KDE developer Nate Graham, who is known for writing the 'This week in KDE" blog posts keeping us up to speed on all the latest changes has a fresh update about plans for taking over the world, and Graham has some interesting things to say.
There's certainly no shortage of desktop environments on Linux and a number of ways to build software, each with their own goal and way of doing things. It's both a strength for choice and a reported weakness with so much. It's always interesting to read the point of view from developers whose work we rely on so much in the FOSS community. Especially when Graham came from a background in working with Apple, while now a KDE developer.
Here, it wasn't quite what I expected to read. The post goes over talking about the market leaders like Windows and Android, noting neither was the first to come to market but they've successfully captured the biggest slices. Noting that "Neither is picky about what kind of software you run on them or write for them, so they are used on a wide range of devices by lots of different people. Both work with others in adjacent industries, rather than taking a 'my way or the highway' approach. They are flexible."
The flexibility, Graham thinks, is the key to success.
Comparing KDE to Apple, they're clearly very different in how they do things explaining that "we’ve always dreamed of a broad scope and being useful for everyone" on why the Plasma desktop is so flexible and why "the Steam Deck handheld gaming console, PinePhone smartphone, and JingPad A1 tablet are built on top of KDE technology".
Some interesting words aimed at two other big names in the Linux space too, with Graham's post mentioning "So I think ultimately we will become the Windows or Android of the Free Open-Source Software world, with projects like GNOME and ElementaryOS competing to be the Apple of FOSS". You could easily take that as putting them in the firing line but it's more positive than that as Graham continues "I think there will absolutely be room for projects like theirs; in fact I think it’s highly likely that they’ll offer a better user experience than we do for people who fit within the usage paradigms they focus on–just like Apple does".
It's part of why I ended up moving from GNOME to KDE myself, that flexibility of setting it all up how I want it to be, not how designers think it should be. I cannot see myself moving away from Plasma as my own desktop environment on Linux any time soon. Looks good, works well and doesn't get in the way of gaming.
What are your thoughts? Will KDE and Plasma become the biggest players? Going by our own stats from users, Plasma is currently on top but GNOME is not far behind at all.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Last edited by Fredrik on 17 November 2021 at 9:20 am UTC
Quoting: FredrikI really doubt it, its way to buggy and slow compared to gnome atm, they where catching up, but then gnome released gnome 41 and its even faster then xfce.
Are you saying XFCE is buggy and slow? Isn't XFCE known/respected as one of the faster/lighter DEs out there? And what bugs are you referring to? Have you experienced any? Because again, XFCE is ancient and fairly stable in terms of development. I'd very surprised if there were significant bugs still affecting the experience these days. When did you last try it??
Mohandevir Nov 17, 2021
Quoting: CatKillerQuoting: MohandevirThe bug that quickly comes to my mind, that I personnally witnessed, since switching to Kubuntu, is always happening after an update... Suddenly I can't turn off or reboot the computer. Everytime I get an error message that... I don't remember the name... just crashed. I have to ALT+F4 + CTRL-ALT-DEL to reboot.If it's the thing I've seen, it's specifically after Nvidia updates. The version mismatch causes the shutdown widget to crash when you try to use it. You can still dosudo shutdown -h nowthough.
Not really surprised to hear that it's Nvidia related... If I didn't try to do something foolish (I'm not affraid to break an install to try new stuff), GPU drivers are the usual suspect with the majority of my issues, since day one, on Linux... And Windows too, thinking about it...
slaapliedje Nov 17, 2021
Quoting: CatKillerHuh, Debian just warns you when there is a kernel mismatch during the nvidia update and you'll need to reboot at your earliest convenience. I've never seen it just take down X for the fun of it.Quoting: MohandevirThe bug that quickly comes to my mind, that I personnally witnessed, since switching to Kubuntu, is always happening after an update... Suddenly I can't turn off or reboot the computer. Everytime I get an error message that... I don't remember the name... just crashed. I have to ALT+F4 + CTRL-ALT-DEL to reboot.If it's the thing I've seen, it's specifically after Nvidia updates. The version mismatch causes the shutdown widget to crash when you try to use it. You can still dosudo shutdown -h nowthough.
aufkrawall Nov 17, 2021
Quoting: FredrikI really doubt it, its way to buggy and slow compared to gnome atm, they where catching up, but then gnome released gnome 41 and its even faster then xfce. Since I am a gamer I always look for the desktop that runs the best with games, it used to be xfc but now its gnome, on my machine at home the difference is small but its there, at work on a slow i3 with integrated graphics gnome is way faster then kde in games.Sorry, but no. I'm writing this on an ultra slow Gemini Lake device with Arch, and Gnome 41 performance makes it completely unusable on both Xorg and Wayland. Plasma Wayland is far, far better optimized.
