. After almost 20 years of tweaking, I find moving to other desktop GUIs to be very painful. And to this day Dolphin is the gold standard for file managers.
My first experience with KDE was the beta release that came with SuSE 5.2 in the late 90s. I still daily drive KDE, though very much has changed since then, it still is familiar.
It's been well over a decade (maybe closer to 2 in fact) since I have used KDE, and I'm happy with my more minimalist setup based on Arch+AwesomeWM, but I think KDE is a great project and like to follow its progress. It seems to have a great suite of software - the KDE versions of common applications often seem to be among the best FOSS options out there.
Thanks for all the work done over the years! I've donated to the project many times and it always feels good to support something I enjoy using every day.
I've installed KDE on my Ubuntu system instead of Gnome and it is pretty nice. It feels slightly more integrated, so lots of regular UI actions feel slicker and simpler.
With this hitting multiple communications media for me independently over the last few hours, it has me considering whether I can switch from Windows to Linux for my gaming PC again.
Last time I tried, I used Ubuntu, and I experienced problems with several games via Proton (e.g., The Finals, Fields of Mistria, and Civilization VII, among others). I checked ProtonDB, and it looks like those issues may be resolved.
However, I also wonder what people are using to replace iCloud/OneDrive/Dropbox/whatever on Linux. Or, if they don't use such a thing in the first place, how they handle off-site backups of files and images.
Dropbox works fine on Linux so you should be good. OneDrive has a community developed client, not sure how good it works.
Gaming works great on Linux, arguably better than on Windows. Show stoppers are mostly aggressive anti-cheat or DRM stuff so multiplayer can still suck but for anyone doing single player it is amazing. I have a windows installation I can dual boot into but I haven't in like half a year, I prefer gaming on Linux.
Linux Mint with Cinnamon has a traditional Desktop close to Windows. I highly recommend checking it out.
This go around, I'm thinking of trying Kubuntu. Specifically 25.10 Kubuntu, since apparently Wayland fixes a lot of the problems I had trying to game on Linux before.
I don't daily drive KDE, but when I set up our home media PC in the living room over the weekend, KDE was a no-brainier to pick for the DE.
Everything immediately just worked, it's familiar enough that someone not used to Linux can click around and get to things, and as a bonus, controlling it from the couch with our phones is trivial with KDE Connect.
I used Linux for a long time (since ~2002), but for the past years I've been daily-driving a MacBook.
I'm now switching back, and will likely go with either Gnome or KDE. I've used XFCE, i3wm, etc. for years before – and briefly tried Sway too before I switched to Mac – but from what I've read it sounds like the "big" DEs make life easier post-Wayland.
Anyone want to share why you currently choose KDE over Gnome?
Gnome UI sucks. It is ugly and non-customizable without plugins, or whatever you call that addon that enables you to put your clock on the right... I'm sure the UI makes more sense on a tablet or a phone with touch controls, but I just want to use it on my laptop with a regular monitor and with a mouse (or touchpad).
KDE has sane defaults and looks and feels like Windows UI from the best era. It just works.
"It just works" is the important part. The style doesn't matter a whole lot if things aren't working right. Is this other guy's comment about GTK not a real problem? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45581866
I don't understand that comment. The K-suite of apps is just as comprehensive as the G-suite of apps - most people don't really care or notice anyway. No, I did not notice that Firefox uses GTK - seriously, who cares, and it is even shipped as a snap or flatpak. (I would even say that Qt is far more capable and developer friendly than GTK, so I'd pick Qt over GTK _any time_.)
There is one app that I installed recently, that used GTK and I noticed it - the ProtonVPN Connect UI, it looks a bit funny, but integrated seamlessly in the whole system (KDE) including the tray icon. It just works. What is the problem?
KDE is a wonderful desktop environment. It's been a while since I've used it but from what I've seen it grows and improves every year.
Gnome is more opinionated. There are fewer options overall, the core apps are generally much simpler, and it assumes a specific way of interacting with your computer. You can change this with extensions, but if you are dead set on a specific workflow and need to venture beyond a small set of widely-used and well-supported extensions then it may feel like you're swimming upstream.
I personally prefer Gnome because I don't mind trying out new workflows and it ended up being a good fit. But I understand why many "hacker types" would prefer KDE, and (assuming they've ironed out stability and release scheduling issues) I agree with other comments that KDE would make for a better default experience, especially for people coming from Windows.
Thankfully, both exist and you can try them and see what works for you!
Thanks for all the replies! I'll probably try Fedora KDE first in that case :)
Last time I used KDE as my main desktop was v3.x, I switched away once v4.0 was released (at launch it was slow, unstable, and lacked many features). But it seems KDE 6 is likely to fit my personality more than recent Gnome versions.
I guess because the defaults suits me better, and the configurability is exposed well and I don't have to load special tools or commands to change stuff.
I used to run complicated setups back in the days, with black/flux/openbox or even enlightenment (16), but now I don't really have the interest or time for tweaking DEs.
> Anyone want to share why you currently choose KDE over Gnome?
Just to give you an opposite perspective...I was a long time Kubuntu / KDE Neon user (almost 10 years) and shifted to Gnome couple of years back (Ubuntu 22.04), now running 24.04. It's been very stable and out of the way. I am not sure why people are complaining about UI, for me it's barely visible on my two screens. All open-source and proprietary apps I use run well and without glitch. It took me an hour to get used to the "Gnome" way when I shifted.
>Anyone want to share why you currently choose KDE over Gnome?
GNOME is like a tool that was designed to fit the average user so if you are not the average user (like you know the joke where the average person has 1 testicle) then you have to mold yourself to fit into GNOME (or try to hack it with unsuported extensions that might make it more tolerable) in KDE you have nobs to tweak it to fit you smoothly (like for example with one checkbox I can make the Left Alt to be a Ctrl button so i do not bend my hand and fingers to use my many Ctrl+keys shortcuts).
IMO use GNOME only if you are the typical GNOME user, that prefer to bend themselves over and not to adapt the tool to fit . Avoid KDE if too many options cause you some anxiety or buffer overflow.
I switched from Gnome to KDE Plasma because I find it more stable and more integrated since many of the features I otherwise miss are out of the box in KDE Plasma, and you do not need third party extensions which are quite unstable. Also later found out Plasma is much more configurable and personalizable so I xan really fit it best to my orefered workflow. I also find KDE developers listen to their users much more.
I'm increasingly pessimistic about everyday reach of Linux.
Around me, all I see are Windows users, volunteers teaching old people how to use several tools... on Windows. Public institutions relying on Windows, upgrading to Windows 11, doing everything despite Trump, despite Microsoft, despite all of the negatives associated with it.
When primary school students are given Windows laptops instead of Linux ones, there's not much hope in changing. But how can you amass enough momentum and volunteers to get enough manpower to at least try to move in the other direction?
KDE surely helps, but it's like, nowadays simply trying to explain what a non-mobile OS is useful for, seems like yet another uphill battle, and I cannot fix even my small town by myself.
Inertia is a hell of a drug. The US failed to break up Microsoft in the 90s, and never took antitrust action against them again after that. So the world built its entire tech infrastructure on top of Windows (as far as endpoints go, web facing servers are another matter).
