oh please, not again

Story: What is the difference between GNOME, KDE, XFCE, and LXDE?Total Replies: 63
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tuxchick

Aug 06, 2011
12:23 PM EDT
Quoting:All four offer sophisticated point-and-click graphical user interfaces (GUI) which are on par with the desktop environments found in Windows and Mac OS X.


I wish he hadn't started out with this. It's not true, and it hasn't been for years. Linux graphical environments left Windows and Mac in the dust years ago. It mars an informative and interesting article. Once you get past that bit there is a lot of good information.
Koriel

Aug 06, 2011
12:36 PM EDT
Agreed TC, Most Linux DE's overtook Windows and I think OS X is arguable but still an excellent article.

I may go and give LXDE another try based on this, haven't checked it out in over a year, it wasn't suited to my needs back then but their is a good chance it is now.

I can also vouch for his ram usage figures for KDE & XFCE based on Linux Mint (Debian) as being very close to the mark.

KDE4 = 370mb (untweaked) XFCE = 136mb (tweaked)
pmpatrick

Aug 06, 2011
2:30 PM EDT
Koriel, those ram figures are accurate in my experience with one very large caveat - as soon as you load any native kde4 apps like k3b, okular, digikam, dolphin, konqueror, amorok, etc, the ram usage goes right up there to match kde4 usage. I think the main reason is you have to load a lot of kde libraries along with those applications. This is true not only for xfce, but also for any other lightweight WM that I've tried over the years like lxde, fluxbox, icewm, etc.
Koriel

Aug 06, 2011
4:43 PM EDT
Luckily, I only ever have one DE installed at any one time and therefore never use KDE4 based apps while im in XFCE so their libs never get loaded.

I like to keep my DE's pure and never mix apps.
Grishnakh

Aug 06, 2011
6:11 PM EDT
tuxchick wrote:It's not true, and it hasn't been for years. Linux graphical environments left Windows and Mac in the dust years ago.


Wrong. Windows 7 is leaps and bounds ahead of Gnome3 and Unity, and that's why tons of serious Linux users are giving up on the Linux desktop and going back to Windows.

Sure, Linux DEs surpassed Windows/Mac a while ago, but then Gnome3 and Unity took over, and they've regressed. Windows 7, OTOH, hasn't bought into this idiotic idea that we need to make our desktop computers act like smartphones, so by default it's ahead. Let's look at some features: multiple desktops - Windows: never really had them, but can be added on. Gnome3 and Unity, not there, not easily added. Multiple monitors - Windows: works great! Gnome3 and Unity: not supported. Minimize button on windows - Windows: still there like always. Gnome3: missing.

Of course, KDE still offers a great DE for power users, but for some reason no one wants to give that another look after the KDE4.0 debacle 3 years ago, so if Linux users refuse to look at KDE again, I think it's time to just give up on Linux on the desktop, and all head back to Windows.

Forget Mac, however, because it looks like they're chasing the smartphone UI too with their latest OSX release. Time will tell if MS will do the same thing, but I seriously doubt it, since corporate desktops are a giant part of their customer base, and they're pretty loathe to make any big changes for fear of angering their corporate clients.

So I guess I'll be one of the last holdouts using Linux on the desktop with KDE for a while, but as soon as that goes the way of the dodo, I guess I'll just have to go back to Windows like everyone else, since I have no desire to interact with my desktop computer as if it's a smartphone. As someone who's been using desktop Linux since 1999, I never thought it'd come to this, but Linux is being destroyed from within.
gus3

Aug 06, 2011
6:31 PM EDT
Quoting:Windows 7, OTOH, hasn't bought into this idiotic idea that we need to make our desktop computers act like smartphones, so by default it's ahead.
And that's where I stopped reading. I was laughing so hard, I couldn't see though the tears.
BernardSwiss

Aug 06, 2011
6:34 PM EDT
But Windows 8...?
Fettoosh

Aug 06, 2011
7:25 PM EDT
Quoting:So I guess I'll be one of the last holdouts using Linux on the desktop with KDE for a while, but as soon as that goes the way of the dodo, I guess I'll just have to go back to Windows like everyone else, since I have no desire to interact with my desktop computer as if it's a smartphone.


It must have been a pretty bad day for you to forecast such a gloomy outlook. Just remember that Gnome 3 and Unity are not all end all of the Linux desktop. Gnome 2.x is still alive and well and you can have it on Mint as well as Fedora besides its availability on Ubuntu. Also, there are a number of other good DEs for Linux besides KDE, which are as good and even better than Widnows or OSX DE.

One more thing, Gnome devs so far have said they are moving on and leaving Gnome 2.x behind, but that is not final, I still think they eventually will come back to their senses and reconsider. The dissatisfaction of many of Gnome users will make them reconsider and convince them to concurrently support both, Gnome 2.x & 3.

Grishnakh

Aug 06, 2011
7:53 PM EDT
Fettoosh wrote:Just remember that Gnome 3 and Unity are not all end all of the Linux desktop. Gnome 2.x is still alive and well and you can have it on Mint as well as Fedora besides its availability on Ubuntu.


Don't be ridiculous. Gnome2 is history, it's going the way of the dinosaur. Do you really think the Gnome developers are going to continue to support and develop Gnome2? Of course not. So who is? No one. Maybe someone will fork it, but that's unlikely. And even if they did, will they get the mainstream distros to support it? The Trinity group tried that with KDE3, and where have they gotten? Nowhere, because no distros support them.

Even Linux power users don't want to jump through all the hoops necessary to get an unsupported DE working on a new distro, so if it doesn't come already installed in a distro, even if it's a distro like Arch or whatever, then it's going to die.

Even KDE4 has a hard time simply because it's not well-supported by many distros. The only one that treats it as a first-class DE is OpenSUSE. Aside from that, there's Mint KDE Edition, Kubuntu, and a few others, where it's really a second-class DE. But that's still far, far better than something like Trinity, where it's basically compile it yourself, which isn't so bad for a small application, but for a full-blown DE with all its dependencies is a nightmare.

Quoting:One more thing, Gnome devs so far have said they are moving on and leaving Gnome 2.x behind, but that is not final, I still think they eventually will come back to their senses and reconsider. The dissatisfaction of many of Gnome users will make them reconsider


Don't be ridiculous. The Gnome devs don't care about their users' preferences, because they know what's best for their users. It's been this way for 10 years, ever since they got so involved in usability studies with Sun. The only thing that drives Gnome development is usability studies, not user desires.
dinotrac

Aug 06, 2011
9:00 PM EDT
@Grishnakh

Quoting:but for some reason no one wants to give that another look


for some reason?