Wayland gaming is not yet a thing, as buffer modifier issues currently prevent direct scanout from working. On Xorg, you can just disable KWin compositing entirely and any game is 0 affected by Plasma.
furaxhornyx Nov 17, 2021
Quoting: scaineQuoting: FredrikI really doubt it, its way to buggy and slow compared to gnome atm, they where catching up, but then gnome released gnome 41 and its even faster then xfce.
Are you saying XFCE is buggy and slow? Isn't XFCE known/respected as one of the faster/lighter DEs out there? And what bugs are you referring to? Have you experienced any? Because again, XFCE is ancient and fairly stable in terms of development. I'd very surprised if there were significant bugs still affecting the experience these days. When did you last try it??
My dad wanted to put OpenSUSE with XFCE on a small laptop (it was a few month ago), but he said it was buggy and sluggish as well, so he put back the OpenSUSE KDE edition he is already using on his desktops, and everything went fine. So, there may be some configurations / hardware which cause some issue on various DE...
Quoting: slaapliedjeHa, so their decision to not be practical (or to clean up all the extra cruft) is based upon feelings instead of good design requirements?How users feel about using an interface is part of the data gathered during UX testing. Don't exactly want to make UI that people hate to use, after all.
Also, you just showed that you didn't actually read the whole segment in the wiki page. Read the whole thing, as the quoted rationale against it isn't the only one.
Last edited by win8linux on 17 November 2021 at 4:36 pm UTC
Quoting: slaapliedjeHuh, Debian just warns you when there is a kernel mismatch during the nvidia update and you'll need to reboot at your earliest convenience. I've never seen it just take down X for the fun of it.It doesn't. When you try to use the panel widget to shut down, it pops up a box to ask if it's shutting down, restarting, or logging out that you're after. Spawning that window when you've got a mismatch between the library that the widget was expecting and the one it actually has causes the widget to crash before it successfully spawns the box. So you can't use that method to shut down.
slaapliedje Nov 17, 2021
Quoting: win8linuxHa, yeah I'll be honest, I didn't read any of it. I usually post / read posts in small lulls during the work day. So reading design documents usually don't slip into that amount of time.Quoting: slaapliedjeHa, so their decision to not be practical (or to clean up all the extra cruft) is based upon feelings instead of good design requirements?How users feel about using an interface is part of the data gathered during UX testing. Don't exactly want to make UI that people hate to use, after all.
Also, you just showed that you didn't actually read the whole segment in the wiki page. Read the whole thing, as the quoted rationale against it isn't the only one.
People usually like / dislike user interfaces if they don't act in logical ways. Granted what may seem logical to a programmer may not always seem logical to an end user. Even beyond that, there is just a different mentality. Programmers tend to not see any reason why you should always be running the latest. Where say an operations side person would rather their stuff be stable. I tend to be somewhere in between where I prefer to use latest stuff, but I know where / when you should run older, more proven software.
slaapliedje Nov 17, 2021
Quoting: CatKillerThis is in KDE? Huh, weird. I have not experienced that in Gnome. I'd have to check next time there is a new nvidia driver for Sid to try that. Sounds like it's trying to make a new GL call, and since the library had changed, it just crashes. Though you'd think it'd just use whatever is in memory.Quoting: slaapliedjeHuh, Debian just warns you when there is a kernel mismatch during the nvidia update and you'll need to reboot at your earliest convenience. I've never seen it just take down X for the fun of it.It doesn't. When you try to use the panel widget to shut down, it pops up a box to ask if it's shutting down, restarting, or logging out that you're after. Spawning that window when you've got a mismatch between the library that the widget was expecting and the one it actually has causes the widget to crash before it successfully spawns the box. So you can't use that method to shut down.
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