But,
> When primary school students are given Windows laptops instead of Linux ones,
At least this is changing, although not true "desktop linux," students are mostly given Chromebooks, and grow up on google docs/g workspace so that early familiarity with Windows + Office is dissapearing.
It's not going to be a good thing long term though, I already see it with employees where I work (I'm in IT). We have plenty of younger employees that don't even have computers at home if they aren't gamers. They are familiar with iOS/iPad OS only. Windows + Office is a mystical black box, and file management/file systems are a foreign concept.
That, IMO, makes Linux desktop adoption that much more difficult. At least Windows->Linux you can take a lot of basic concepts with you. MobileOS->Not mobile OS is much more difficult.
We do have one main Linux kernel (while other open source like BSD is far less popular on PCs) and a bunch of tools like bash and git that are de facto default. Seems like Linux community actively avoids converging on a default DE though.
We have many, many Linux kernels. Many distros compile their own kernels. You aren't using "the" Linux kernel most likely, you're using your distros Linux kernel. It's just that nobody notices because the kernel has stable interfaces.
Thats also why you can run kernel 6.5 on a version of RHEL from 15 years ago.
By its nature as a community, the Linux community will never converge on a default DE.
The only reason Windows pulls it off is because it's not a community. It's a dictatorship and you're a serf. You use what Microsoft tells you to use.
But, even then, there is divergence. No doubt you've heard of people sticking to 10 even though Microsoft is abandoning it. Some people still use 7, or even XP.
Just recently switched back from XFCE to KDE, after a 20 years hiatus. KDE feels just as snappy as XFCE but is also more polished and has really nice settings management.
Congrats to the KDE team. Unfortunately too broke to donate.
Amazing project my only gripes about KDE is that while the customization is great it can feel overwhelming and opaque. For example multiple different ways to get transparency (Kvantum & qt6ct) but nothing built in or large amount of different but seemingly connected config files with confusing syntax in .config
I hope the work on union will help fix some of that
Yes, if you choose to go off the happy path into the weeds, then you will be off the happy path in the weeds. The only desktop environments where that isn't true are the ones that forbid customization.
KDE user since version 2. Fell in love with KMail. Even upgraded my RAM from 16 to 48MB to run it smoothly lol.
Stopped used it at version 4, the new kdepim was atrocious. But now it's usable again. Probably my largest peeve is how there's advanced desktop search/semantic engine but it has no own interface as if the devs were ashamed of it, search results only appear when you type something in menu. And if you google nepomuk/baloo most ppl just ask how to turn it off.
Started regularly donating last year and it is well worth it. KDE Plasma is the best desktop in existance and they also make one of the best FOSS applications.
My dream is that The Qt Company will make some monstrous deal with the EU and all the licensing will become 100% opensource while they will be tasked and paid to maintain it longterm and work on it.
>Case in point: Microsoft is stopping free support for Windows 10 on hundreds of millions of computers this very week. Many of these old yet perfectly usable devices will not be able to upgrade because of spurious hardware requirements. Microsoft’s solution? “Throw away your computer and pollute the planet because we want to make even more money.”
Windows 10 was released in 2015. Does KDE still support whatever version of KDE was released in 2015?
KDE 5 was released in 2015 and still supported on Arch Linux. Even KDE 3, released in, 2002 is still supported and installable: https://www.trinitydesktop.org/
Also supported in Slackware 15.0 (stable) and Slackware -current, where it is still the default desktop environment and the planned desktop for the upcoming 15.1 release.
(I'm using Plasma 6.5 beta now btw but the official support still is on 5.x.)
You're misunderstanding - the point is that current (supported) versions of KDE support hardware manufactured in 2015, and current (supproted) versions of Windows will stop doing that very soon.
I'm absolutely loving KDE since I returned to desktop Linux after a long absence.
What really shocks me is how few of the big distros make KDE a default or "first class" DE choice. If I was a novice user coming from Windows, I'd much prefer KDE, which if you stick to the GUI is very navigable and similar in some ways.
GNOME essentially gutted itself when it switched away from GNOME 2.
Somehow they still stuck around as a broken default. Go figure.
IIRC, then a lot of documentation still mentions GNOME first and then KDE second.
Furthermore, Ubuntu without the prefix is GNOME. Kubuntu is KDE. And all the others like Lubuntu, etc. all seem "special" to casual users.
Think of what the average university student installs in a VM, when they need to run some random command-line tool. Plain stock Ubuntu.
And GNOME lives on as a sorry excuse for a bad copy of MacOS desktop looks without the feel.
> GNOME essentially gutted itself when it switched away from GNOME 2.
It gutted itself because quite frankly it was anemic at best. I was a heavy KDE 3 user back then and I vastly preferred it compared to gnome 2, but as a long time linux user I also recognize that ALL desktop linux solutions were pretty rough back them. This "gutting" was certainly painful and questionable but what we have today, KDE 6 (it also went trough painful changes in KDE 4) and GNOME 49 are leagues ahead of what we had back them and I honestly think it's important for both of these DE to remain distinct.
> And GNOME lives on as a sorry excuse for a bad copy of MacOS desktop looks without the feel.
It feels nothing like MacOS because it doesn't have 40 years of macintosh baggage in it, resulting in it being much more approachable for PC/windows users. I dare say GNOME earns it's distinction of being neither mac or windows, but it's own thing. It is very usable and approachable across beginners and advanced users, but lacks that depth you encounter in the competition.
Minor correction, the K Desktop Environment is instead called KDE Plasma starting with version 4
TBH Gnome 2 (initially) was half-inspired from Mac OS 9. Specially the former spatial mode in Nautilus.
Are there any active gnome 2 forks? That's when I left gnome, too, and I haven't found anything I like as well.
MATE was forked around the time GNOME 3 was released and is still going. https://mate-desktop.org
Some people consider Cinnamon to be a GNOME 2 spiritual successor while still using a lot of GNOME 3 stuff under the hood. https://projects.linuxmint.com/cinnamon/
Yeah, Cinnamon is amazing. Traditional desktop and just works.
As a long-time GNOME user, I support this sentiment entirely. What a disaster. It keeps getting worse too. Now you can barely even tell foreground from background windows thanks to this Adwaita bullshit. First they removed all the features, now they're removing all of the visual information.
Same, I've using GNOME for a long time and haven't switched yet out of laziness and being busy with other things, but the next time I have to upgrade my laptop I'm giving KDE a spin, I'm tired of GNOME replacing useful features with... nothing.
They deprecate something and replace it with an app that looks sleek because it has no buttons, and it has no buttons because it has none of the features that I use. And this has happened with the file browser, the image browser, the pdf browser, the text editor... I've lost count. GNOME is seriously worse to use now than it was 15 years ago. At this point I'm not sure what they have left to butcher, but every new version they seem to surprise me with something new they found to mess with.
It's not just worse. It's MUCH worse. I'm in the same boat. I want to change but I don't know what to and haven't had the energy to put into that yet. This desktop is dead though and they're just beating it's dead corpse at this point. I've tried KDE a few times and it was just too disorganized for me, so I might just do something simpler like awesome or one of those tiling things and add in what I want. I used to just use openbox. There must be something equally simple for Wayland.
