Is this the end of KDE for me?
I have been a linux user since early days. In fact for home use I only have Linux and Mac OSX. I have used RedHat, Fedora and Mandrake/Mandriva in the past. Then I discovered Ubuntu few years back and it’s been no looking back. I have used both Ubuntu and Kubuntu extensively. But my destop of choice for home computer has been Kubuntu as I have alwyas felt that KDE has better tooling than GNOME. I like the simplicity of GNOME, but KDE always had more applications.
I love how KDE evloved and matured in 3.x versions. But, then I think the focus shifted to make it look and behave more like Windows (especially Vista with Plasma L&;) for version 4. That’s where my frustration with KDE comes from. I have given it a try a number of times since early beta days and I have been disappointed every single time. My main frustrations have been:
- It’s horribly slow compared to 3.x versions.
- It takes more memory to run. In fact it pretty much takes same memory as you would require for Windows XP.
- The Desktop is ugly. I am pretty happy some simple icons on the desktop. I don’t need fancy effects. There is a value in simplicty and I wish KDE devleopers learnt this from Mac OSX.
- I have been using Superkaramba for a long time and love it compared to KDE applets. In version 4, these are replaced by widgets. It just seems like a step in wrong direction as it has fewer widgets and they are horrible.
- Every time I tried to customize the desktop and L&F, it ended up screwing up everything.
- The main KDE menu is almost unusable. I don’t understand how it is more user friendly
- Same applies to Dolphin file manager. I have Dolphin on KDE 3.x as well, but again there isn’t anything mind blowing.
The release of Ubuntu 8.10 is almost here and Kubuntu is going to make KDE 4 as the default desktop. I am seriously considering switching to GNOME or Xfce going forward. The purpose of a desktop is make the life easier for a user and that has not been my impression of KDE 4. May be GNOME was right all along in the philosophy of keeping things simple and usable.
