KDE No Longer Competitive? Developer Calls It Quits

[ChrisXY]

none of them are worth a damn when it comes to getting work done in the way that Mac OS is

What's with all those people who switch to Mac OS becoming douchebags?

Nothing against your opinion to be more productive with Mac OS. No really, you personally very well be.
But what's with this over the top praise I read from all these people? What's with the sudden disregard of the software freedom issue alltogether?
And why can I summarize your post with "the open source desktops are a mess and Mac OS is better" without losing much information?

You can write all day about your opinions about the advantages of Mac OS but I would certainly like to read more of substantiations of that opinions. Because on themselves they get quite boring quickly.

[hungerfish]

So, all though I don't normally care for these flame-wars...
I've used win7 , osx, and linux + cli, gnome,kde4,xfce,lxde,el,razor-qt,awesome,windowmaker etc. pp. and to be honest, they all suck at least at something.
Its the truth! There is no such thing as the 'perfect' desktop!
For me, I really liked gnome2, and I think if it had been polished enough and something like avant-window-navigator(the dock, osx strongpoint) thrown in, it could have been something really grand, but sadly history took a wrong turn, and now were in this mess, were NO DE meats it.
Win7 and OSX aren't free, but not only that, they also are flawed, for me most importantly because I cannot change how they work.(.DS_Store anyone?, or Libraries??? + more substantial issues which however wouldn't fit inside these brackets)
Generally with DE's were really lucky, and our 'problems' are mostly down to nitpicking, anyone who doubts this, should just use cli - cause that gets the job done, just not with much style

I don't know why this KDE dev. decided to quit (for me, ever since gnome3, kde has been the goto guy, despite its problems), but I will never 'quit' using free software, as much as I can, I will never degrade myself by becoming a 'fanboy' of any freedom-robbing company, so STFU and get hacking!!!

[Kano]

I did not use dolphin that much personally, i am used to mc as i used that much longer than kde itself. But certainly lots of Kanotix users liked it. Some dolphin users mentioned performance problems which should be fixed in new kde releases. But certainly a filemanager is not everything that could be done with a desktop environment. The plasma desktop is still a bit complicated for users which liked kde 3.5 very much - well we locked it down because some really easyly broke it. This is certainly not the optimal choice but you have to admit it is not that hard to remove panels in kde4 which you really need. Compared to that it is harder do do that with win and osx as well. When you are used to a certain workflow then a Linux DE might not be optimal. Some professional apps are only available for win and when you miss those well this is bad then. There is no replacement tool for everything. For osx lots of professional graphic and video tools are available as well. I dont think that KDE4 is so bad that it could not be used but of course it could be improved. unity/gnome3 are not the holly grail as well. I hope that he will tell us what his productivity problems have been, maybe they couldbe fixed in the future.

[wizard69]

I thought I made it pretty clear that Linuxis still useful to me, it is just not the place for desktop productivity.

What's with all those people who switch to Mac OS becoming douchebags?

Nothing against your opinion to be more productive with Mac OS. No really, you personally very well be.
But what's with this over the top praise I read from all these people?

It isn't over top to express an opinion? Further my praise was pretty specific.

What's with the sudden disregard of the software freedom issue alltogether?

frankly I have a lot of problems with GPL 3 as do some of the kernel developers, with much of open source moving to this anti freedom license it seems to be out of place to whine about software freedom.

Beyond that are you even remotely aware of what Mac OS/X is and Apples contribution to open source development?

And why can I summarize your post with "the open source desktops are a mess and Mac OS is better" without losing much information?

Isn't that pretty much the case?

You can write all day about your opinions about the advantages of Mac OS but I would certainly like to read more of substantiations of that opinions. Because on themselves they get quite boring quickly.

Boring? I'm not here to write my life's story, rather I just pointed out my experience on the desktop! If you had controlled yourself a bit instead of getting bent out of shape you might have noticed that I still use Linux.

[Hamish Wilson]

If you had controlled yourself a bit instead of getting bent out of shape you might have noticed that I still use Linux.

How is that getting bent out of shape when you said:

I just see it as a crime to try to sell it as a effective replacement for the likes of Mac OS..

So I am doing something criminal by using Linux on the desktop? And you were saying he was out of line?

[ChrisXY]

I thought I made it pretty clear that Linuxis still useful to me, it is just not the place for desktop productivity.

I don't see where I did doubt that.

It isn't over top to express an opinion? Further my praise was pretty specific.

"Best move I've every made was buying a MBP in 2008 and giving up on Linux as my desktop productivity space."
Best move every?

"However none of them are worth a damn when it comes to getting work done in the way that Mac OS is."
Not worth "a damn"?

Really?

frankly I have a lot of problems with GPL 3 as do some of the kernel developers, with much of open source moving to this anti freedom license it seems to be out of place to whine about software freedom.

Now we're getting closer.

Beyond that are you even remotely aware of what Mac OS/X is and Apples contribution to open source development?

Yes.

Isn't that pretty much the case?

Boring? I'm not here to write my life's story, rather I just pointed out my experience on the desktop! If you had controlled yourself a bit instead of getting bent out of shape you might have noticed that I still use Linux.

My rule of thumb is that if I can reverse the post and there's nothing that doesn't make sense afterwards it's probably not worth reading.