Gnome isn't dead - it looks more consistent, and in my experience, is running smoothet and cleaner than it ever has (including gnome2 days). It's fine that it's not for you, but comments like this are insane, and not healthy. It's 2025, we don't need to I sult software we don't want to use - just don't use it.
(And, threatening to move back to something like openbox, because gnome is too simple and degraded, is extra hilarious)
What GNOME was is completely dead. All of that flexibility and all of those features are gone. This thing here is something else wearing it's dead corpse.
> consistent
Ah yes, very consistent with two entirely different sets of window borders (GTK3 and Adwaita).
By contrast, I find kde/plasma much more confusing for window borders. I see kvantum, dekorator, breeze forks, something called "klassy," etc. I appreciate gnome's ability to sometimes cut the legacy cord.
It’s far from dead. Take a look at the gnome circle apps as a demonstration of how many good applications are being written for gnome these days.
I believe a large part of this is due to the fact that to use QT you are still stuck with either C++ or Python, whereas there are a ton of gnome apps being written in JS and Rust now.
These are pretty small apps. "Binary" converts numbers between bases. Wonderful.
Meanwhile, more than a few large applications have switched away from GTK to Qt including Wireshark, Openshot, and now Audacity. How many large apps have switched the other way?
>JS
Where's Vala?
> QT you are still stuck with either C++ or Python,
... most Qt apps use QML / QtQuick which is based on ES7 ?
I finally took the plunge and upgraded from Ubuntu 22.04 to 24.04 on my work laptop. With that come all the gnome package updates and such.
I reboot, load up my session, and a little while after need to grab a couple files from a zip archive. I double-click it in Nautilus, nothing happens. I give it a couple more clicks before I suspect something broke, right click it, and see "Extract" as... the default cursor action...?
I go back up and see five fresh copies of the folder that was inside the zip. I delete them all, go back to the file itself, right click, open with > file-roller. I try and drag'n'drop the couple files I need: doesn't work, for some reason. Great, they've broken drag and drop, too.
I look it up, stumble on https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/file-roller/-/issues/4, 7 years old issue -- I can already tell this is gonna be a joy; scroll down some, see https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/file-roller/-/issues/4#note_1..., and audibly groan.
> is drag and drop extraction from Nautilus (or other file managers) really that important?
Why, yes it is! It's even worse if you go and _break_ drag'n'drop support on X11! I'm not even using Wayland!
But, oh well, looks like file-roller is unmaintained and outside of core Gnome scope now. Nautilus' zip capabilities are enough, they say! Why would a user want to inspect the contents of a zip archive before wanting to extract it, or god forbid select specific files, after all? Definitely not worth keeping as a core OS/DE feature.
And the PR on file-roller that fixes this on wayland with... a custom fuse virtual filesystem?! has been untouched for the past 2 years, never to be merged.
I'm moving to KDE, thank you very much.
"> is drag and drop extraction from Nautilus (or other file managers) really that important?
Why, yes it is! It's even worse if you go and _break_ drag'n'drop support on X11! I'm not even using Wayland!"
It is apparently not important enough for anyone to actually work on it. But maybe it is for you?
Yep. This and a million other features just keep evaporating. Every few months we get a new downgrade.
To be fair to gnome, most modern software has moved this way.
It's bad and I hate it, but at least it's not surprising.
Kubuntu isn't really feature complete compared to Ubuntu, for example the installer doesn't allow to create a zfs on root install.
zfs on Linux has not been production ready for decades. People have lost data from it. There's no real reason to allow the default installer to do this.
If you understand the risks, you can do it yourself.
indeed, do you have some references on the data loss? would be good to read actually
I currently think ZFS is quite robust, but who knows never hurts to learn more..
> zfs on Linux has not been production ready for decades. People have lost data from it.
I don't think that's true. Other than with ZFS-native encryption, which I grant has been less reliable, it's been rock solid for a very long time. And I've run >1PB of postgres databases on it professionally, so I feel fairly comfortable in that assertion.
> There's no real reason to allow the default installer to do this.
The default Ubuntu installer at least used to support ZFS, which is the point.
I feel like the difference is that Kubuntu installer is specifically intended for users wanting the Desktop experience via KDE, whereas the Ubuntu installer can be used for multiple use-cases such as headless Servers or Desktops. Server admins might have reason to run zfs for root, but typically Desktop users are not really needing zfs when they have 1 or maybe 2 disks. There are other filesystems that provide some of the primary features without the overhead of zfs.
If one knows they want/need a zfs root on their Desktop, then they are likely capable of getting the KDE packages setup through the main Ubuntu installer without needing the Kubuntu installer.
As a desktop user I definitely have a lot of benefit of ZFS even with one drive. It's got bitrot check, copy on write (better crash protection than journals) and snapshots. All life savers especially on desktop. ZFS doesn't only shine on big arrays.
And yes you can do that but I don't use Ubuntu a lot and I hate gnome so obviously I tried setting it up through kubuntu when I wanted to give it a spin.
I'm not a fan of Ubuntu anyway due to systemd and snap but these days I'm on FreeBSD as daily driver and very happy with it. It was just when I was last deciding on an OS that I tried it. Also tried arch and manjaro and a few others but I didn't feel at home there either.
You literally proved my point by admitting to daily driving FreeBSD. You are not the target audience for Kubuntu.
Wow. Ran Kubuntu and never noticed this. This makes the "special" Unbuntu derivatives even less interesting to casual users.
Zfs is pretty much the only thing, everything else is exactly the same after the system is installed
> And GNOME lives on as a sorry excuse for a bad copy of MacOS desktop looks without the feel.
This is an inaccurate description. GNOME is a copy of (the worst parts of) Windows 8 and Mac OS, not just Mac OS.
But seriously, GNOME isn't that bad, and there are people who genuinely enjoy it over KDE. Choice is what makes the Linux ecosystem great.
However, I do agree that KDE is probably a saner default than GNOME, if the goal is to make the transition from Windows to Linux easier. GNOME is (probably) less buggy than KDE, simply due to having less features overall, but the UX is going to be completely alien and off-putting to most casual users.
If I look back at it, GNOME is likely responsible for me abandoning all of my attempts to transition to linux when I was younger. I had no idea KDE or alt desktop environments even existed back then and even now distros don't make it easy to discover/experiment with them. It's to the point I have some internal bias against trusting any distro that uses GNOME as the default.
I hope in the future KDE overtakes GNOME to become the "standard linux" experience.
The most used Linux user space is Android and the second is probably ChromeOS.
GNOME was ... weird in an uncool way even in version 2 if you ask me. The file picker dialog I distinctly 'member being particularly bad.
Personally I really like GNOME, and don't in any way consider it a "sorry excuse".
It's not perfect, of course, and it may not be to your liking, but that's just personal preference. I don't particularly care for KDE, but I don't go around spouting vitriol about it for no good reason.
"How do you know if someone does not like Gnome?
Don't worry, they will tell you."
It is very rare that people who use Gnome feel the need to shit on other DEs, but the opposite seems to be pretty common.
Not surprising, when gnome it's already the default everywhere.
GNOME is polarizing with its feature minimalism and non-traditional desktop, and many people therefore are unhappy it's the default choice in all the big distros.