Did you miss the part about the arrogant and untrustworthy developers who broke faith with the user base?

Not a good thing for people who must rely on their computers.
pmpatrick

Aug 06, 2011
9:41 PM EDT
Quoting:The only one that treats it(KDE) as a first-class DE is OpenSUSE.


Mandriva and PCLinuxOS are both very kde-centric as well and always have been. The Mandriva fork, Mageia is smilarly kde-centric so far. Fedora/RH and Debian and the Debian derivatives have historically been gnome-centric.
Grishnakh

Aug 06, 2011
10:29 PM EDT
_dinotrac wrote:Did you miss the part about the arrogant and untrustworthy developers who broke faith with the user base?


Did you miss the part about that being 3 YEARS ago? And how on earth did they "break faith"? They released a half-baked pile of buggy cr@p way too early, but again, that was 3 YEARS ago. The bugs have been fixed, the missing features added back in, and it's progressing just fine.

Should I not use Linux because it was seriously buggy and broken back in 1992? Should I not use Firefox because Netscape was a buggy piece of cr@p back in 1998?

Things have changed. Get over it.
Bob_Robertson

Aug 06, 2011
11:08 PM EDT
> Did you miss the part about the arrogant and untrustworthy developers who broke faith with the user base?

It does seem strange that so many people just don't understand why anyone would be upset.

Trinity works just fine, too, but if the developers are unable to get things moving, there is always Xfce.
jdixon

Aug 06, 2011
11:19 PM EDT
> Things have changed. Get over it.

So they KDE devs are taking their users' complaints seriously now? No, you say? Somehow I didn't think so.

When the devs start caring about the users they're supposedly writing for, I'll start caring about KDE.
r_a_trip

Aug 07, 2011
2:32 AM EDT
@Grishnakh. Have we forgotten this gem from Jason Harris? (The KDE project never distanced itself from this little tidbit.)

Quoting:KDE, like many other open-source projects, doesn't really need users at all, whether they are poisonous or not. What we need are contributors: that's the life-blood of our community, what keeps KDE growing and evolving. To the extent that users can and do become contributors, I will grant that we need a userbase as a pool of potential future contributors. But I am simply baffled by any argument that we "need" to have a large number of people that never do more than use KDE. Why do we need them?


http://blogs.kde.org/node/3535

Don't know about you, but I know very well when I'm not welcome and the above was KDE's notice to me not to bother.
Koriel

Aug 07, 2011
5:39 AM EDT
@r_a Thanks for posting that link, I had never seen that post before.

Ive been a developer for over 20 years and have heard some things in my time but that pretty much takes the biscuit. And people wonder why folks no longer give a monkeys scrotum about KDE no matter how good the DE is now.

If they dont need users then why do they need this statement taken from the KDE website

"It is our hope and continued ambition that the KDE team will bring open, reliable, stable and monopoly-free computing to the everyday user. "

That would be the "everyday user" they dont need.

And another quote from their site:

"Of course, a pro-active attitude and a friendly personality helps. "

Apparently Jason Harris doesnt even read their own website if his is a pro-active attitude and a friendly personality then I need a new dictionary.

Now I can understand being mad and pissed off at "poisonous users" and Troy's original post to which Harris is referring clearly stated this but this Harris bloke has gone and lumped in every user, well at least we know where we stand.

Thats enough from me, Im off to tell all the users of my apps to stfu and to go forth and multiply. I wonder how thats gonna work out for me :)

dinotrac

Aug 07, 2011
5:42 AM EDT
@Grishnakh --

I must presume that you are living at home and waiting anxiously to graduate school, as you seem to lack any sense of history or perspective.

There is a very large difference between putting out cr@p and breaking faith, though the two can correlate.

Nobody was relying on Linux in 1992, and it pretended to be nothing more than a college student's cool project. It grew into the basis for a serious OS because users had needs and contributed patches. The fledgling OS's users took part and hence guided its development.

As to Firefox, it makes my point, not yours. Netscape did get abandoned and IE just about took over the entire internet. We are indeed fortunate that Hyatt and Ross did what the Mozilla project wouldn't -- use the toolset to create a decent browser.

When people are using your work daily, relying on it to do their work, you are no longer in the realm of Boyz wid Toyz. Failing to act like grownups will earn you the reaction that KDE developers got, and trust is a lot harder to win back than bugs are to squash.
r_a_trip

Aug 08, 2011
7:36 AM EDT
When it comes to the major Desktop Environments, we seem to be stuck between a rock and a hard place.

The KDE project (no matter how good 4.7 is right now) has proven to be willing to severely disrupt their DE at the drop of a hat when they have a change in vision. To make matters worse, if users see their user experience degraded from professional to technology demo, the members of the KDE project itself are willing to blame anyone but themselves. Even as a Gnome user, I still remember the hair raising disaster that was the release of KDE 4.0 and the ensuing developers vs users war of the words. At the time I felt smugly comfortable being a Gnome user...

With Gnome 3, a repeat is looming. The backlash isn't as severe (yet?), but that could have to do with a few dampening factors. One is of course Canonical's Unity, muddying the water and deflecting some of the outcry. Another is the communication from the Gnome project. So far they haven't called their users unnecessary ignorants. For now we get a lot of pointing towards "Usability Studies" on paper. Most Distributions are also wary to jump on the Gnome 3 bandwagon. We can hold out on Gnome 2.32 for a while, but sooner than later we will have to replace it.

The question is do we take a step back towards the lighter, alternative DE's and window managers or do we downgrade to Gnome 3? Or do we take a gamble with KDE SC 4.x and hope for the best when KDE SC 5.0 comes?
Fettoosh

Aug 08, 2011
10:20 AM EDT
I see too much negativity in the air and I don't understand the reason, could it be the severe heat wave we have been enduring this summer?

Why don't you guys take a break, go to a lake, a river or an ocean and take a dip to cool off a bit. Some of us do really need it.

One calls me ridiculous for being optimistic about Gnome devs keeping Gnome 2.x maintained & supported, while he himself being ridiculous about the doomed gloomy outlook he sees for the Linux desktop.

Another can't let go with KDE 4 bashing because of a procedural error, which I believe they already acknowledged and trying to avoid in the future. I think KDE 5.0, which will be started pretty soon, is going to be the test to show if it was a lesson leaned.

http://aseigo.blogspot.com/2011/08/important-announcement-co...

Yet another digs up, probably misunderstood old statements, from one individual who was upset with all the negative attacks the developers were enduring.

One or couple individual to profile a whole team? Give me a break.