That's what I mean:

Best move I've every made was installing KDE in 2008 and giving up on Mac OS as my desktop productivity space. Penz is apparently wrong and doesn't reflect my feelings I had back in 2008.

The only difference is I never got involved in the Aqua madness even when Mac OS was my desktop environment. Even in those earlier days it was obvious that Aqua was a mess, I'll conceived and not going anywhere. Four years later it looks like things haven't improved one bit for Aqua.

If you wrote why you think KDE/QT was a mess and why it wasn't going anywhere I couldn't have just reversed it.

[...](no choice of desktops on Mac OS)

Aqua was always a whore as far as resources and usability goes grossly outclassed by other Windows managers and desktop environments when it came to reliability and ease of use.[/b]

To prevent that reversal you could have written in what way other window managers and desktop environments are more reliable and easier to use.

However none of them are worth a damn when it comes to getting work done in the way that KDE is. Even KDE has buggy apps but at least KDE gets the core features to work right.

Why do you get more done in Mac OS? In what way does it get the "core features" more right than the desktop environments you have used?

[...](Don't know about iOS integration and why it should be important for my productivity)

That being said Mac OS still has a place in my house. I just see it as a crime to try to sell it as a effective replacement for the likes of KDE.

You still haven't told my why

You can sure point out your experience but unfortunately it was in a way that told me pretty much nothing.

[kraftman]

I quite agree with you that Windows has its share of problems and often they are much more severe than those we have in Linux.

However the problem is the people (leaving Windows and) trying Linux expect a perfectly stable, fast and bug-free system, and Linux is not such a system. People don't want to tinker with Linux, they do it all the time with Windows because Windows likes to break for almost no reasons.

The problem is they consider desktop distributions to be like that. There's Debian, RHEL which are perfectly stable, fast and bug-free and there are desktop distributions that are usually much more bleeding edge. While we're talking about desktop distributions what you wrote is true, but let's not put entire Linux into mix. Let's focus on Ubuntu which is the main desktop distribution. Ubuntu is in the best position to address things you mentioned, because it's developed at a single company which has QA and test farms that will pay off in the near future.

You are obviously wrong about regressions in the Linux kernel, maybe because you haven't filed a single bug report against the kernel, and on my part I read LKML and keep a close eye on the kernel's bugzilla.

There's no option to make comparison. What's left for you is to compare entire operating systems, because of an obvious reason - there's no windowskernel.org etc. lkml is about every Linux kernel version (including development one) and the same about bugzilla, so they're meaningless when counted as a whole (and they're about every single architecture - not just "PC"). They're also using git which allows to easily revert things. Scan proved Linux kernel has very high quality:

http://scan.coverity.com/rung1.html

There's no Windows or OS X, because they're not open source, but there are some BSD systems and SCAN shows Linux has higher quality. However, there's another report that shows Open Source code is usually better than proprietary:

http://www.h-online.com/open/news/it...e-1443437.html

and another one showing they're on pair:

http://coverity.com/html/press/open-...an-report.html

[kraftman]

Are You serious? It's just pure nonsense. Try to use latest linux software updates and You will see what breaks for no reason, linux or windows. And Windows 7 is the most stable OS i've ever used. Seriously don't make this thread linux vs windows. One and biggest thing that KDE needs is User Interface polishing. Now it's grey with ugly (IMO) icons.

It's not a nonsense. I did and everything works nice as always with Kubuntu updates. You don't use K/Ubuntu where updates are usually painless, right? For me Kubuntu is rock stable. Win7 it used to break many things with upgrades - ADO, calendar, IE, xnview etc. You suggest him to not make this Linux vs Windows thread, but you're actually doing this.

[mcinsand]

KDE and Enlightenment are my main desktops, and am very happy with KDE except for one thing: Dolphin. The menus disappeared, and I have to go to Google to figure out even some of the most basic operations, such as viewing hidden directories. If a person developed Dolphin, then maybe the UI would make sense, but it's a royal pain for a newbie. Well, I'm not a total newbie; I had made peace with the earlier Dolphin... but only after turning off that single_click_to_open nonsense with a fresh install. Granted, turning it off wasn't a big deal, but selecting and moving files around is much more difficult with it on. Why would the default be having the single-click option on? That's the sort of thing that would be done on a Macintoy.

[TheBlackCat]

KDE and Enlightenment are my main desktops, and am very happy with KDE except for one thing: Dolphin. The menus disappeared, and I have to go to Google to figure out even some of the most basic operations, such as viewing hidden directories.

Uh, you can turn the menu on. And showing hidden files is a two-click operation, I am not sure how anyone could make it any simpler without putting it right in the toolbar (which you can do if you really want to). It is also the same number of clicks as older versions of dolphin.

I had made peace with the earlier Dolphin... but only after turning off that single_click_to_open nonsense with a fresh install. Granted, turning it off wasn't a big deal, but selecting and moving files around is much more difficult with it on. Why would the default be having the single-click option on? That's the sort of thing that would be done on a Macintoy.

A lot of people like it that way. It takes one additional click to move something, and one less to open. What do you do more often, move files or folders or open files or folders? I personally open things much more often than I move them. Even when I am moving, it is usually between folders, so it still saves clicks using single-click mode. You may not like it as much that way from personal preference, but a lot of people like it. The default has to be one or the other, so they made a judgement call.