Gnome is just plain not the best choice for default. More people are better served with KDE for instance.
Then why are not other distros that provide other defaults "big". Why do people use distros that lack the features that they want?
I respect all other DE's and window managers, I only hate Gnome.
And I only hate it for being the default option. I believe it hasn't gotten its position based on technical merit or user preference but because Ubuntu is pushing it at such, plus I also hate Ubuntu and the company behind it.
Like if people genuinely like Gnome, I don't understand it but that is fine, we are all different. I would just love to see more fair play.
Please. The only thing that's stayed constant through GNOME's history is that the developers have been rooting for other Linux projects to fail, like when System76 announced they were starting COSMIC (since completed and released) [0][1].
> It is very rare that people who use Gnome feel the need to shit on other DEs, but the opposite seems to be pretty common.
You know what they say. If you encounter one jerk, then you encountered one jerk. But if you meet 1000 jerks, and you think everyone who isn't your ally is a jerk, then maybe it's because you have a pattern of user-hostile and developer-hostile decisions which have given people reasons to dislike what you've done to their software ecosystem.
Also, parent comment wasn't "shitting on" GNOME. They were criticizing the design, the first time user experience, and the decisions of downstream projects on which software to center. You are kinda shitting on other users though, IMO, by reframing valid criticisms of GNOME in terms of personal attacks.
[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20221004085739/https://twitter.c...
[1] https://system76.com/cosmic
"Please. The only thing that's stayed constant through GNOME's history is that the developers have been rooting for other Linux projects to fail, like when System76 announced they were starting COSMIC (since completed and released) [0][1]."
Discussing in semi-private forums if other projects have enough resources to implement certain features is not rooting for other projects to fail. But good that you could dig up a quote from 3 years ago!
"You know what they say. If you encounter one jerk, then you encountered one jerk. But if you meet 1000 jerks, and you think everyone who isn't your ally is a jerk, then maybe it's because you have a pattern of user-hostile and developer-hostile decisions which have given people reasons to dislike what you've done to their software ecosystem."
I don't understand what you mean here.
That's a wild anecdote. I avoided KDE for YEARS because the guy that got me into desktop Linux told me it was terrible and I took his advice as a given. He and the folks he introduced me to all talked massive shit about KDE, and they used Gnome.
This was back around the time Gnome 3 came out.
Oh and when I switched to Plasma two years ago, a GNOME user I used to be friends with came out of the woodwork to tell me how shit KDE is
keep your anecdotal stereotypes to yourself bud. Maybe the real anecdote is that the people you know are unpleasant?
notably, I'm not in contact with the people I've told this story about, anymore.
To be fair, the transition to KDE 4 was super painful. It was basically the Python 3 moment for KDE but worse because they removed a lot of features and gave you a buggy mess instead.
Considering Gnome 3 released like three years after that it makes sense that he you would have discouraged you from using KDE.
It took KDE many years to recover from that. Of course using Gnome 3 instead is a bit extreme. Even broken KDE 4 was probably preferable to that. He should have recommended Xfce or something.
KDE these days is pretty amazing and for sure worth checking out. Though I sometimes still mourn the greatness that was KDE 3.5 even to this day and I am rocking Cinnamon these days.
"To be fair, the transition to KDE 4 was super painful. It was basically the Python 3 moment for KDE but worse because they removed a lot of features and gave you a buggy mess instead."
That is not an excuse to talk shit about a FOSS project. You can say that "you found it buggy and don't recommend using it, but try it out if you want to".
It is not an anecdote. You can just read the comments here.
But you seem to have other experiences, I can't say anything about that.
It’s the default because it’s much easier to provide a consistent desktop with gnome compared to KDE. Let’s face it, most quality Linux desktop apps use GTK. Even Firefox uses gtk.
So you can make KDE the default but you’re going to be forced to ship a smattering of gnome/gtk apps anyway with different ui/ux and looks.
On the other hand, you can easily ship a GNOME desktop without even shipping qt libraries at all.
I would argue it's the other way round. :)
Even GIMP, the one GTK app I would never expect to be surpassed by a KDE app, is being outdone by Krita these days.
> Let’s face it, most quality Linux desktop apps use GTK.
As I wrote above, more than a few large applications have switched away from GTK to Qt including Wireshark, Openshot, and now Audacity. How many large apps have switched the other way?
Then there are the "quality" apps that have always been on the Qt / KDE side of the fence: Kdenlive, FreeCAD, Krita, Scribus, qBittorrent, Qt Creator, Dolphin... And that's free software. It is a slam dunk for Qt on the commercial side.
> Let's face it, most quality Linux desktop apps use GTK.
My only dependents of GTK are Qalculate, Chromium and Firefox. I do not use the GTK version of Qalculate (but the Arch package includes it anyway) and I would never count modern web browsers as having a significant dependency on any UI toolkit. Am I missing out on a high quality Linux desktop experience?
Is this an actual usability problem, or is the UI just less pretty when you use GTK apps in KDE?
There are two minds of thought.
1. Like yours, KDE is similar to Windows so it's less scary for new users.
2. KDE is similar to Windows so will confuse users when it doesn't run Windows software or doesn't quite behave in the same way. Macs don't look the same and people don't get scared or expect their Windows software to run on it.
I can see both arguments, and I've definitely seen internet complaints about both KDE and Gnome being either too similar or not similar enough and they are confused.
KDE looks different enough to windows in its default install though. And you can make it look like whatever you want, that's the best thing about it. Mine is heavily customised.
> KDE looks different enough to windows in its default
Uhhhh it does?
https://kde.org/content/plasma-desktop/plasma-launcher.png
https://laptopmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/win10-sta...
https://pointieststick.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/hebrew...
https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/cho...
I like KDE a lot, and yes you can configure it to look and act just abut any way you like, but it's default definitely has a lot in common with Windows.
It's the other way round, at least some, if not all, of these screens were in KDE before they were released in Windows. In general, KDE tends to be widely copied. Even macOS has borrowed a lot from KDE.
It has been over 10 years since I stopped being a KDE fanboy and became just a regular fan, but I remember that during my flame-war era, many features from KDE would often appear in Mac OS and Windows and their most popular applications (such as iTunes).
These days I don't care so much, I use KDE and I'm too old to switch.
In common yes but it's not windows, that's pretty obvious.
Especially that start menu with the tiles on windows is very different (and horrible because the default doesn't look like that screenshot, it's filled with ads, news and other crap)
I think there’s more thoughts to…
I migrated my non-technical mom from windows to Ubuntu in 2005 and my daily support questions on how to do this and that went to once a few weeks. Gnome 2 and Firefox was very simple. The OpenOffice stability was also great when Microsoft switched to ribbon.
Eventually I got her on a Mac and she hasn’t asked a question since. She keeps buying new ones ever since.
Point 2 doesn’t count. As far as Windows 11 is concerned even Windows doesn’t run games like old Windows.
What do you mean?
Many people (myself included) seem to get the impression that software that used to run on MS Windows before version 11 doesn’t enjoy the same level if backwards compatibility and forwards compatibility like it used to. People were half-joking that Linux/WINE now runs some older games better than Windows 11.
The impression might, of course, be mistaken.