Put yourselves in the KDE team shoes, what would you have done? They weathered the negative outrage against a plan that eventually proved to be the right thing and created an advanced, flexible, extensible, elegant desktop and without a major changes to the look and feel of the outside interface. KDE 4.x is superior to and the envy of any proprietary DE.

I don't agree with Gnome leaving v2.x behind and fully concentrate on v3 only, but for those who don't like what Gnome 3 brings, may be they should take a look at the new bread of hardware devices that are already being released. There is a good reason for Gnome 3 and Unity type of interface, but Gnome team should NOT drop the desktop classical GUI.

http://www.asus.com/Eee/Eee_Pad/Eee_Pad_Transformer_TF101/

http://www.att.com/shop/wireless/devices/motorola-atrix.jsp?...

http://aseigo.blogspot.com/2011/08/wetabirific.html



jdixon

Aug 08, 2011
10:46 AM EDT
> Another can't let go with KDE 4 bashing because of a procedural error,

I still don't know if you actually don't understand the issue or are being willfully obtuse. It wasn't a procedural error. The KDE devs didn't care about their users and whether they could use their desktops or not. And this wasn't an individual problem, this was a problem with the entire team. I could dig up half a dozen examples with no difficulty, if it were worth my time to do so.

> They weathered the negative outrage against a plan that eventually proved to be the right thing

The right thing by whose standard? The developers or the users trying to get work done on their machines?
Fettoosh

Aug 08, 2011
11:28 AM EDT
Quoting:I still don't know if you actually don't understand the issue or are being willfully obtuse.


Neither, I am just a KDE 4.x user who appreciates and values the efforts and dedication of the KDE Team. I am not sure why you can't comprehend that.

Quoting: I could dig up half a dozen examples with no difficulty, if it were worth my time to do so.


I am sure you could, there are others who have opinions and objectives similar to yours, which I disagree with and consider to be inaccurate.

Quoting:The right thing by whose standard? The developers or the users trying to get work done on their machines?


By the numerous users who are very pleased and happy with KDE 4.x.

jdixon

Aug 08, 2011
12:28 PM EDT
> Neither, I am just a KDE 4.x user who appreciates and values the efforts and dedication of the KDE Team.

And we're (mostly former) KDE users who didn't. Our views have just as much validity as yours. And yet you minimize our frustrations with the developers as a "procedural error". They didn't give a d**n about us or our needs. Why should we care about them?

> I am not sure why you can't comprehend that.

I comprehend it completely. You're inability to comprehend and opposing view is what I find confusing. If you find KDE4 meets your needs then I have no problem with you using it. I even have no problem with you singing it's praises. But pretending that the devs acted in good faith is disingenuous. And saying that the people who have a problem with their actions are being unreasonable is not going to advance your position with them, or with anyone else who views the issue dispassionately.

> ...which I disagree with and consider to be inaccurate.

And that's the crux of the matter. Factual statements, backed up by direct quotes, are considered "inaccurate". So willfully obtuse it is.

> By the numerous users who are very pleased and happy with KDE 4.x.

OK. They're a valid subgroup of former KDE3 users and new users. Again, I wish them well of it. But personally I'll stick with XFCE.
ComputerBob

Aug 08, 2011
12:41 PM EDT
Quoting:They're a valid subgroup of former KDE3 users and new users. Again, I wish them well of it. But personally I'll stick with XFCE.
As a long-time KDE user who felt forced to switch to Xfce 18 months ago, to be able to get my work done, instead of having to spend days tweaking and reconfiguring KDE4, I agree.
Koriel

Aug 08, 2011
2:44 PM EDT
Back to Windows 7 can I just say how much i hate the combined launch/task thing.

This sort of stuff should be kept separate, even my 3 yr old doesnt like it he is used to separate launch and taskbar on Xfce.

I know its a subjective thing but its definately a step backwards in my opinion, luckily the machine is only used for gaming doing actual real work on the thing would probably be a chore.
tuxchick

Aug 08, 2011
3:52 PM EDT
One way to make KDE4 look good is to compare it to Windows. At least it still supports multiple desktops, multiple users, and is way more configurable than windows. Ingo Molnar had some great comments on UI design: http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/154415/index.html

Quoting: I think what the KDE4 and Gnome3 folks are doing is that they have picked Apple (and to a lesser degree, Google) UI products as their role model.

That in itself is not a problem (at all) - the problem as I see it is that they tried to achieve this by mimicking Apple products, instead of implementing a high quality UI development process.

This distinction is very important and it has not been invented by Apple: Swiss, German, (Dutch, etc.) industries have discovered it hundreds of years ago and have been passing it on from generation to generation ever since.

What does Apple do to produce high quality products? For 30 years they have gone through hundreds of externally visible iterations (and who knows how many tens of thousands of internal iterations and dead-ends), creating a highly optimal development process that they actively make sure clicks with users.


There is more and it is worth reading.
tuxchick

Aug 08, 2011
4:05 PM EDT
Though KDE4 has one excellent feature: Activities, which is a bad name for each virtual desktop being a nearly-independent environment, with different widgets and views, different wallpapers, and supporting multiple monitors. You can save your various Activities, which is a nice time-saver. A nice tool for organizing and saving complex workflows.

Fluxbox has a similar feature called Tabs, which is middle-click dragging arbitrary open apps into a single tabbed window. It's not all fancy like KDE, but it's fast and efficient. I use Tabs all the time.
jezuch

Aug 08, 2011
4:33 PM EDT
Quoting:Activities, (...) with (...) different wallpapers


Oh yeah, I was wondering where this functionality disappeared. But do I really need to enable those "activities" to achieve this really simple goal?

On the other hand it does sound interesting. I guess I should explore it some day...
tracyanne

Aug 08, 2011
6:40 PM EDT
Quoting:Put yourselves in the KDE team shoes, what would you have done?


What the Trinity project is attempting.

I am one of the, apparently poisionious, users who was delighted that KDE 4 was going to be KDE3 + only to discover it was Windows 1 -

Quoting:They weathered the negative outrage


very very deserved outrage, which they weathered by being arrogant and condecending, and as far as I can tell they still are.

Quoting:against a plan that eventually proved to be the right thing and created an advanced, flexible, extensible, elegant desktop and without a major changes to the look and feel of the outside interface. KDE 4.x is superior to and the envy of any proprietary DE.


I would rather use Windows 7 DE.

The KDE devs broke faith with their user base, the did it in the most arrogant and condescending manner possible, they were and are unappologetic. Perhaps you feel you are getting a good bargin, I do not. As I said Windows 7 DE is at least as good as KDE4. I actually find it less anoying to configure, not that I would use it by choice either.

