"It's normal and it works." One of the main project managers tells us why he loves KDE

KDE Plasma Start Menu

When it comes to the number and variety of Linux desktops, we are spoiled for choice. A lot, in fact, and more and more options are appearing, such as cute fish or Deepin (DDE) that has been with us for longer and has some users happy. But much of the share is left to classic desktops or those used by default by the most popular distributions. The most used is GNOME, but it is closely followed by a KDE that it hasn't been the disaster that scared us in the past for a long time.

In recent months, KDE has been making headlines for various reasons. For example, it is the desktop that Valve has chosen for its Steam deck. In Plasma 5.24 have borrowed the GNOME overview, and its applications offer more and more functions. But if you like KDE it is because of what Nate Graham He has written on his personal blog, an article he posted from a user's comment on the Phoronix blog: "KDE it's normal and it works«.

KDE is easier to use for those coming from Windows

El original comment, of which Graham has decided to keep a sentence (which he later develops), says the following: «put 98% of the population (Windows or macOS users) in front of GNOME Desktop and they have no idea what ***** they are supposed to do«. Phoronix user/reader seems to be complaining about someone asking to use GNOME, since it has fewer bugs, which also means there is less movement. But "mayor" says that he hasn't had any problems at KDE since the summer of 2010.

Well, I won't be the one to say that KDE has always been perfect. Between 2015 and 2016 I tried to use it a couple of times and every two or three times something "crashed" me, so, not to leave x-buntu, I used Unity again and later GNOME. But I can say that I have been using KDE for three years now and, yes, I feel the same way as «mayor»: I don't understand the criticism, and I don't understand it because YO I do not experience gross problems. And all this brings us back to what Graham has written, which is a bit of an article in which he sticks his neck out.

Nate Graham: "Plasma wears a normal, familiar cape"

Graham's arguments to defend his KDE begin with the interface. Wear a normal, familiar cape, with a bottom panel, app launcher, applications that can be pinned to the task manager, icons on the desktop and visible buttons, among which he mentions minimize, maximize and close (and when he was going to ask me if there was one that did not comply with the latter, i3wm, which I still work on from time to time, came to mind). This is what "mayor" and Graham consider normal. But that's just how things come by default.

And what happens if we don't like that normality that we associate with Windows 95 onwards? Well that in KDE you can change everything. Do you want the centered menu like the one in Windows 11? This can be done by adding spaces to both sides of the task manager (and the menu, if we also want it in the center). When I missed GNOME 2.x, Plasma allowed me to add shortcuts to the task manager, or any other panel, easily and quickly. It's customizable, and it is with the native features.

KDE knows it has to improve

But, although the article can be understood as something to advertise itself as the best without discussion, it ends with some humility, repeating that "KDE Plasma works", followed by a self-conscious "it has its bugs, but...":

“It has its bugs, but basically it's a solid, reliable piece of technology that isn't missing important features, either because of lack of resources or because design decisions prevent them from being supported. It's not a hobbyist science project that's missing key features that could break completely. It doesn't reinvent itself every one or two years and become something different that may no longer satisfy your needs or tastes. You have action plans to adapt to the industry changes that surround you and that are actively being carried out; it is not on its way to becoming obsolete or a technical dead end. No, it's just a boring, imperfect infrastructure that you can trust nonetheless."

Graham ends by saying that he thinks these are needed features, and that's why he likes it and works on it. It works, easy to use, customizable, I add that in my teams it is light… that they polish the part of the small bugs and they will embroider it. Although I think that Debian, Ubuntu and Fedora will never allow them to be the most used Linux desktop.


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  1.   fast said

    It's normal and it works. It will be that no, it is not normal and it does not work, because for it to work correctly you have to use an lts version of kde, something that does not happen with any other desktop, therefore it is not normal.