Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Is KDE Dying?
A long-time loyal KDE user "always felt that it was the more complete and integrated of the many Linux desktop environments...thus having the most potential to win over new Linux converts." And while still using KDE exclusively without any major functional issues, now Slashdot reader fwells shares concerns about the future of desktop development, along with a personal opinion -- that KDE is becoming stale and stagnant:
KDE-Look.org, once a fairly vibrant and active contributory site, has become a virtual ghost town... Various core KDE components and features are quite broken and have been so for some time... KDEPIM/KMail frankly seems targeted specifically at the poweruser, maintaining over many years its rather plain and arguably retro interface. The Konqueror web browser has been a virtual carcass for several years, yet it mysteriously remains an integral component...
So, back to my opening question... Is KDE Dying? Has innovation and development evaporated in a development world dominated by the mobile device? And, if so, can it be reinvigorated? Will the pendulum ever swing back? Can it? Should it?
The original submission has some additional thoughts on Windows 10 and desktop development -- but also specific complaints about KDE's Recent Items/Application Launcher History and the KDE theming engine (which "seems disjointed and rather non-intuitive".) The argument seems to be that KDE lacks curb appeal to fulfill that form-over-function preference of the larger community of users, so instead it's really retaining the practical appeal of "my 12 year old Chevy truck, feature rich for its time... Solid and reliable, but definitely starting to fade and certainly lacking some modern creature comforts."
So leave your own thoughts in the comments. Does desktop development need to be reinvigorated in a world focused on mobile devices -- and if so, what is its future? And is KDE slowly dying?
So, back to my opening question... Is KDE Dying? Has innovation and development evaporated in a development world dominated by the mobile device? And, if so, can it be reinvigorated? Will the pendulum ever swing back? Can it? Should it?
The original submission has some additional thoughts on Windows 10 and desktop development -- but also specific complaints about KDE's Recent Items/Application Launcher History and the KDE theming engine (which "seems disjointed and rather non-intuitive".) The argument seems to be that KDE lacks curb appeal to fulfill that form-over-function preference of the larger community of users, so instead it's really retaining the practical appeal of "my 12 year old Chevy truck, feature rich for its time... Solid and reliable, but definitely starting to fade and certainly lacking some modern creature comforts."
So leave your own thoughts in the comments. Does desktop development need to be reinvigorated in a world focused on mobile devices -- and if so, what is its future? And is KDE slowly dying?
Face it. We are dying off. The contributors. The hackers (in the 70's sense of the word). KDE is a thing of the prior decades. Sit down and ask yourself: How many people under 30 know what KDE is? Is it a higher or lower percentage than last decade? The decade prior?
Smart phones got better. Distractions got more distracting. The canonical hacker breed is dying. You feel it. We all feel it.
Where's that fucking apps appidy app guy when you need him. He's got it right you know. The borg-like proliferation of technology has reached the point such that there is no wonder to the up and coming generations in terms of "how can I make this better", moreover it's become "how can I get moar"
Is this new? No. Bread and circuses have existed for decades. But the rate of new bread and new circuses is unprecedented. Enjoy tomorrowland. It will be fucking lame and owned by Pepsi and Microsoft.
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
No, it didn't survive.
KDE4 sucked. It sucked so hard and the developers wouldn't admit to it. They first blamed the distributions for shipping 4.0, which was supposed to be "Beta quality," except that there were a whole 2 years of 3.9-BETAs and 4.0 had a big release party from KDE themselves when it went gold. It was a bullshit excuse. Then they kept saying "4.2 will have feature parity with KDE3", followed by "4.3" then "4.4" etc...
Finally, when KDE4 was still a pile of shit 2 years after release, they started blaming the users for not having standard configuration hardware (never-mind that only KDE struggled with graphics, and no other environment). When they continued to bleed users, the developers renamed the project about half a dozen times so that the remaining users wouldn't even know where to complain about the krashes. Oh that crash that keeps happening and can be easily replicated? Yeah, that's not the KDE SC's fault, that's nepomuk / akanodi / strigi / phonon / your graphics. Except only KDE depended on those shitty back-ends in the first place.