When the KDE developers lost me as a user they lost all the users who descend from me, none of them are likely to experiment with DEs, so they will stay with what I give them, it won't, of course, be KDE, I simply would not inflict it on them.

Unfortunately the GNOME developers seem hell bent on emulating the KDE devs. Where to go next, may soon be a problem.
r_a_trip

Aug 09, 2011
9:45 AM EDT
I see too much negativity in the air and I don't understand the reason, could it be the severe heat wave we have been enduring this summer?

Well, the summer in The Netherlands has been quite wet and not all that warm so far. So don't blame this solely on the heat.

Another can't let go with KDE 4 bashing because of a procedural error [ snip ]

They released KDE 4.0 without a proper warning. Granted. Procedural error.

Yet another digs up, probably misunderstood old statements, from one individual who was upset with all the negative attacks the developers were enduring.

The statements weren't a procedural error, that was enduring verbal abuse poured over users. There was even active history revision going on within the communication from the KDE talking heads at the time. The quote was just the best and succinct illustration available of the overall problem. I'm not bashing KDE the technology, I'm just stating I'm very wary of it's developers trustworthiness. Maybe I'm just particular when it comes to communication. I'd sooner trust a developer, who honestly and upfront says, "Sorry, we fouled up and pushed an unfinished mess on to you." than a developer who retroactively changes (or tries to change) the history of the release and simultaneously gives users grief and abuse over their ligitimate complaints.

I don't agree with Gnome leaving v2.x behind and fully concentrate on v3 only, but for those who don't like what Gnome 3 brings, may be they should take a look at the new bread of hardware devices that are already being released.

I already own one of those, and surprise, surprise, what it runs is neither KDE, Gnome or Unity. Tablets are either iOS or Android. A few also rans from big companies (WebOS, Windows 7 Starter, QNX) are also vying for some crumbs. No need for three minuscule (in comparison) projects to jump on the band wagon. That ship has long since sailed. The commercial market for stock Linux (Linux, GNU, X/Wayland, DE) with a tablet interface on a tablet will be (and remain) infinitessimal. So why foul up the desktop experience (Gnome and Unity)?
r_a_trip

Aug 09, 2011
10:16 AM EDT
Where to go next, may soon be a problem.

Very eloquently stated and exactly the problem I'm grappling with. If it was just for me, I wouldn't be as apprehensive, but... I'm tech support for my family and I have three Linux users depending on me to keep their computers running and to avoid upsetting disruptions. Therefore, what they are running, I'm running. Or vice versa. It makes talking about problems easier.

Two of them are fledgling new computer users. They've just become comfortable with the way Gnome 2.x works. I don't want to plunge them in unknown and unproven territory. I've considered KDE 4.x, but the way this project handled communication with their users between 4.0 and 4.3... Ugh! Plus, it is not quite the same as Gnome, which will simply be confusing.

My best bet sofar is XFCE (if Clement Lefebvre and team fail to tame Gnome 3 into a Mint-ish flavour). The only problem with that is that XFCE feels like a much younger version of Gnome 2 and it doesn't quite feel finished yet (or I want it to be something it's not). But if push comes to shove, it'll do.

Could be that I worry too much. Maybe we'll all be running Android Desktop Edition in 5 years time :-)
Fettoosh

Aug 09, 2011
10:18 AM EDT
Quoting:What the Trinity project is attempting.


Not an option. KDE 3 was at a stalemate and couldn't be revived and had to be replaced.

Quoting:very very deserved outrage, which they weathered by being arrogant and condecending, and as far as I can tell they still are.


the majority were pleased with the plan and encouraged the effort, and developers had to stand up to the obstructionist. What ever it took, it was worth it.

Quoting:I would rather use Windows 7 DE


Suit yourself, and keep KDE 4 as far away as you can.

Quoting:The KDE devs broke faith with their user base,...


Yeah, yeah, yeah. First it was missing features, took the Desktop away from us, next it was too many clicks to do anything. Now all are gone away, it is the dev's attitudes. Well, make up your mind, and no one is asking to marry the developers.

Quoting:Unfortunately the GNOME developers seem hell bent on emulating the KDE devs


Hardly, Gnome 3 is not even close to KDE4. Gnome 3 is a subset similar to KDE 4 Netbook Plasma work space. The Classical KDE 3 desktop wasn't abandoned in KDE4 as being done to Gnome 2.x. in Gnome 3.

Quoting:Where to go next, may soon be a problem.


How about Windows 7? You seem to have an eye for it and It might be what you want

Fettoosh

Aug 09, 2011
10:48 AM EDT
Quoting:So why foul up the desktop experience (Gnome and Unity)?


First off, as I mentioned before, and on numerous occasions, dropping the Gnome classical desktop is a huge mistake. And that doesn't mean they can't or shouldn't develop new interfaces like Gnome Shell 3, Unity, or KDE Netbook/Mobile/Plasma Active Workspace.

Quoting:I already own one of those, and surprise, surprise, what it runs is neither KDE, Gnome or Unity. Tablets are either iOS or Android.


I am sorry, what is your point? Are you saying that, just because such interfaces are already available, KDE & Gnome shouldn't develop their own?

are you serous? And who the heck are you to tell the developers what, and what not to work on? Who put you in charge?

Quoting:A few also rans from big companies (WebOS, Windows 7 Starter, QNX) are also vying for some crumbs. No need for three minuscule (in comparison) projects to jump on the band wagon. That ship has long since sailed. The commercial market for stock Linux (Linux, GNU, X/Wayland, DE) with a tablet interface on a tablet will be (and remain) infinitessimal.


Yeah? and why have Linux & Gnome or KDE, or any Linux desktop at all for that matter? We all can use Windows, it can do the job and we all can be happy ever after.

Please, get a clue.

helios

Aug 09, 2011
11:03 AM EDT
Not an option. KDE 3 was at a stalemate and couldn't be revived and had to be replaced.

Maybe I am understanding this out of context but how can an environment that was working wonderfully with few if any annoying bugs be "at a stalemate"? How did it have to be "replaced"? Of course, we can ask the same question of Gnome 2.x

I had a conversation weeks ago with a friend who has some close insight into the Gnome organization. She was told that Gnome 3 was created pretty much out of boredom from the current coding landscape. Again, if I am taking this in the right context, The Gnome Team was compelled to paint something brand new, using us as their canvas.

And there can be no mistake, it seems the KDE folks did the same thing.

