Uber Geeky!

I’ve been gradually catching up with a lot of the rants on the net with respect to KDE3.5 vs. KDE4. Some less sane than others. I came to the debate quite late it seems, and it’s something I’m not pleased with even having to care about to tell the truth. Suddenly now I find my self having to understand the developers philosophies and getting to know some of the more vocal egos on both sides of the fence. After grasping a better idea of what’s happened, I don’t think I’ll ever be completely sold on KDE4. But after reading some more compassionate words on the topic today, I think I’ve finally come to terms with the situation.

In the KDE developers defence, I don’t think it’s possible for complete overhauls of software to ever be embraced whole heartedly by the userbase. Particularly not right away. I will continue to resent the fact that Kubuntu took up KDE4 so soon. I liked KDE3.5 because it was a work of art, but also because it was fully functional and intuitive for anyone who is used to MS Windows. At that time I couldn’t understand why Ubuntu picked Gnome for the flagship considering KDE3.5 was so much more suited winning over the users afflicted by Bug #1. My first impression when KDE4.1 was thrust upon me was of some retarded mutant desktop environment from a future that I don’t care to participate in. KDE4 turned my entire desktop experience inside out!

I’m not going to pretend that I’m not a stubborn person. I like to work in a particular way which I’ve refined over years, dating back to MS DOS and Windows 3.1. I switched to Linux because some of the more restrictive and intrusive features in Windows Vista had well and truly crossed the line as far as I was concerned. I wanted to get back to a basic desktop without all the useless eye-candy. KDE3.5 was the best fit for me at the time.

I’m quite busy as well. I soon learnt with Linux distro’s, every time there is a distribution upgrade to postpone it for at least a month and ensure I dedicate a couple days after it to get myself settled back in. With KDE4 it was more like a couple of weeks of pointless frustration. Wrestling with KDE4 just proved to be too much hassle for me at work and I’ve now fully switched over to Gnome. I found it easier to customise to my liking than KDE4. At home I’m still on KDE4.2 because it doesn’t matter so much if I’m spending 6 hours trying to figure out how to customise the desktop theme in vein, and I still hold out for a glimmer of hope that the developers may resolve some of my issues with it.

KDE4 is not easy or intuitive to use. I don’t like this widget based desktop paradigm and I don’t understand how it’s useful in anyway. Most of the time my desktop is hidden by windows anyway. I have to wonder if KDE4 was ever designed for using or if it’s just for looking at. KDE4 is a contradiction in my eyes. To be a desktop environment which gets in the way of letting users do what they want, yet to do so in the name of flexibility is bizarre. It makes me anxious and I don’t like it.

I still see KDE4 as the lavalamp of the desktop environment world. It chews a lot of power and looks pretty, but it’s not all that useful. You also have to be careful about touching it because you might get burnt. I have a feeling it’s the new development philosophy that’s flawed, but I can’t quite put my finger on what that flaw is as yet. I think I’ve reached a turning point in my thinking about KDE4 now though, and I find my self walking peacefully in the opposite direction.

Tags: KDE, Linux

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 1st, 2009 at 7:57 pm and is filed under Software. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.