Maybe I need to lower my expectations a bit but I feel like someone who is explicitly leaving windows for Linux by that point would understand it can’t run everything windows does right? In the same way basically everyone gets that a lot of software doesn’t operate on Mac and Windows.
> I feel like someone who is explicitly leaving windows for Linux by that point would understand it can’t run everything windows does right?
I get it, but it's unfortunately not true.
The amount of folks I've seen complain about their Windows pirate copy of Photoshop CS6 not working on Linux so they will go to Mac over the years has been quite silly.
They’re complaining but I think they at least knew that it wasn’t going to work out the box if at all, they just tried anyway. I work in film production so I’ve seen this exact scenario multiple times and you’re absolutely right, but they weren’t surprised IME. They just thought they could figure it out.
I usually tell them “if you have to use Adobe, then move on. If you don’t care that much, there are plenty of free/affordable programs with feature parity (or better) for Linux against CS6.” I mean it’s pretty old!
I can easily see a novice user coming from Windows accidentally getting into the edit mode of Plasma and being completely confused. I like KDE as an advanced user but I wouldn't install it on my grandma's laptop.
I agree that it would be great to have it as a first-class citizen in more distros, but I guess the maintenance burden is not negligible. I'm glad Fedora promoted it though.
The average Linux user is not your grandma and lets not overstate how easy it is to mess up your KDE config. Most of the config ui in KDE is delightful compared to other desktop environments, and most non-technical users would shy away from even trying to fiddle with technical stuff. And those that do fiddle and mess up are likely to have a technical person at hand to help them, because someone had to install Linux for them in the first place.
KDE is a much more sensible default for the highly technical person who is likely to install Linux themselves. There are other great options if you want something more locked down and noob proof. KDE really is the most relevant choice for default for most distros atm.
Playing devil's advocate, KDE settings are clear but there might be a possibility for a "Advanced Mode" button (with a first-time click warning) on the top-right of the "Quick Settings" screen that opens up when we launch the Settings. That can hide the "risky" stuff (e.g. "Window Management" etc). There might be value in adding a "Lock Panels" options to handle accidental modifications/removal etc.
I agree with the “Advanced Mode” button. That’d solve a great deal of the issues that KDE Settings suffers.
On the other hand I think it could use a fair deal of work on the clarity front. There are a number of settings that are confusing or ambiguous even for some technical users.
The problem with advanced modes is that it is easy for a chaos monkey to get into them, and at scale that will happen all the time.
A mitigation for advanced modes is to have a big bright red "get me the hell out of this to a normal state" button. Making it easy for a human to get back to the normal steady-state reduces the risk of an advanced mode and gently encourages exploration and experimentation, if it is always trivial to get back to what you're used to. This means that configuration changes can't ever be fully destructive though, which requires quite a bit of design and engineering.
"Novice" is not "average"
I've had the opposite experience. I installed KDE on a new desktop I built for my mom, and outside of a handful of growing pains (mainly things Windoze had vendor locked), she's been happy as a lark with it. She hasn't gone very far off the beaten path and really doesn't have too much of a need to.
And she is in fact a grandma.
For novice users there's already other more opinionated environments anyway. I get KDE because it's powerful not because I want my grandma to use it.
In fact I don't understand why people are rooting for Linux on the desktop. I personally don't even want that to happen because it would quickly become so dumbed down and commercialised that it would become the same trash that is windows and mac. Because normal users just want to pay someone to take care of things for them and that someone will want to make ever more money. Meaning app stores, services, lock-in, advertising and such crap. So what you get is basically like ChromeOS. Easy mode for users, totally locked in to their warm and fuzzy walled garden, total corporate surveillance and completely evil to power users like you and me.
I'm very happy if the majority of consumers stays away because their wants and needs are completely opposite to ours. All the things that make Linux great will not apply to whatever they will use.
20 years ago, my late dad (then aged 69) had a desktop PC that couldn't run Windows anymore in his store business.
Problem solved: Installed the latest Slackware stable (with yours truly as root for essential maintenance) equipped with the latest KDE 3.x environment. Had no complaints.
I second this. Once and once again I saw new distros being created, some with quite ambitious goals for the desktop, and then crippling themselves by choosing Gnome. I have nothing against it, but it seems to me clearly inferior in functionality and customizability.
What’s up with this constant insistence that the Linux desktop should be familiar to windows users? I feel like people are just as likely to be familiar with OSX at this point.
Also I’m not sure why sticking with a 30 year old mouse driven desktop metaphor is a hard requirement.
I’ve been trying it out coming from the Mac recently, mostly because I had to do stuff that didn’t play well with an arm processor.
It is surprisingly elegant and polished now. There’s a couple rough edges - the settings menu needing the apply button on every change like a form is weirdly ancient, and notifications are a bit noisy, but overall I could see myself ditching macOS for it.
Does not make any sense to me either
> What really shocks me is how few of the big distros make KDE a default or "first class" DE choice.
There’s a reason for that: KDE has more irregular release schedule than GNOME. KDE folks are working on that, so expect situation to change.
I loved the KDE 3.x series, it felt like the future to me. It was _way_ ahead of both Windows and Mac at the time in terms of features and power.
KDE 4 was a dud. Too much of a radical make-over instead of iterating on what worked. Ugly. Very crashy. I'm not sure how close KDE 4 came to killing KDE altogether, but it must have been pretty close.
KDE 5 was a vast improvement over 4, going back to what made 3 so good. Earlier releases left a bit to be desired and still had a few stability issues. Later releases were pretty well refined. I switched (back) to KDE at this point, when I switched to Debian 12 (bookworm) at the same time.
KDE 6 is just a continuation of KDE 5, but using Qt 6 under the hood and defaulting to Wayland. It's very solid, fast, and just gets out of your way so you can do real work with it.
The 4.x series was the one where the ideas still making Plasma so powerful were seeded. While I loved KDE 3 the design for 4 seemed revolutionary. Too bad it was alpha/beta quality up until the 4.6 release years later. I fared through all the bugs, crashes and performance issues with a young student's determination (while running Fluxbox on the side) but I can very well understand people doing serious work had limited patience for the issues.
Anyhow, happy anniversary from a long-time KDE user!
It's a story that's very similar to Windows Vista. It gets a lot of hate for breaking stuff at the time it was originally released, but the reason it broke stuff is because it put in a new foundation for later releases to build upon. The later releases were better because of the breakage. Something something gotta breaks some eggs to make an omelette something something.
I'm loving KDE 6. It's what a good desktop environment should be.
Just enough eye candy to make it feel pleasant, and yet also very fast and responsive on even a potato of a computer.
It feels good to donate to a high quality sane default that has been serving my needs as a daily driver. The more I see the mistreatment of Windows users by Microsoft, the more I am grateful for Linux and KDE.
I've been running KDE plasma with wayland in arch for over a year now, it's been an absolute dream come true. Everything just works. Gaming with Proton, dual monitors with different resolutions, Japanese input, I only need to hop onto windows when my son wants to play Minecraft.
You might not need to even for Minecraft, have you seen this project? https://flathub.org/en/apps/io.mrarm.mcpelauncher (Android version of Bedrock made to work on Linux)
I maintain the AUR package for this. `mcpelauncher-linux` and `mcpelauncher-ui`. If you just do a simple `paru -S mcpelauncher-ui`, it should build just fine.
