Byron Q. Desnoyers Winmill wrote:
Actually, KDE 3.0 and progressing through 3.2 has shown significant speedups from 2.x and even 1.x. I know it's odd, later versions being faster, but that's the way it goes :) The next version of QT is positioned to make things even faster. Granted, comparing KDE to FVWM is comparing a riced up Civic to a lean and mean Ferrari, but ah well. On both my Athlon XP 3000+ desktop and Celeron 500 tablet, KDE doesn't slow things down very much at all. And on the PC-side of Linux/Unix, I've yet to find a WM/Environment with the interoperability of the widgets and such that KDE has. I used Blackbox, Fluxbox, FVWM, and the like for several years and finally decided I preferred a big, featureful interface even if it is a bit slower to something minimalistic. I do suspect one's experience with "other" operating systems may influence things. My first experience was Windows 3.1 and fairly shortly after Windows 95 on through XP. Positive or not, I'm used to the interface and I see no reason to make something as unlike the Windows interface as possible just for the sake of making it un-Windows-like.<snip>
My first encounter with KDE went something like this: "Oh my God,
this computer has been posessed by a snail!" Without taking the
time to figure out what had happened, I made a slight tweak to my
.xsession file (namely, I created on with the command "fvwm"). I
was going to say that this evaluation may not be fair seeming as
I haven't used KDE in years, but that wouldn't be true.
I triedHmm, I'd be interested to compare the speed running under OS X to the speed running natively on a Linux/UNIX on the same G4. I'd bet there's a good bit of overhead there that isn't KDE's fault.
it on this G4 and it took a generally spry Mac OS X installation
and made it as fast as a snail taking an evening stroll through
molasses.
Most of this is completely configurable in KDE3. Take a look at www.kde-look.org. You can modify the entire widget set to look like just about everything. Right now I have a fairly OS Xy setup going on, and it runs quite snappily. Most of the icons are configurable to be labelled, as well, though I prefer to learn what is where and leave them unlabelled to save space. Plenty of us have grown up with busy interfaces and like them fine :)<snip>
There are other problems with KDE as well. The interface is quite
busy, and the problem is quite evident everywhere from widget design
to the profound number of unlabelled icons.
Fortunately, sensibleGranted, that's why I use Firefox :) Much nicer interface. Sadly, Safari (and Konqueror) don't fully support several websites I use frequently, so it's not a very good option for me. KDE's config is a bit busy, but most everything does make sense. It definitely could use some polishing and cleanup. 3.2 does a nicer job than even 3.1, but there's still a bit much stuff categorized badly (There's a Peripherals section with some stuff, but Sound is a category all its own. There's some keyboard config stuff in Regional & Accessibility and more in the Keyboard spot of Peripherals with what appears to be overlap but is really KDE vs. xkb. ).
operating systems (Mac OS and more traditional Unix installations)
don't suffer from this problem. And the configuration panels are
a hell hole. Compare the Preferences in Safari to those in Mozilla.
Does your average user care about the styleYes. Hence Windows XP's skinning ability, and the proliferation of skinnable apps (Winamp, gaim, Trillian, Windows Media Player, etc) and such. I've done computer helpdesk on and off for awhile, and sometimes I'd get calls from people who were asking about getting skins for things and couldn't because their internet wasn't working.
of widgets when they want their Internet connection to work?
Doubtful.
At any rate, I certainly respect your opinions and understand your viewpoints, but there are good arguments to be made for using the current desktop environments. My mother is using KDE and likes it quite well. She's picked up on things just fine and had no trouble fiddling with various settings. She even figured out Debian's apt-get all by herself :)
That's certainly the beauty of Linux/UNIX though. You can always suit it to your preferences, and what you don't like or even find absurd, others will like just fine. And it's all good :)
Byron.
Scott Holder
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