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Linux Mint Is Killing the KDE Edition (betanews.com)
BrianFagioli quotes a report from BetaNews: While both the Cinnamon and Mate versions of Linux Mint are decent choices for computer users, there was one version that was always utterly bizarre -- the KDE Edition. Don't get me wrong, KDE is a fine environment, but Kubuntu already exists. Having a version of Mint using KDE was redundant and confusing. Thankfully, today, the Linux Mint team announces it is finally killing the KDE edition. "In continuation with what's been done in the past, Linux Mint 18.3 will feature a KDE edition, but it will be the last release to do so. I would like to thank Kubuntu for the amazing work they have done. The quality of Plasma 5 in Xenial made backports a necessity. The rapid pace of development upstream from the KDE project made this very challenging, yet they managed to provide a stable flow of updates for us and we were able to ship good KDE editions thanks to that. I don't think this would have been possible without them," says Clement Lefebvre, Linux Mint.
Lefebvre further says, "KDE is a fantastic environment but it's also a different world, one which evolves away from us and away from everything we focus on. Their apps, their ecosystem and the QT toolkit which is central there have very little in common with what we're working on. We're not just shipping releases and distributing upstream software. We're a product distribution and we see ourselves as a complete desktop operating system. We like to integrate solutions, develop whatâ(TM)s missing, adapt what's not fitting perfectly, and we do a great deal of that not only around our own Cinnamon desktop environment but also thanks to cross-DE frameworks we put in place to support similar environments, such as MATE and Xfce."
Lefebvre further says, "KDE is a fantastic environment but it's also a different world, one which evolves away from us and away from everything we focus on. Their apps, their ecosystem and the QT toolkit which is central there have very little in common with what we're working on. We're not just shipping releases and distributing upstream software. We're a product distribution and we see ourselves as a complete desktop operating system. We like to integrate solutions, develop whatâ(TM)s missing, adapt what's not fitting perfectly, and we do a great deal of that not only around our own Cinnamon desktop environment but also thanks to cross-DE frameworks we put in place to support similar environments, such as MATE and Xfce."
It never ends.
I'm glad I never found Mint that appetizing. It always felt like an inferior version of *buntu distributions because it didn't have at least 1:1 package parity. The custom stuff like mintBackup was never that useful to me since these problems had been solved long ago by others.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
If you found that confusing you're probably not bright enough to running linux anyway.
Mint is focused on providing a desktop environment that keeps everything consistent in the UI, never making a change unless absolutely necessary so as to not throw off the user. In that sense, desktops like KDE seem more experimental, changing things as they innovate.
I'm glad Mint is staying focused and consistent, that's why I stick with their distro. I want something for daily use for me and my family and it's been perfect.
Twinstiq, game news
I am writing this comment from Linux Mint KDE and I am wondering why the derisive tone for this distribution in The Fine Article linked. It was marginally better than pure Kubuntu and I was anticipating the next version. Sadly I'm more inclined to KDE than Mint so if they part ways I'll look for another KDE distro.
Captcha: repelled - is there an AI in this? :-)
Since Canonical nor Mint really gave KDE much love, there's little reason for KDE Mint or Kubuntu to exist when KDE now have their own Ubuntu spin.
I've found KDE bloated and complex, gnome is a better fit for most users, while LXQt is great for users wanting a traditional WIMP GUI.
Now I have to go find another distro to move to. I have multiple computers with multiple users, all running Mint/KDE. I thought I'd finally found a easy to use, Debian based distro with KDE. I tried Kubuntu a couple of times, and it was very clearly a second class citizen, even to the point where it almost imploded in Oct 2015. Unless it has improved very dramatically in both quality, focus, and stability it's not a viable alternative.
Sigh. Fine. Back to the drawing board.
Dammit.
-- "Never underestimate the power of human stupidity." - R.A.H.
I love the geeks who complain about KDE's stability or being bloated.. as if you run a real time system and painfully notice every nanosecond. KDE is a well built, well designed desktop that has been on Linux from the very beginnings. If it weren't for some licensing issues in the early years of Linux, GNOME would never have gotten started.
The fact is, if you have a wonky KDE desktop, it's because the people who maintain your distro are biased towards GNOME and half-ass their KDE builds. If KDE is so bloated and terrible, why is it that it has never been forked (other than Trinity, which is just a continuation of KDE 3), yet there's what, 3? 4? GNOME forks going, most of which were sparked by GNOME being such a clusterf*** to build.
ONE KDE environment is "bizarre and confusing" but 4 GNOME environments are not? Biased much dude?
I've been using and writing about various Linux distros for well over a decade, and it constantly amazes me how utterly clueless the Linux "community" is when it comes to making serious inroads into the mainstream desktop. From the viewpoint of an average consumer walking around Best Buy or clicking around on Newwegg's site, Linux is a nightmarishly confusing and just plain weird dumpster fire. Between things that simply won't run on Linux that customers want, things that are much tougher to do, and the surly online "help" from fellow users, it should be no surprise that most mainstreamers sprint to Windows or Mac systems when you suggest they give Linux a spin as their only system.
And it's not just end users. Go to a trade show and ask vendors behind the scenes why they don't have drivers or apps for Linux, and they laugh, roll their eyes, and talk about the endless incompatibility issues. Yes, they almost always mention that before talking about the size of the installed base.
But the Linux "community" will blissfully keep doing what they're doing and wallowing in their persecution complex while everyone else considers their OS to be a geek's toy.