Very cool. Thank you very much
I haven't seen this! Thank you
To add to the solutions proposed you could also use a mod called geysermc to make the server compatible with both Java and bedrock.
Prismlauncher is great for playing Minecraft.
Huh, why? Minecraft is Java. It works perfectly fine on Linux, both the server and the client.
Since MS bought it, aren't there two versions, a legacy one called "Java" and the newer one from MS, probably not in Java and with all the cool kids (multiplayer mode) on it?
There is Java and bedrock. Everyone I know has Java. There are other differences, but multiplayer is available in both.
The difference it's that bedrock allows you to play with the people that use Minecraft on consoles or mobile and Java doesn't
Another key difference is that Java has mods and shaders, bedrock doesn't.
Mojang is trying to fix this with resource and data packs, but even still, those are not full powered mods.
You're right, my bad!
I remembered some friends complaining about the fact the since MS, they couldn't play as they did before because of two versions co-existing
I use KDE on my home PC since about a 15 years, exclusively. I like it a lot but it still has some rough edges here and there. For example, the network config interface is a bit messy. Sure you can configure many things with it, but it's hard to understand). Dolphin is the best file manager I have ever used, nothing come close nowadays (I have tested windows and macs). The desktop configuration is quite nice and the look and feel is really good too.
Unfortunately, it still crashes sometimes (about 2 or 3 times over 500 hours of usage, but my PC is 15 years old, so this may explain that).
And as many here, I sure don't think about changing.
Thank you KDE team !
Dolphin is a real gem. Split windows, tabs, open terminal in current location, etc. Going back to Windows Explorer is painful once you've gotten used to Dolphin.
If you're ever on Windows and want a slimmed down Dolphin, run:
yeah dolphin is great software!
Thanks KDE - I always liked the Windows-like design (that's what I would call it coming from Windows like many people).
Instead of hiding "power-user" features so well you have to google them to find them, I can interact with the OS on gui or command-line level - really depending mostly on my mood.
Although KDEConnect to easily connect a Windows PC, a Linux laptop and an android phone to share files and control my pc while watching a movie was the "step-up". When they are in the same network and approved, they simply connect.
and iPhone!
My first introduction to Linux was through Knoppix, the first “live CD” if I recall correctly. Maybe there was something before it, but I remember it as something new and magical at the time: being able to test a full Linux desktop directly from a CD.
From there, as I was learning Linux (I was 16 years old), I used KDE a lot. It was such a cool experience. I especially loved how easy it was to create custom themes, the desktop widgets, and Amarok! the big “killer app” back then. A music player that could show you song lyrics, album art, and even the band’s history by pulling data from Wikipedia and other APIs. It felt futuristic.
Later on, I switched to GNOME as it became more popular in the mid 2000s, but I’ve always had a soft spot for KDE. It’s been part of my Linux journey for nearly three decades.
Happy birthday, KDE!
Wow Amarok, that takes me back. I used to use KDE in the late 00s and it was head and shoulders over other music apps.
I donate monthly anyway. KDE is amazing and I love the extensive options in this day and age of horrible opinionated design.
I just wish they weren't in such a hurry to deprecate X11 because Wayland isn't quite there yet on my OS (FreeBSD)
How's the gpu driver? Which chip would you recommend for the beast?
I use the generic intel drm-kmod driver, it works well and supports acceleration though you do need some additional stuff like libvaapi.
Not sure what hardware is best. I just use it on a NUC so I didn't have any choice in hardware options.
Glad they keep using the mascots to help brand and punch up their images.
Both artist links are either private or show closed commissions, so the artists aren't fishing for exposure to do lead gen, they have a passion to help make KDE be a better marketable product.
I daily drive KDE, but I'm glad that in part thanks go the KDE projects approach to accessibility to newcomers and these artists' desires to help out, we get visual aids for the masses, which are pleasant for those of us who live in walls of text and can help humanize an otherwise dry technical subject, aiding newcomers considering joining the project to have an easier time understanding what they are looking at.
Happy birthday KDE, outside XFCE, KDE is the desktop I would go back to if I ever reconsider building a Linux desktop again.
Has all the developer goodies with KDevelop, written with tooling that empowers UI/UX development workflows, has a proper component system with much better tooling than COM, quite configurable without extensions all over the place.
Signed, a disillusioned former Gtkmm user, with how GNOME turned out.
For a sec I read it as a former Gkrellm user
I'm still surprised at how smooth KDE Plasma + Wayland + Input actions on Arch feels on a fresh install on my new HP AMD laptop.
The Only slightly wonky thing has been the fingerprint reader. Other than that my Linux set up now feels smoother than my office Mac. AND I get way better battery life compared to Windows on the same machine.
Special call outs to: kwin, dolphin, yakuake, kde-connect
I was pleasantly surprised, that a recent update for plasma fixed the fingerprint reader for my thinkpad t15. It previously had an issue, where it didn't work after waking from suspend.
I am used to having "Emacs key-bindings" on both gnome and Mac (so that for example ctrl-a will always go to the beginning of a textbox no matter the application, such as chrome).
For some strange reason this seems to be very hard thing to set up on KDE or am I missing something?
> so that for example ctrl-a will always go to the beginning of a textbox no matter the application
And Control-W will always erase word no matter the application?
This is actually a major reason I use KDE: I can, with some effort, change keyboard shortcuts to avoid conflicting with terminal Control keys. It doesn't solve the textbox problem, though.
(I don't use Emacs bindings, but Control-W erase word came in the ‘new’ TTY driver in BSD2 in 1983 — predating Windows 1.0, incidentally — likely copying TOPS-20.)
There are projects like kinto that achieve very good results at making Linux behave like macOS on shortcuts (cmd instead of ctrl only when it makes sense, etc).
I’m not sure how they do it, i suspect it’s mostly a manual grind for configuring the most common shortcuts and apps, but there might be some idea there that can be reused for the eMacs setup.
On paper KDE's system is more elegant and practical than GNOME's. In practice the keyboard shortcut management via exporting and importing is rather unwieldy. Then again, if you want to go deep into setting up your shortcuts to something properly usable, it's a fair bit more convenient with KDE, where all your shortcuts are in a single place, than with GNOME, where you have to look in all the gconf categories and it's a right pain to find conflicts.
I'm not sure this is the reason or a big reason, but I think this is very difficult to do in Linux, sadly.
What makes Linux great is also its biggest handicap, in my opinion, when it comes to User Experience: the fragmentation of UI frameworks and libraries.
I imagine having this control between Qt, GTK and other UI libraries and electron-type-apps os difficult if not impossible.
It works perfectly on Gnome (ubuntu) though. There is simple toggle you have to do in one of the standard control panels as well.
I am surprised this issue is not gaining traction with the KDE crowd, as I imagine a substantial part of the userbase are emacs users and used to emacs keybindings.