Then there was another rebrand with KDE 5, where it became Plasma Desktop, and SC applications? Are you still following through the name changes? Because most people gave up by this point. The stability never returned from the 3.x days. KDE is a user-hostile community; the devs deserve to be shot for ruining a good thing, and of course they will blame somebody else, anything else for their inadequacies.
The only people still using KDE are newbies who want eye candy to show off in Youtube videos. Those of use who want to get work done have long since moved on. I hear that besides a few bugs and quirks, KDE 5 is almost usable. Great. We're now nine years out since KDE 3.5.
The fact that this story exists on Slashdot is enough proof that KDE is dead.
One of the problems with anything desktop-related is the fact that it's all getting drowned out by people beating the phone-and-tablet drum. Developers are cargo-culting the mobile design paradigm, even on applications that are aimed at desktop users. I do systems integration work with a focus on end user computing, so I see lots of user-facing software from many vendors. I swear that the big offshore code shops have all just started using the same "touch-first" AngularJS user interface framework and swap in company logos when they build a new web front end for something.
I'm a big desktop fan - and a big terminal/command line fan. People laugh at me for using Midnight Commander for file operations on my various computers...but it's way faster than navigating a GUI or the command line if you know what you're doing! The problem is that the desktop and even the laptop form factor isn't the default anymore for most people. They've become almost a niche now, even in businesses. Most people want the Surface-style convertible tablets now where I work, and I've still got my boring ThinkPad collection.
I'm also a cross-platform kind of guy, but I find myself on Windows machines most of the time. Microsoft actually did the right thing with Windows 10, walking back some of the 8.x "touch-only, tablet-only" craziness. It's not Windows 7, but in my mind it's a good compromise between the two worlds. If most people are mashing the screens on their Surface, you can't get away with Windows 7-sized user interface elements. I wish they'd let people theme Windows 10, but that's a different story. On the Linux side, I do wonder if having several choices for desktop environments, all with extremely different ecosystems, is the right thing. It's nice to have a million ways to do things, but Apple was able to do a decent UI on top of UNIX that hides everything UNIXy about MacOS until the user gets down into the details. The fragmentation of the Linux desktop is one of the things slowing adoption. Some of the more modern Linux desktop environments have gotten more love recently, and are a better choice for the new user. But, just like CDE on the old UNIX platforms, I'm sure KDE will be kicking around for ages. Just like me and my Midnight Commander...
Konqueror would seem to be the best file manager for power users and programmers.
As far as I can see, file management really isn't a big deal for programmers. IDE, source control system, build automation tools, web browser, and of course a shell with the usual POSIX utility suite -- each of those things is a big deal. But Finder vs. Windows File Explorer vs. Thunar vs. Nautilus? I'd be curious if anyone can show that the choice has any measurable impact on productivity. It seems to me purely a matter of taste.
I stopped using KDE and Gnome years ago, except to try them out periodically to see where they're headed. And pretty much it's places I don't particularly care about. I won't be arrogant and say that makes them bad or stupid, it's just means they're not for me. To me the desktop wars are like college basketball; if other people are into it that's fine by me, as long as it isn't compulsory.
If there are enough people who DO want to go where these projects are heading, then KDE and Gnome will do fine. If they aren't, well, I'd feel sorry for all the people who put so much work into them. There was a time when these projects were critical to the future of software, but not anymore. Pretty much any one desktop system could disappear over night -- even (or perhaps especially) Windows. -- and it wouldn't be the end of the world. There's a healthy field of choices now, which is good for users if rough on the legacy of pioneering developers.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Billions of people actually use it?
As a desktop? Heh - no. Wrong.
A lot of tech people tend to forget that for most people, a computer is not an end unto itself. It's just another tool for getting their real work done. Why "advocate" a desktop if people can get their work done on a tablet or phone? A desktop system has a lot of complexity that, for most people, probably tends to get in the way of actually getting their work done as much as it helps them. I say, just use the simplest tool fit for the job, nothing more.
People laugh at me for using Midnight Commander for file operations on my various computers...but it's way faster than navigating a GUI or the command line if you know what you're doing!