I for one will be taking advantage of the Trinity release. We still have installs of Mepis 5, 6 and 7 running in the field with KDE 3.10 running the environment and it has to be the most stable environment I've used. We have a KDE 3.12 respin being created for heliOS now that we will deploy on many of our computers shortly.

KDE 3 was not at a stalemate. Working on it became stale to the developers. I'm not saying that KDE 4 at its current state is bad, I'm saying many of us felt betrayed and abused by the arrogance and unconcern that team displayed during the process. Again, the Gnome team seems to be reading from that script.

In the end, this isn't about code, it isn't about bugs. It's about trust. It's about people who bear the weight of millions of users on their shoulders acting irresponsibly and without empathy. All of these "groundbreaking advances" in the desktop environment should have been released as side projects and the changes slowly merged into the current code.
jdixon

Aug 09, 2011
11:14 AM EDT
> XFCE feels like a much younger version of Gnome 2 and it doesn't quite feel finished yet (or I want it to be something it's not)

You want it to be something it's not. It's designed to be more lightweight than Gnome. To quote an old saying, it's a feature, not a bug. I understand that isn't what everyone wants, and maybe there will be a fork of XFCE to make it more Gnome like.

> Not an option. KDE 3 was at a stalemate and couldn't be revived and had to be replaced.

I've heard that a number of times. I've done just enough programming work to know better. That statement is a complete and total load of bull.

> What ever it took, it was worth it.

To the devs, yes. The existing KDE3 users? Not so much so.

> Now all are gone away, it is the dev's attitudes.

It was always the dev's attitudes. The rest were merely symptoms of that problem.
Fettoosh

Aug 09, 2011
12:06 PM EDT
Quoting:In the end, this isn't about code, it isn't about bugs. It's about trust. It's about people who bear the weight of millions of users on their shoulders acting irresponsibly and without empathy. All of these "groundbreaking advances" in the desktop environment should have been released as side projects and the changes slowly merged into the current code.


@Ken,

Very rational & reasonable. Without going back to what happened 2-3 years ago, let me just state one fact. KDE 3.5.10 was the last in the series from the KDE team. They didn't suddenly and totally drop its support when they released KDE 4.0 for testing, and they didn't force anyone user to move to KDE 4.0. Some Distros did, like Kubuntu but others didn't, like Mepis & PCLOS. So users could have stayed with KDE 3.x as long as they needed, obviously you did depending on the Distro, or move to something else, which other did. Which is fine, it is the prerogative.

Now in terms of trustworthiness, dependency, and such, I believe KDE 5.0 is now in development and will be a major upgrade, though not to the same extent as KDE 4. So let's wait and see how the KDE Team handles its release, and to see if the KDE 4 release experience was a lesson learned or not.

Obviously, some people are not willing to do that, I say suit yourselves and move on.



tuxchick

Aug 09, 2011
12:49 PM EDT
Quoting:KDE 3 was not at a stalemate. Working on it became stale to the developers. I'm not saying that KDE 4 at its current state is bad, I'm saying many of us felt betrayed and abused by the arrogance and unconcern that team displayed during the process. Again, the Gnome team seems to be reading from that script.


You might recall the era of Gnome 2. Exact same script: Gnome 1.4 was very flexible, very hackable, and its users loved it. Then came Havoc Pennington and his hardy crew saying things like "The Gnome 1.4 codebase is like all manky. We must clean it up." Just like KDE they were fibbing, and the cleanup was a completely new direction that turned its back on existing users. Unlike KDE4, which evolved into an over-complicated lardy inefficient eye-candy imitation of KDE3, Gnome 2 went the other way with wholesale feature removal in the name of simplicity. You might recall the popular cartoon of the ultimate Gnome: a single button labeled "do something." It is interesting that when Gnome 2 was finally settling into a fairly useful state, though still maddeningly inconsistent between too simpleminded and too difficult, here came the new broom again. Sometimes I wonder if Steve Ballmer isn't their secret Santa.

As Ingo Molnar said, "the problem as I see it is that they tried to achieve this by mimicking Apple products, instead of implementing a high quality UI development process...we are doing everything in our power to create silly artificial walls between developers and users." http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/154415/index.html He is a gentleman; I would say "Peeing on your users probably won't win them over."
Fettoosh

Aug 09, 2011
1:09 PM EDT
@jd,

Quoting:And we're (mostly former) KDE users who didn't. Our views have just as much validity as yours. And yet you minimize our frustrations with the developers as a "procedural error". They didn't give a d**n about us or our needs. Why should we care about them?


Any one is entitled to present own views, but not as their facts.

Quoting:But pretending that the devs acted in good faith is disingenuous. And saying that the people who have a problem with their actions are being unreasonable is not going to advance your position with them, or with anyone else who views the issue dispassionately


Devs have no reason to act in any other way but good faith. Otherwise, What would they gain?

Like I said before, KDE devs didn't suddenly or totally drop KDE 3.5.x support, and they didn't force or twist any arms, They simply released a new version for testing. Some Distros did adopted and others didn't. It was up to the user to decide what to do.

I am not trying to advance my position with anyone. I don't need to or have to.

Quoting:And that's the crux of the matter. Factual statements, backed up by direct quotes, are considered "inaccurate". So willfully obtuse it is.


Bugs, missing features & legitimate concerns have been addressed appropriately and as time permitted. Complains due to preferences, dislikes, biased views and unfamiliarity with options are not facts. Procedural errors were made, hopefully lessons were learned. Let's see what happen with KDE 5. release



dinotrac

Aug 09, 2011
2:09 PM EDT
Quoting:Devs have no reason to act in any other way but good faith. Otherwise, What would they gain?


Excuse me? Are you serious?

How about ego-gratification? The care and feeding of overweening self importance?

A determination to show that this Narcissus guy was a piker?

I've known a lot of very good, very reasonable, very decent developers over the last 30 years or so.,

I've also known a lot of very gifted developers.

Membership in the second group is orthogonal to membership in the first.

It is far from unknown for developers to be pompous little punks absolutely sure they know better than everybody else, and shameless about throwing temper tantrums if somebody amongst that "everybody else" dares to suggest otherwise.

I made my living for years shooting those guys full of metaphorical holes because they never never never never are as smart as they think they are.
jdixon

Aug 09, 2011
2:49 PM EDT
> Devs have no reason to act in any other way but good faith. Otherwise, What would they gain?

The obviously seemed to think they had something to gain, since they didn't.

> KDE devs didn't suddenly or totally drop KDE 3.5.x support...

How many KDE 3.5.x bug fix releases have been made since KDE 4.0 came out?

> I am not trying to advance my position with anyone.