As I thought: you can set a different shortcut for "Beginning of line" and it will work in Qt input fields but, sadly, not others. I don't know if this is the step you're on.
omg I found my people. Ctrl+A and Ctrl+E are so engraved into my muscle memory that it always takes a moment to readjust when using non Mac OSes. I didn't know Gnome also uses those as a KDE fan
This seemed like something relatively easy for chatgpt to handle. The response is a bit complicated compared to what it sounds like you are looking for (it's not from the kde settings gui), but still a two minute "fix".
Did the response ChatGPT give you actually work, or did it confidently hallucinate?
It was easy enough and I have enough experience with kde and linux to know it would work. I have no interest in doing this although I do similar things with "Input Remapper". My point, which I tried to state kindly, was it is not that hard and not worth complaining about - basically a 2025 "Let me google that for you".
And the 1998 approach of just Googling it works perfectly, why would you even bring GPT to this?
For the same reason I would use gpt to solve something basic like this: It is the simplest and fastest way to get it done right now. I was not trying to be inflammatory, although apparently I did not understand it would be a big deal to people.
I've installed two KDE+Tumbleweed machines in the past two days. One for a friend into retro gaming and the other time for older family into solitaire/youtube. KDE is an easy drop-in for Windows. If you have a better recommendation than Tumbleweed for new people, I'm open to looking into it, but so far it's been easy and I'll probably be the one to support it.
KDE has been my daily driver since 2008. The upgrade from KDE2 to KDE3 was a nightmare, but once the dust settled, KDE became quite good... One of my favorite things about KDE is how they have left the user a wide berth to customize their experience. After almost 20 years of tweaking, I find moving to other desktop GUIs to be very painful. And to this day Dolphin is the gold standard for file managers.
Thanks, KDE team!
My first experience with KDE was the beta release that came with SuSE 5.2 in the late 90s. I still daily drive KDE, though very much has changed since then, it still is familiar.
It's been well over a decade (maybe closer to 2 in fact) since I have used KDE, and I'm happy with my more minimalist setup based on Arch+AwesomeWM, but I think KDE is a great project and like to follow its progress. It seems to have a great suite of software - the KDE versions of common applications often seem to be among the best FOSS options out there.
Thanks for all the work done over the years! I've donated to the project many times and it always feels good to support something I enjoy using every day.
I've installed KDE on my Ubuntu system instead of Gnome and it is pretty nice. It feels slightly more integrated, so lots of regular UI actions feel slicker and simpler.
With this hitting multiple communications media for me independently over the last few hours, it has me considering whether I can switch from Windows to Linux for my gaming PC again.
Last time I tried, I used Ubuntu, and I experienced problems with several games via Proton (e.g., The Finals, Fields of Mistria, and Civilization VII, among others). I checked ProtonDB, and it looks like those issues may be resolved.
However, I also wonder what people are using to replace iCloud/OneDrive/Dropbox/whatever on Linux. Or, if they don't use such a thing in the first place, how they handle off-site backups of files and images.
Dropbox works fine on Linux so you should be good. OneDrive has a community developed client, not sure how good it works.
Gaming works great on Linux, arguably better than on Windows. Show stoppers are mostly aggressive anti-cheat or DRM stuff so multiplayer can still suck but for anyone doing single player it is amazing. I have a windows installation I can dual boot into but I haven't in like half a year, I prefer gaming on Linux.
Linux Mint with Cinnamon has a traditional Desktop close to Windows. I highly recommend checking it out.
My last attempt was Debian-flavored Mint.
This go around, I'm thinking of trying Kubuntu. Specifically 25.10 Kubuntu, since apparently Wayland fixes a lot of the problems I had trying to game on Linux before.
At work I use OneDriveGUI with no problems.
- https://github.com/bpozdena/OneDriveGUI
You can use OneDrive and Dropbox on Linux, but to answer your question: Nextcloud
Several people now have recommended Nextcloud as hosted by Hetzner. I will have to look into this.
I tried recently and unfortunately had to bail out
I don't daily drive KDE, but when I set up our home media PC in the living room over the weekend, KDE was a no-brainier to pick for the DE.
Everything immediately just worked, it's familiar enough that someone not used to Linux can click around and get to things, and as a bonus, controlling it from the couch with our phones is trivial with KDE Connect.
I used Linux for a long time (since ~2002), but for the past years I've been daily-driving a MacBook.
I'm now switching back, and will likely go with either Gnome or KDE. I've used XFCE, i3wm, etc. for years before – and briefly tried Sway too before I switched to Mac – but from what I've read it sounds like the "big" DEs make life easier post-Wayland.
Anyone want to share why you currently choose KDE over Gnome?
Gnome UI sucks. It is ugly and non-customizable without plugins, or whatever you call that addon that enables you to put your clock on the right... I'm sure the UI makes more sense on a tablet or a phone with touch controls, but I just want to use it on my laptop with a regular monitor and with a mouse (or touchpad).
KDE has sane defaults and looks and feels like Windows UI from the best era. It just works.
"It just works" is the important part. The style doesn't matter a whole lot if things aren't working right. Is this other guy's comment about GTK not a real problem? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45581866
I don't understand that comment. The K-suite of apps is just as comprehensive as the G-suite of apps - most people don't really care or notice anyway. No, I did not notice that Firefox uses GTK - seriously, who cares, and it is even shipped as a snap or flatpak. (I would even say that Qt is far more capable and developer friendly than GTK, so I'd pick Qt over GTK _any time_.)
There is one app that I installed recently, that used GTK and I noticed it - the ProtonVPN Connect UI, it looks a bit funny, but integrated seamlessly in the whole system (KDE) including the tray icon. It just works. What is the problem?
KDE is a wonderful desktop environment. It's been a while since I've used it but from what I've seen it grows and improves every year.
Gnome is more opinionated. There are fewer options overall, the core apps are generally much simpler, and it assumes a specific way of interacting with your computer. You can change this with extensions, but if you are dead set on a specific workflow and need to venture beyond a small set of widely-used and well-supported extensions then it may feel like you're swimming upstream.
I personally prefer Gnome because I don't mind trying out new workflows and it ended up being a good fit. But I understand why many "hacker types" would prefer KDE, and (assuming they've ironed out stability and release scheduling issues) I agree with other comments that KDE would make for a better default experience, especially for people coming from Windows.
Thankfully, both exist and you can try them and see what works for you!
Thanks for all the replies! I'll probably try Fedora KDE first in that case :)
Last time I used KDE as my main desktop was v3.x, I switched away once v4.0 was released (at launch it was slow, unstable, and lacked many features). But it seems KDE 6 is likely to fit my personality more than recent Gnome versions.
I guess because the defaults suits me better, and the configurability is exposed well and I don't have to load special tools or commands to change stuff.
I used to run complicated setups back in the days, with black/flux/openbox or even enlightenment (16), but now I don't really have the interest or time for tweaking DEs.
> Anyone want to share why you currently choose KDE over Gnome?
Just to give you an opposite perspective...I was a long time Kubuntu / KDE Neon user (almost 10 years) and shifted to Gnome couple of years back (Ubuntu 22.04), now running 24.04. It's been very stable and out of the way. I am not sure why people are complaining about UI, for me it's barely visible on my two screens. All open-source and proprietary apps I use run well and without glitch. It took me an hour to get used to the "Gnome" way when I shifted.
I don't want to install an extension which will break next time there's a new GNOME release just to be able to set my clock to '%A %F %R' format.