I'd argue that very few people's productivity is measured in how efficient their file operations are. It's sort of like believing you're going to be vastly more efficient as a programmer if you memorize a bunch of keyboard shortcuts or type 60wpm instead of 30. Unlike the movies, programming isn't about how fast you type.
If it works for you, fantastic. But don't kid yourself... you use it because it's what you know and you're comfortable with it. People hate change, because change forces cognitive dissonance, meaning you have to focus more on the task rather than the work you're trying to get done until the new system is committed to muscle memory. That means many people hate change even if it's change for the better, let alone if it's just change for change's sake.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Despite the industries' desire to convince us that change for change sake is a good thing, if it isn't broke don't fix it, and don't screw with things just to add a new paint job. That kind of thinking gets us a 'new' version of windows that is just a Botox job and contains no real functionality. That kind of thinking gets us an all 'new' car model or a brand 'new' iPhone model every year despite the fact that there is really nothing new to add, just a newer model with a minimally incremental H/W upgrade. I think you might be confusing stale with stable and dependable. Should you really care that your desktop manager isn't exciting ?
I could never understand the drive to upgrade to the latest and questionably greatest bleeding edge technology. Stay a year or two behind the bleeding edge and don't get cut, or pay the top dollar for something that really does very little more for you. You should only upgrade when there is a clear and definitive reason to do so, when you can't perform a task that you need to do. Does an extra second or two really justify the expenditure of so much resources ? Money, and time to learn a new interface, not to mention wasted resources and increased trash ?
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Since my transition from windows to linux 4 years ago I've been through a few environments with the following issues:
* Ubuntu 14/Unity - Fast and not very buggy, but the interface is just - NO. Give me my taskbar, systray and start menu on the bottom. It works fine on a desktop.
* Ubuntu 14/Cinnamon - Interface is OK, but I can't see my battery status and it doesn't warn me for low battery. Biggest problem with Cinnamon is that it's extremely slow - takes 20-90% cpu constantly. It's been the same on another Ubuntu 14 at work, a Ubuntu 16 at work and my brothers' Mint 17 installation. Searching in the start menu is also extremely slow.
* Ubuntu 14/XFCE - Interface can after much configuration be OK. Lighting fast but too buggy. Lots of V-SYNC errors despite new graphics drivers, changed settings etc. Cannot bind shortcut commands to key-up event. Quite a few other graphics bugs. Feels broken. Also doesn't show my battery status.
* Xubuntu 16 (from live usb) - Most bugs (but not all) still present.
* Kubuntu 16 - Interface is not just ok, but actually NICE. After configuring for a black theme and enabling half transparency on the task bar it's beautiful. The systray icons look modern. And I like the smooth hardware accelerated animations. It's fast too. A lot faster than Cinnamon and quite close to XFCE. I don't see any cpu spikes. It does recognize my battery and warns me if it's low. There are bugs however - sometimes the taskbar crashes (and restarts), and I can't get my Guake console to bind the "open" key at login - that has to be done manually after each login. The system settings can be a bit messy as well, especially bluetooth.
I don't care much about outdated KDE apps as I think the only one I use i KCalc and Dolphin. Except those I mainly use Chrome, Firefox, SpiderOak, Spotify, Libreoffice, Guake.
I'd say that some stagnation in the KDE development would actually be good if they instead focus on bug fixes. The interface is good enough for the moment.
Those aren't desktop users. They're not relevant to a discussion about desktop environments. You wouldn't run KDE on a switch. That would be stupid.
I've been using KDE for over a decade, and in fact am using it right now. Feel free to call me a noob if that makes you feel better, though.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
The 'people' didn't choose Gnome, much in the same way the 'people' haven't chosen systemd. The distribution packagers chose to make Gnome their default and the 'people' once presented with a choice tend to stick to that choice.
Until the last 5-10 years there were only a couple of distro's that really took the effort to showcase KDE, mostly Mandrake and SuSE.
The sad thing was Gnome was never up to KDE's maturity and cohesion. It was launched and chosen as the default because of baseless fears over the licensing of Qt back in the 90's, not technical ability.
Who said anything about desktops? The original troll was "Linux was never alive to begin with" and the correct response to that is: billions.
Your strawman is on fire. Better splash some water on it.