No more or less so than I am, I'll admit.

> Let's see what happen with KDE 5. release

Be my guest. I don't need to get bitten twice by a snake to learn to keep my distance. Fortunately, since I use Slackware, I didn't even have to get bitten once in this case.
Steven_Rosenber

Aug 09, 2011
6:12 PM EDT
I have a Windows 7 installation, and it's not all that different than XP. There's eye candy, but in terms of sheer functionality, it ain't all that.
tracyanne

Aug 09, 2011
6:27 PM EDT
Quoting:Not an option. KDE 3 was at a stalemate and couldn't be revived and had to be replaced.


Cr@p!, utter self serving Bull5H1t3.

KDE3.5.10 was a excellent almost bug free desktop. It was alive and well and not in need of revival. The fact that 1 man can do what he is doing with KDE3.. continue to maintain and develop it, and port it to QT4 is evidence that it was not only an option, but that statements to the contrary are and were self serving justifications.

In other words those who wanted to abandon KDE3 as the basis of going forward, and justified that desire with statements like those above, are liars, and cannot be trusted to to work for the best interests of the users of their product.
herzeleid

Aug 09, 2011
7:22 PM EDT
Quoting:Cr@p!, utter self serving Bull5H1t3.
Agreed. KDE 3.5.10 was awesome. If they had refactored the code, updated the libs and rebased it on QT 4, it would have been fine. But instead, they simply discarded the most popular linux desktop environment ever, and replaced it with something non-functional.
Bob_Robertson

Aug 09, 2011
8:10 PM EDT
I'll just chime in with "me too". KDE4 was mis-named. It should not have been called KDE at all.
patrokov

Aug 09, 2011
11:18 PM EDT
This is a fun discussion. I'm not justifying what the KDE developers did, but I think some of their reaction was was being bitter that no one bought their story. If you'll recall, they said, we know it's not ready yet, but we're calling it 4.0...but it's still just a development release." I don't know if their story "we're calling it 4.0 even thought it's still in beta" was just damage control or incredibly bad judgment, but the big KDE distros all changed over to KDE4.0, and it was a disaster. So I think some of their bravado was sour grapes, "Well, we DID say it wasn't ready for release....even though we named 4.0...."

Thankfully, PCLinuxOS didn't switch until 4.3, and it was mostly okay by then. I think a lot of it also has to do with default settings, and PCLinuxOS set the default installation to be much more traditional, so I never had the extreme reaction that I observe here although I still don't like dolphin and that they crippled konqueror as a file browser, and the new Amarok interface is three steps backwards...and a lot of people seem to have issues with akonadi (but I don't use KDEPIM so I can't speak to that)....Okay, 3.5 was better in just about every way.

tracyanne

Aug 10, 2011
12:49 AM EDT
I thought it was time I tried KDE4 again, just to keep up to date, too many of the fanboys like to claim you've never tried it.

Here are two things that basically nake it not work for me. 1/ it won't give me a resolution of greater than 1600 by 1200 on my dual monitor rig (1920 by 1200 and 1920 by 1050), and the mouse won't go to the bottom of the bottom monitor (I have the monitors placed verically - monitor 0 is the bottom one and monitor 1 is the top one), after I've set up the system for two monitors, as a consequence I can't access the panel, which means I can't access the menu, or shut the machine down gracefully.

Of course it's not 4.7.x, it's merely the version on the latest Alpha or beta of Kubuntu.

No I tell a lie, it also happens on the version of KDE used on Linux Mint 11... ah but that's not 4.7.x either.

No It won't give me more than 1600 by 1200 on single monitor either, and it seems to forget the settings.
mortenalver

Aug 10, 2011
3:34 AM EDT
I've used OpenSuse 11.4 with KDE (4.6.x I think) for some time, to evaluate whether a KDE4 distribution works for me. I need to turn off desktop effects to get acceptable performance, but that can probably be blamed on my cheap 2.5 years old laptop.

I find that it works for me in general, and I don't really miss anything in terms of functionality. But there are some annoyances, such as dialog boxes with really weird default sizes (like a file selection panel which is 2 cm wide so it shows nothing until I resize the dialog), and the desktop locking up whenever I click the Power button (which should give a shutdown dialog) - I saw this with PCLinuxOS with KDE4 as well, so it's not merely an OpenSUSE problem. When I try to customize my panel, it seems that anything can happen with spacing changing for no reason, and applets jumping around or disappearing.

r_a_trip

Aug 10, 2011
6:03 AM EDT
I am sorry, what is your point? Are you saying that, just because such interfaces are already available, KDE & Gnome shouldn't develop their own?

are you serous? And who the heck are you to tell the developers what, and what not to work on? Who put you in charge?


Hold your horses, I'm not in charge of anything. I'm just saying it's too little, too late. The mobile interface everywhere folly is IMNSHO a waste of effort and a sure fire way into irrelevance if it is elevated to a bet the farm proposition.

Of course every project is absolutely free to do what they want, but I won't be blindly praising every hare brained idea that comes along.

Yeah? and why have Linux & Gnome or KDE, or any Linux desktop at all for that matter? We all can use Windows, it can do the job and we all can be happy ever after.

Please, get a clue.


Well, the way it is going, it is once again becoming a toss up. FOSS projects can be just as arrogant and impenetrable as proprietary software corporations. For non-programmers only the absence of use restrictions and the opportunity to legally share the software are of importance when it comes to FOSS. When all the other factors are weighed in, it is only my preference for FOSS licensing that keeps me on Desktop Linux.

What irks me the most is the reckless abandon with which the traditional desktop is cast aside. Yeah, let's just go mobile, the traditional desktop isn't going to be big anyways. No glory to be had there. Let's all just be designers of the next paradigm. Code for "Let's copy the limited mobile phone interface and call it the next big thing."

Instead of ironing out the last glaring ommisions on the Linux desktop, unified package manager, standard filesystem locations, complete and finished multimedia framework comparable to DirectX, standard installation of a multimedia content creation suite that spits out content in open formats, a display stack which doesn't cause lag (either a really cleaned up X or Wayland, etc), nope, not gone waste time on that. Just drop the usable interfaces and foist a phone interface on them and the same glaring ommisions that Linux still has on the desktop.

Yeah, I know you are going to mention KDE SC 4 again and I'm going to spare you the trouble. The developers view on and their treatment of the critical users make KDE SC 4 NOT AN OPTION. I might look into that again when KDE SC 6.x hits the scene.
Fettoosh

Aug 10, 2011
12:09 PM EDT
With such complains and attitude from such users, I certainly would understand why some developers ignore or say what they say in frustration.

