This is not April fools. The submitter did want to mess with people, though.
https://joshuastrobl.social/@me/112197672362783955
In theory, I would love to use KDE and use Gnome only with many plugins and tweaks (like IMHO the majority of Gnome users out there, see Ubuntu desktop).
In practice, KDE has still too many unsolved problems:
- For years now, I try KDE from stable mainstream distros in standard VMs, always something from the vanilla KDE setup segfaults within the first 30min w/o me even starting to customize it. It seems this is not only a personal anecdote, but the experience of a lot of people trying KDE. (Gnome in these VMs runs stable w/o any segfaults, these VMs sometimes are running for days)
- KMail ... even the KDE community themselves point out all the trouble with KMail: It works, until it doesn't, no support for GMail OOTB, etc ... This problems with KMail are known/reported/experienced for years now, w/o being fixed. Thunderbird/Evolution work OOTB and stable for my needs since a decade by now
- Online-Accounts for Gnome works on every distribution OOTB for me, for all my professional/private needs. Again, in theory Dolphin is a much better file manager than Nautilus, in practice I can remote mount everything in Nautilus
In summary: I am not a big fan of Gnomes UI and would much prefer KDE, but in practice Gnome works stable, lets me setup my online accounts/connectivity and email and simply works. The KDE community ignored too many of this issues for too long (stability) and is still ignoring the widely known issues with KMail (fix it, dump it or at least communicate it is not ready for general use). I lost trust that these issues will ever be fixed by now. (Was a happy KDE 3.X user back in the day.)
Merkuro Mail might fix some of KMail's issues. It still uses the same backend though, and isn't really stable yet.
I know you mean good, but exactly this is the problem: Fix known issues with KMail or with KMails backend? - Nope. Write a new E-Mail client which someday, in the far future might work and have all the features we need? Let's go!
IMHO Evolution had the benefit, that it initially was written by Ximian and brought up to be good enough(TM). Honestly, I don't see anyone investing this time, money and energy in a new KDE email client (or in KMail).
Funnily enough, leading the proposal is Joshua Strobl, the lead dev of the budgie DE. More here https://joshuastrobl.social/@me/112197620423915344
I don't like KDE at all. Too busy, terrible-looking right click menu on the desktop (some lines long, some short). It's that stuff that give me OCD. I like cleanliness in the UI.
I like KDE’s conformance to open standards, which is better than GNOME’s, and pace of development. However you’re absolutely right that the UI on KDE is inconsistent, messy, and buggy as hell. GNOME is still my go to because it’s just so polished, but I’m looking forward to COSMIC this year for that nice tiling workflow
Similar here. I have switched to xfce after struggling with gnome and kde.
I might use XFCE... but PLEASE GO KDE... I CANNOT EXPLAIN MY LOATHING OF GNOME
oh I can explain mine, Bad performance, lacking features, devs who don't care about problems that effect the user.
I've been using gnome as a "base" DE for years, what that means is I install it, then install my tiling wm and use all the gnome utilities.
I recently had to set up a few new machines and decided to try KDE on a couple and I'm really enjoying it. I haven't even gotten around to installing a tiling wm because I want to learn a wayland option and that'll take some time. I haven't ran into pain points listed here but one thing I like is when I want to do X, there's usually already something ready to do X for me. Years of gnome and I felt like the devs were always fighting me. I haven't really used a full gnome setup in a few years though, but I know the "mommy knows best" attitude is still prevalent with the devs.
Install KWin script "Polonium" and you won't need any TWM anymore.
Polonium
Hm I'm not sure if that'd really give me what I'm looking for. I know its certainly possible to configure KDE and Polonium to get me 90% there but I think I'd rather just have a normal floating setup I can switch to if need be. I'd need to remap a significant amount of keyboard shortcuts that would stop making sense in the context of a full floating DE.
I really just want a very fast app launcher like dmenu, dynamic tiling, and monitor independent workspaces. I have a particular setup using certain alpha keys for my workspace.
I never really enjoyed the experience of tacking things onto an existing DE and having to mess with UI configuration. I've been really loving XMonad for a few setups and my ideal wm would be something that's extremely low power and low fluff. Even if I only eek out 10% more battery life, breaking the 10hr mark is more valuable to me than most bells and whistles.
I'm just really lazy. I could load up my xmonad setup in 20 minutes but I wanted to see the state of wayland and that requires learning a new wm's configuration quirks.
I like the UX KDE gives over Gnome. It feels way more like a personal computer, something that you can modify and do multiple tasks with.
Gnome is a lot more limited in functionality, but it's also a lot more stable. KDE is buggy and has a tendency to crap the bed a few minutes after startup, which never happened to me with Gnome.
It's a though decision, but lately I've been thinking of switching back to Gnome.
As long as a gnome spin stays maintained. I've been using gnome for 8 years and I really don't want to switch distros again.
GNOME is grared toward dev people who need something almost as minimal as a wm. KDE is better suited for average users.
Can someone ELI5 why this even matters/is such a big deal? Does the default DE have its tentacles so deep in the distro that it can't be changed by users to suit their preferences?
I run i3 on Debian, and...well, actually, there is no "and," I just installed the WM I wanted and that was it. And as I recall the installer asked what DE/WM I wanted to install anyway.
It matters since a top 3 distro will identify with KDE Plasma desktop. This is not very common.
Please don't! If RedHat start participating in KDE, it will kill it like it killed GNOME.
This is probably the best take in fedora not adopting KDE i've heard to date lmao