I find that Gnome opiniated workflow can easily get in my way. KDE feels more natural and it really grew on me after using it for quite some times.
>Anyone want to share why you currently choose KDE over Gnome?
GNOME is like a tool that was designed to fit the average user so if you are not the average user (like you know the joke where the average person has 1 testicle) then you have to mold yourself to fit into GNOME (or try to hack it with unsuported extensions that might make it more tolerable) in KDE you have nobs to tweak it to fit you smoothly (like for example with one checkbox I can make the Left Alt to be a Ctrl button so i do not bend my hand and fingers to use my many Ctrl+keys shortcuts).
IMO use GNOME only if you are the typical GNOME user, that prefer to bend themselves over and not to adapt the tool to fit . Avoid KDE if too many options cause you some anxiety or buffer overflow.
I switched from Gnome to KDE Plasma because I find it more stable and more integrated since many of the features I otherwise miss are out of the box in KDE Plasma, and you do not need third party extensions which are quite unstable. Also later found out Plasma is much more configurable and personalizable so I xan really fit it best to my orefered workflow. I also find KDE developers listen to their users much more.
Man, I am getting old too. :-O Still remember how amazed I was with KDE 1.
I'm increasingly pessimistic about everyday reach of Linux.
Around me, all I see are Windows users, volunteers teaching old people how to use several tools... on Windows. Public institutions relying on Windows, upgrading to Windows 11, doing everything despite Trump, despite Microsoft, despite all of the negatives associated with it.
When primary school students are given Windows laptops instead of Linux ones, there's not much hope in changing. But how can you amass enough momentum and volunteers to get enough manpower to at least try to move in the other direction?
KDE surely helps, but it's like, nowadays simply trying to explain what a non-mobile OS is useful for, seems like yet another uphill battle, and I cannot fix even my small town by myself.
Inertia is a hell of a drug. The US failed to break up Microsoft in the 90s, and never took antitrust action against them again after that. So the world built its entire tech infrastructure on top of Windows (as far as endpoints go, web facing servers are another matter).
But,
> When primary school students are given Windows laptops instead of Linux ones,
At least this is changing, although not true "desktop linux," students are mostly given Chromebooks, and grow up on google docs/g workspace so that early familiarity with Windows + Office is dissapearing.
It's not going to be a good thing long term though, I already see it with employees where I work (I'm in IT). We have plenty of younger employees that don't even have computers at home if they aren't gamers. They are familiar with iOS/iPad OS only. Windows + Office is a mystical black box, and file management/file systems are a foreign concept.
That, IMO, makes Linux desktop adoption that much more difficult. At least Windows->Linux you can take a lot of basic concepts with you. MobileOS->Not mobile OS is much more difficult.
First and biggest challenge is that there's no single default desktop Linux, and even one distro could have different DEs, window servers, etc.
Imagine asking for tech support as a newbie, and giving your laptop model and OS and version is still not enough info.
It's completely unavoidable with open source software, we just have to adapt around it.
We do have one main Linux kernel (while other open source like BSD is far less popular on PCs) and a bunch of tools like bash and git that are de facto default. Seems like Linux community actively avoids converging on a default DE though.
We have many, many Linux kernels. Many distros compile their own kernels. You aren't using "the" Linux kernel most likely, you're using your distros Linux kernel. It's just that nobody notices because the kernel has stable interfaces.
Thats also why you can run kernel 6.5 on a version of RHEL from 15 years ago.
By its nature as a community, the Linux community will never converge on a default DE.
The only reason Windows pulls it off is because it's not a community. It's a dictatorship and you're a serf. You use what Microsoft tells you to use.
But, even then, there is divergence. No doubt you've heard of people sticking to 10 even though Microsoft is abandoning it. Some people still use 7, or even XP.
Works like a charm. Powerful when needed. Thanks, KDE, looking forward to the next 29 years.
Just recently switched back from XFCE to KDE, after a 20 years hiatus. KDE feels just as snappy as XFCE but is also more polished and has really nice settings management.
Congrats to the KDE team. Unfortunately too broke to donate.
Surprisingly this feels like it has been in existence for longer than 29 years.
KDE is the best non-tiling desktop environment. Thanks KDE and keep it up!
Amazing project my only gripes about KDE is that while the customization is great it can feel overwhelming and opaque. For example multiple different ways to get transparency (Kvantum & qt6ct) but nothing built in or large amount of different but seemingly connected config files with confusing syntax in .config
I hope the work on union will help fix some of that
Yes, if you choose to go off the happy path into the weeds, then you will be off the happy path in the weeds. The only desktop environments where that isn't true are the ones that forbid customization.
Amazing DE, daily driving KDE(Kubuntu) on my desktop for couple of years now and I can't imagine anything better.
Donating montly and so happy to do it! <3
KDE user since version 2. Fell in love with KMail. Even upgraded my RAM from 16 to 48MB to run it smoothly lol.
Stopped used it at version 4, the new kdepim was atrocious. But now it's usable again. Probably my largest peeve is how there's advanced desktop search/semantic engine but it has no own interface as if the devs were ashamed of it, search results only appear when you type something in menu. And if you google nepomuk/baloo most ppl just ask how to turn it off.
Started regularly donating last year and it is well worth it. KDE Plasma is the best desktop in existance and they also make one of the best FOSS applications.
After years of distro hopping I landed on KDE NixOS and stuck with it ever since. Stable, featureful, intuitive experience.
KDE is visibly taking off.
My dream is that The Qt Company will make some monstrous deal with the EU and all the licensing will become 100% opensource while they will be tasked and paid to maintain it longterm and work on it.
Supporting it is important so we have an alternative to GNOME/GTK
GNOME ruined my Linux experience, I'm no fan of the tablet/smartphone UX spreading to desktop
How much do I have to pay to get ISO dates?
Nothing? I've got a date format option for ISO date right now?
You need to upgrade to KDE 11. KDE 10 reached end-of-life.
[dead]
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>Case in point: Microsoft is stopping free support for Windows 10 on hundreds of millions of computers this very week. Many of these old yet perfectly usable devices will not be able to upgrade because of spurious hardware requirements. Microsoft’s solution? “Throw away your computer and pollute the planet because we want to make even more money.”
Windows 10 was released in 2015. Does KDE still support whatever version of KDE was released in 2015?
No but upgrading KDE is free. It also doesn't force new hardware requirements.
KDE 5 was released in 2015 and still supported on Arch Linux. Even KDE 3, released in, 2002 is still supported and installable: https://www.trinitydesktop.org/
Also supported in Slackware 15.0 (stable) and Slackware -current, where it is still the default desktop environment and the planned desktop for the upcoming 15.1 release.
(I'm using Plasma 6.5 beta now btw but the official support still is on 5.x.)
You're misunderstanding - the point is that current (supported) versions of KDE support hardware manufactured in 2015, and current (supproted) versions of Windows will stop doing that very soon.
The point is that KDE from 2015 will still run on today’s hardware.
So will Windows 10, and it will receive as much support as a KDE version from 2015.
It isn't competing with an old KDE, it's competing with the current version of KDE that still works on that hardware.
Counterpoint: any modern linux distro will run fine on your 10yo computer.