Like any software, KDE is not perfect. If it isn't your cup of tea, don't bother with it. KDE 4 has its own happy and grateful users.

KDE 4 is what I use and very happy with it and excited about the features it brought and continues to bring to the Linux Desktop. To me, it makes Linux a pleasure to use.

Quoting:How about ego-gratification? The care and feeding of overweening self importance?....


Hmm, would you say it takes one to know one! :-)

Now, have you met any programmer who isn't?

Again, no one is asking to marry them.

Quoting:No It won't give me more than 1600 by 1200 on single monitor either, and it seems to forget the settings


To my knowledge, monitor resolution is not handled by a DE, it is handled by the graphics driver and X-server. Even if it was KDE problem, it won't be the first or the last, that is just the way it is with all software, and it would have been more gracious & appropriate for you to submit a bug report. There are thousands in the KDE database and thousands fixed in every release. And if you don't want to bother, just don't complain and bash. It is what it is and stay away from it.

Quoting: What irks me the most is the reckless abandon with which the traditional desktop is cast aside. Yeah, let's just go mobile, the traditional desktop isn't going to be big anyways.


You are mixed up, KDE 4 never abandoned the classical DE GUI, Gnome & Unit did. FYI, KDE has so far three different Plasma Interfaces/Workspaces, Desktop Classic Workspace, Netbook/Tablet Workspace, and Mobile/Active Plasma Workspace for small devices. The Desktop Classic and Netbook/tablet can be activated on the fly without having to reboot or re-login and depending on the device used at the time.

Quoting:The developers view on and their treatment of the critical users make KDE SC 4 NOT AN OPTION


Devs didn't force you to upgrade during the development cycle. If you are a "critical" user, then you shouldn't have upgraded. You should have tested and waited until it stabilized.

Fettoosh

Aug 10, 2011
12:40 PM EDT
I think this is a good FYI.

http://aseigo.blogspot.com/2011/08/important-announcement-co...

If you have suggestions, there is your chance to speak your mind.

ComputerBob

Aug 10, 2011
1:10 PM EDT
Quoting:Like any software, KDE is not perfect. If it isn't your cup of tea, don't bother with it. KDE 4 has its own happy and grateful users.
Like me, many, many people used and counted on only KDE for years and years before KDE4 existed. Like me, many people would've been perfectly happy if KDE4 had been introduced as SeigoDE and had been forced to compete against KDE3 for users' loyalty, just like every other brand new DE and WM has to do,

But that's not what happened. instead Seigo and crew hijacked the KDE brand and forced users to switch to a completely different DE -- either to KDE4, with its cluttered workflow and arguably dubious paradign, or to some other GUI. Either way, Seigo and crew intentionally killed many, many users' DE of choice.

I, for one, switched to Xfce, and have been happy with it, but Linux users are usually of above-average intelligence and have very long memories, so I still have a bad taste in my mouth from the actions of Seigo and his crew, and I have no desire to ever return to KDE -- no matter how "ready" its fanboys claim that it finally is after every single new release.
jdixon

Aug 10, 2011
2:41 PM EDT
> If it isn't your cup of tea, don't bother with it.

Don't worry, I won't.

> If you have suggestions, there is your chance to speak your mind.

I almost always have suggestions, being a rather opinionated person. But prudence (which I sometimes show) and tact (less commonly, but on occasion) dictate that I usually keep them to myself. In this case the KDE devs have shown themselves deserving of neither, but somehow I don't think the suggestion to get a real job and let the grownups handle KDE would go over very well, so I'll still refrain.
flufferbeer

Aug 10, 2011
3:20 PM EDT
+ 1 jdixon

@Fetioosh, I don't know if you're entirely with the developers or not on this, but I seem to think that it's the KDE _DEVELOPER'S_ who are showing this let's-ignore-our-userbase combative attitude --- not the users! You should re-read the series of comments by Grishnakh, dinotrac, and ra_trip to get a better feel about this negative attitude. Let's face it; Unity sucks, Gnome3 seems to be heading there, and now KDE4 _also_ seems to be heading there as well.

Furthermore I don't think Computerbob's and others ideas on moving toward XFCE and LXDE are bad ideas at all. If these aren't your cups of tea, then don't bother with these two like the increasing number of others BESIDES YOUR OWN SOLITARY SELF!!

2c frm fb
tracyanne

Aug 10, 2011
6:38 PM EDT
Quoting:To my knowledge, monitor resolution is not handled by a DE, it is handled by the graphics driver and X-server.


Works fine when I use a GNOME or XFCE DE.

Quoting: and it would have been more gracious & appropriate for you to submit a bug report.


True. But I was merely reporting what I saw, to this thread (and like a true fanboy you jumped on it) in this case.

But no I won't report it, as I don't report bugs I discover in Windows (Microsoft can pay me for my bug reports), in the case of KDE they can make a full and public appology. Neither will happen, but that's my price.
Fettoosh

Aug 10, 2011
7:09 PM EDT
Quoting:Works fine when I use a GNOME or XFCE DE.


But that doesn't mean anything since GNOME or XFCE don't have their own drivers. different Distro do have different drives, configuration tools, etc...

Quoting:But no I won't report it, as I don't report bugs I discover in Windows (Microsoft can pay me for my bug reports), in the case of KDE they can make a full and public appology. Neither will happen, but that's my price.


Sorry, that statement is a proof of why developers don't need or want such users.

tracyanne

Aug 10, 2011
7:43 PM EDT
Quoting:Sorry, that statement is a proof of why developers don't need or want such users.


First of all Fettoosh the correct term is "Evidence", and secondly I am what you refer to as "such users" fully because of the KDE developers poisonous attitude towards people who were once loyal KDE fans. The only reason I stopped using KDE was because the KDE deveopers unappologetically let me down, and called me and others like me ungrateful, poisonous, useless, ignorant, stupid etc etc. Because of their attitude towards their users I won't lift a finger to help them, where once I did.
ComputerBob

Aug 10, 2011
8:07 PM EDT
Quoting:Sorry, that statement is a proof of why developers don't need or want such users.
Fettioosh, are you a KDE developer? Or have you been authorized by the KDE developers to speak on their behalf?

Because if you're not a KDE developer, and you haven't been authorized by the KDE developers to speak on their behalf, then I must conclude that the only way that you can make such a statement is because you have witnessed the exact same anti-user behavior from them that the rest of us have witnessed.
Fettoosh

Aug 10, 2011
10:32 PM EDT
Quoting:Fettioosh, are you a KDE developer? Or have you been authorized by the KDE developers to speak on their behalf?