Kubuntu is the redheaded stepchild of the Ubuntu family. It's chained to the radiator and beaten more often than it is fed. Even if you brushed its hair and gave it some love it would still bite your dog and shit under the Christmas tree.
I would sooner go back to XP than use Kubuntu again and I've used KDE as my primary DE for 18 years.
Mint was a quality KDE distribution. I'll be sad to see it go. Luckily we still have KDE Neon.
what's with overuse of kill
Let's just use discontinue, because there have been too many already killed, too much use of the word in our newspapers, and in our media.
What say you now
Who used Mint for KDE anyway? Those 5 people will surely be pissed off.
why does another distro having a KDE desktop option have anything to do with another
its linux, the whole fucking thing is redudant, which is why there's umpteen billion distro's based on ubuntu in the first place, which is one of the umpteen billion distro's based on debian
is it not the whole linux mentality to have unlimited choice while in reality its all the same crap?
I was a KDE lover back in the early 2000's. Until KDE 4. I had no choice but to switch to a desktop that actually worked, even if not as nice as KDE. Now, more than a decade later, I sometimes think of trying KDE again. Looking back fondly to KDE 3. How integrated everything seemed. But I just can't get over the inertia to even give it a try.
Now one of my favorite distros, Mint, that was the one that might have let me dip my toes into the waters of KDE, is abandoning KDE. Oh, well. It was nice knowing KDE. Like Apple back in its heyday (I mean the 1980's and early 90's) it was great. But things change.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
The Debian 9.2.0 of KDE, is so unstable and put together by somebody who hated KDE. The Russian version the Japanese, version and the English version are greeted by a logon U.S. flag! As you go through it you can see it is bits and pieces slapped together without any consideration.
I would not use KDE if somebody paid me to. it is not a work environment it is a mishmash that cannot be taken seriously as a desktop.
They better offer a Gnome option.
I'd like to see mint go with TDE as an option.
I won't use KDE4/5 or Gnome but I still use TDE.
When I finally gave up Mandriva, I went with Ubuntu because TDE was an option.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Like every modern laptop. Need a magnifying glass to get anything done on Chromebook Pro for example. With KDE, I can just change a setting and it works great.
KDE is so superior to Gnome/Mate/Cinnamon that it's not even a competition. This won't come as news to Linux fans.
And what fool uses a crap derivative distro like Ubuntu or Mint?
Servers get Debian.
Workstations get Arch.
Linux mint is for suckers. Use a real OS. (not suggesting names bc I don't teach script kids)
it's just a window composer for god sake , why do we need to have diff distro ? this is why i only use the mini installer , install base system , and then apt-get your fav. GUI wether its KDE Gnome , Unity who cares , it's only usefulness is tiling shell windows
They should have killed of Gnome 3 linux mint
KDE have worked verey hard to reduce the memory footprint and CPU use of plasma. Plasma 5 is less resource hungry than plasma 4.
For a (very unscientific) comparison let's take a look at distro reviews from https://www.dedoimedo.com/computer_software.html#linux - all operformed on the same hardware:
Memory requirements
Fedora 26 Gnome 3: 1700MB
Linux Mint 18.2 Cinnamon: 847 MB
Xubuntu 17.04: ~ 700MB
Kubuntu 17.04: 550 MB
Opensuse 42.3 KDE: 470 MB
On my main machine, opensuse 42.2 KDE uses 420 MB RAM, on my secondary Manjaro KDE uses 385MB. If you look up the resource usage in the task manager screenshots of said reviews, you'll dicover that the other DEs also tend to use up more CPU cycles.
Unless you want to go for a bare-bones window manager, KDE is as good as it gets.
And don't me even get started about Nautilus/Nemo/Files or whatever that thing is called: I wonder how anyone can put up with that as a file manager.
Has anyone figured out how to root ubuntu/mint so that it is usable?
because desktops like KDE, Deepin, and others that take queues from current UIX developments, try very hard to be modern desktops for modern users, while older desktops try very very hard to be strictly a Linux desktop, for Linux users. That's not how you market your product for the masses and build Linux adoption.
17.3 was the last Mint version where they integrated KDE right. Everything after just sucked bad.
I like/prefer KDE as my main desktop environment compared to most of the others out there and I liked Linux Mint as an alternative to Ubuntu which is why after many years of using Slackware I started to use Linux Mint KDE edition. Looks like I will be saying goodbye to Linux Mint now with this decision.
at htis point, mint as a distro is just one of two DE on top of ubuntu with the restricted-extras package pre-installed, but without the ability to upgrade in place, which just creates more problems for average users who don't realize their system is no longer receiving patches and updates and has no idea how to back-up, reinstall, and reconfigure everything on a 6 month/2 year basis. Considering that Ubuntu MATE exists, Mint is really just a broken Cinnamon version of Ubuntu
Hi Guys and Girls,
I've been a Linux Mint KDE user for years and loved it (Since Linux Mint 7). However, due to to the issues I experienced with the early Linux Mint 18 KDE releases and Plasma 5 bugs, I decided to give Maui Linux a try.
Maui Linux:
- Ubuntu 16.04 Base
- Based on KDE NEON
- Rolling upgrade of KDE Plasma ONLY (Currently on 5.10.2 @ October 2017)
- Linux Mint tools integrated
https://mauilinux.org/
I've not looked back and would highly recommend the switch.
Zubin