By Atif Khan (
January 17, 2009 at 6:24 pm)
· Filed under Linux, Software, Ubuntu
I wrote in a previous post from October 20008 that I was very unhappy with the direction of KDE. The Kubuntu Intrepid was about to be released with KDE 4 as the default desktop. I got a lot of responses saying that I could still continue using KDE 3.x or I should switch to another distro like OpenSuse. Neither of those were really feasible options as I didn’t want to be stuck on KDE 3.x and switching distro was even more a radical change.
When Kubuntu Intrepid released, I downloaded it and gave it a try. I knew immediately that I could no longer use it as my desktop. It was sluggish and not very user friendly. I promptly switched to Ubuntu Intrepid with Gnome desktop. I must admit that Gnome implementation in Ubuntu feels a lot more tightly integrated than KDE was in Kubuntu.
I did have to adjust myself to Gnome initially. As an example, I was very fond of Superkaramba on KDE. Gnome does have comparable desklet and screenlet implememtations. But they just do not seem as seemless as Superkaramba. So, I decided to stick with regular panel applets and I must admit that I somehow like them better than full fledged Superkaramba widgets. This could be true with Gnome in general as everything seems intuitive and simple. Gnome doesn’t try to emulate Windoze like KDE. I got the native drivers for the Nvidia card installed and now have Compiz enabled. So, now I have the simplicity of Gnome with added 3D effects. It’s not a scientific observation, but the memory management also seems better on Gnome than KDE.
The moral of the story is that I am KDE free and happy.
Permalink
By Atif Khan (
October 19, 2008 at 1:04 pm)
· Filed under Linux, Software, Ubuntu
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.
Permalink