No I am not, and was never authorized by any developers, and I have never had any communication with any of them at all.

The statement I made reflects how I would feel if I were in their position.

The reason I feel so strongly about it is because I very much appreciate what they do and offer us as users. Are they perfect? Not at all, no one is. Are they acting in good faith? I see no reason why they would not. As a matter of fact, if It was me being treated so rudely and ungratefully, I would say a lot worse.

@TA,

English is not my first language, and more importantly, according to the dictionary quoted below, the use of the word "proof" in this context is correct.

Quoting: Proof >> Noun http://www.google.com/search?source=dict-chrome-ex&defl=en&h...

  • Evidence or argument establishing or helping to establish a fact or the truth of a statement

    -you will be asked to give proof of your identity

    - this is not a proof for the existence of God

  • The spoken or written evidence in a trial
  • The action or process of establishing the truth of a statement


flufferbeer

Aug 11, 2011
12:33 AM EDT
Ahhh..... We now have an ADMITTED fanboi for KDE4, for WHATEVER the developers dish out to we users! And an apologist fanboi here at that.

Anyone is perfectly free to choose to look up the meaning of "fanboi" in the contect I'm using.

'Nuff said.
tracyanne

Aug 11, 2011
1:01 AM EDT
Quoting:@TA,

according to the dictionary quoted below, the use of the word "proof" in this context is correct.


Your understanding is incorrect. I am but one example of what you call "such users". One example is not proof, it is a peice of evidence, that may or may not lead to such a conclusion being valid.

What you may or may not know is that I was a very loyal and supportive user of KDE from 2000 until I was effectively told to p155 off, when I so ungratefully complained that the breaking changes had made my desktop unusable.
helios

Aug 11, 2011
1:31 AM EDT
@ TA...

We have someone doing a custom respin of a KDE3 distro based on Trinity and I am thinking the stable Debian. Let me know if you want to spin it and I will post the download link.

Yeah, for years, KDE3 was a rock. Beautiful with my talented mixing of themes and icons and almost boring to use...it never went wonky on me and it did not consume my resources like a Digital Zombie From He!!.

Nom nom.....CPU cycles...nom...

And even with the early attempts at dual monitors, it worked flawlessly.
tracyanne

Aug 11, 2011
1:40 AM EDT
ken, yes please will be very happy to look at it
Fettoosh

Aug 11, 2011
10:21 AM EDT
Quoting:We now have an ADMITTED fanboi for KDE4


I never tried to hide or deny being a Fan and Admirer of KDE 4 to finally admit it. I very much value its technical aspects, beauty and elegance from the first day it was announced.

So, no matter what you mean by "fanboi", I careless.

Quoting:What you may or may not know is that I was a very loyal and supportive user of KDE from 2000 until I was effectively told to p155 off, when I so ungratefully complained that the breaking changes had made my desktop unusable


@TA,

I fully understand where you are coming from because I too had problems and issue with KDE 4 initially. But, in my opinion, that was normal and expected in software that is in the development stage. The latest release, KDE 4.7 is way much better than KDE 4.0 or KDE 3.x for that matter in reliability, features, elegance, and beauty.

Some people, like me, kept up with it and fully understood its technical aspects and process from the beginning, others didn't and lost faith and consequently moved on to something else. I understand that, it was their choice.

All I read now is "They made a big mistake", "it has problems", "developers are being arrogant and rude to their users" etc. I personally don't see much of that, at least not to the extent some are making it to be.

So, if it is so bad, why don't you leave it behind and let bygones be bygones? Or forgive and forget, or turn the other cheek. What is it you are trying to accomplish? Did it hurt that much to seek revenge? So, let it go and be happy. Or at least make me happy. :-) And one more thing, to me, loyal and supportive users usually don't give up on their team and they support them in good and bad times. Keep in mind that attacks are not the same as constructive criticism.

Be happy, that was my final comment on this subject.



jdixon

Aug 11, 2011
11:12 AM EDT
> We now have an ADMITTED fanboi for KDE4...

You just now noticed?

Now, to be fair, Fettoosh can be a valuable resource for those who actually want to try using KDE. He does seem to know it fairly well. If his only problem is that he likes KDE, I can live with that. I've used XFCE as my primary desktop for years now, so I can hardly throw stones at someone for liking a DE.

My only problem with him is his obstinate refusal to recognize the valid points about the betrayal and abandonment of loyal KDE users the KDE devs undertook with KDE4. He doesn't seem to understand that for most people that far outweighs any technical issues. He also refuses to recognize that the KDE devs were arrogant, rude, jacka**es, the entire time. Yes some users were equally rude in return, but that doesn't excuse them. They're knew what they were getting into when they started.

Now, outside of KDE, his stands on and understanding of FOSS issues seem to be on par with those of anyone here.

> So, if it is so bad, why don't you leave it behind and let bygones be bygones?

Perhaps because some people keep bringing it up and insisting that it wasn't that big a deal?

I simply stopped using KDE. I wasn't even a big KDE user before KDE 4. I only used it when I needed to do something that didn't work quite as well with XFCE. So I've just installed GSB on my Slackware box and use the Gnome apps for now instead (primarily transmission instead of ktorrent and brasero instead of K3b).

But that doesn't mean I'm going to allow people to rewrite history to suit themselves. The KDE devs were rude arrogant jerks who abused their existing user base. That's not something we should allow people to forget.

> And one more thing, to me, loyal and supportive users usually don't give up on their team and they support them in good and bad times

People like TA tried, Fettoosh. They really did. All they got back in response was flames (Her posts about the matter are all here on LXer. You can check for yourself). Can you really blame them for leaving? I never moved to KDE4 because I saw the responses those users got, and I decided I really didn't want to support developers who acted that way.
Anixx

Aug 11, 2011
3:56 PM EDT
Hi, people. I completely disagree that KDE3 was somewhat stalled or "unrevivable" at the time of KDE4 release. We on openSUSE have a separate repository with KDE3 from where any openSUSE user can install it. Already four releases passed since openSUSE dropped KDE3 from the main repo (the last release with KDE3 was 11.0 and the current release is 11.4), but KDE3 still works and works, with only minor maintanance efforts and no programmer's intevention. It will be also available for the upcoming openSUSE release and many users still use it. I being the maintainer can admit that I do not know neither C nor C++ programming.

I also agree that KDE4 is a completely different DE which should be named "PlasmaDE" or so, but those Plasma developers decided to exploit a widely known brand for their new environment to gain more popularity and support. "KDE4" name is just confusing to the users.



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