KDE No Longer Competitive? Developer Calls It Quits

[rainbyte]

Well, for a lightweight alternative, there's Razor-QT, like LXDE, but Qt instead of GTK+. Still, I don't understand why people are so obsessed about running the DE's native apps, it's NOT an all-or-nothing approach! I use KDE but still have LibreOffice, VLC, Chrome and other non-native apps as my default programs. What's the damn problem? I really don't get it. This in-fighting is so ridiculous is isn't even worth typing anymore. And it's exactly because of all this nonsense that Linux cannot easily gain new users, as there is a constant rift between users and developers themselves.

That's why I wrote in this thread about the need of an unified desktop experience on Linux...

There is too much fragmentation and because of that the users get confused...

I think that general Linux issues begin to affect KDE and other DE's...

[markc]

I find I'm in the same end-user boat. I've used KDE since I don't know when and I used to recommend it to anyone who would listen but it's got to the point that even though I mostly still use KDE I would never offer to install it for anyone else again. I am almost desperately looking for a suitable Qt replacement, have been for a couple of years. The only things that keep me using it are Kwin and Akregator. The main argument I used to defend my obsessive use of KDE was Kmail but I swapped that out for Thunderbird a year ago and with it's conversation add-on I don't think I'll be going back to Kmail. Also, I've got an 8Gb i7 laptop and it's not enough for long running KDE and apps, it's need at least 16Gb ram to be able to leave all apps running all the time without swapping. That's crazy.

My older sister is a classic case, she depends on me to help her with her laptop (hence windows is not an option) which has had KDE since about v4.4 so I've had a good opportunity to witness a novice user deal with it and I have to say, the promise of a usable and stable OS with a future, has not eventuated. Every update creates a different set of small problems that a non-techie has no hope of solving. That's partly distro related (Kubuntu) and partly KDE at fault but from her point of view it's that "linux thing" is not working again whereas all her friends Windows7 laptops "just work", and never crash these days.

From an outsiders non-dev point of view: if KDE user and developer adoption is not growing at a significantly faster pace than it has been for the past 2 years then the core team should have a good long look at their strategy and consider cutting the OS in half, isolate the core that is really important, eject the rest to playground, and seriously focus on getting the core working 100% and not waste any effort on non-essential part. The OS is simply too big for the number of people involved. I feel the premature run to v4.0 so impacted end-user adoption that the overall project has never recovered, and maybe never will. So sad for my favourite desktop.

I personally want a HTML5 desktop, something I feel I can modify and have control over. Perhaps a Qt5/QML hybrid based on webOS in September.

[m_gol]

File bug reports then, or even fix them yourself and then contribute the fixes back to the code. Or do some work to improve the test suite so that you make sure there are tests in place to avoid regressions.

Not everyone has to be a bug reporter; it takes time, especially when there are a lot of them to report. Even less people want to fix bugs by themselves. What if somebody wants just use a system, not spend time on debugging it?

[rainbyte]

From an outsiders non-dev point of view: if KDE user and developer adoption is not growing at a significantly faster pace than it has been for the past 2 years then the core team should have a good long look at their strategy and consider cutting the OS in half, isolate the core that is really important, eject the rest to playground, and seriously focus on getting the core working 100% and not waste any effort on non-essential part. The OS is simply too big for the number of people involved. I feel the premature run to v4.0 so impacted end-user adoption that the overall project has never recovered, and maybe never will. So sad for my favourite desktop.

I like that idea... But I think that core is already isolated: kde-workspace package...

Maybe they can follow the xfce approach (individual software updates)... That would allow fast bug fixes.
But I think that it could cause maintaining problems in the distros...

Some users think that the solution to their problems is changing the distro...
And lots of bugs are cause by distro dependant configurations...

There would be more (usefull) testing and QA in Linux if the distro fragmentation disappeared...
So the real problem here is the fragmentation and lack of uniformity...

[FreeBooteR69]

I love KDE, too bad he feels the way he does. I could never touch Gnome again myself. I hated it long before Gnome2.

[kraftman]

I have encountered many of the problems listed there. They are annoying, and it's impossible to work around them.

Compared to Windows there are far less problems from my experience. When we focus on a single Linux distribution most of them simply go away.

[kraftman]

kraftman,

Sometimes I make myself open and read your posts but all I see is "Linux has no problems", "You're a moron", "the list is moronic", and "all the people agreeing with it are stupid idiots".

Way to go, sir!

However most amusingly and contrary to your one-dimensional knee jerk reaction, people do agree and support this imbecile list. Maybe it's because you don't actually use Linux? ;-)

I use Linux actually, but I know the difference between real problems and stupid Windows way of doing things. ;>

Such list contains a lot of bullshit. Just some example:

1. ! An insane number of regressions in the Linux kernel, when with every new kernel release some hardware can stop working inexplicably. I have personally reported two serious audio playback regressions, which have been consequently resolved, however most users don't know how to file bugs, how to bisect regressions, how to identify faulty components.

This is written by a true moron, because he ignores the fact Linux supports far more drivers, architectures and file systems than all of the Windowses counted together, so it's natural there will be more regressions in entire stack. It's even more idiotic, because you don't change your kernel in Windows, so to make a valid comparison you have to compare against a single Linux distribution like Ubuntu (not Arch where kernels are upgraded). If you stick to Ubuntu this "problem" goes away. Ubuntu updates are less problematic than Windows service packs which breaks compatibility. Another moronic part is the guy said it's not Linux vs Windows comparison, but it seems it is! Btw. Studies show Linux kernel has very high quality!

• X.org is largely outdated, unsuitable and even insecure for modern PCs and applications.

Dos principles in Windows are also outdated, unsuitable and what's the most important insecure (unfixable holes even in Win7 from a dos era). Every modern application runs with X.org, so it's another bull. The truth is X.org introduces overhead, so it slows graphics down sometimes.

Under some circumstances GUI becomes slow and unresponsive (video drivers performance, video drivers breakage (thus using software accelerated VESA drivers), notorious bug 12309 - it's ostensibly fixed but some people still experience it)

Oh, but it's the same in Windows. This notorius bug is fixed in Linux already, but... it's present on Windows. This is another proof of the author being a moron. The Windows equivalents to this "notorious" bug:

http://www.sevenforums.com/crashes-d...eavy-load.html
http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/topic...s-unresponsive
http://www.techsupportforum.com/foru...sh-633945.html

Just some examples and don't tell me it's user friendly OS.

! X.org server currently has no means of permanently storing and restoring settings changed by the user (xrender settings, Xv settings, etc). NVIDIA and ATI proprietary drivers both employ custom utilities for this purpose.

Funny, because there are tools for this like KDE system settings and while proprietary drivers provide such utilities it's on pair with Windows where you are forced to use proprietary drivers.

No polish and universally followed conventions. Different applications may have totally different shortcuts for the same actions, UI elements may be placed and look differently, etc.

No kidding... Just take a look how Windows is messed up in this case.

Poor interoperability between applications and their components. E.g. many kernel features get a decent userspace support years after introduction.

This is actually true, but thanks to Fedora and systemd it's changing.

Problems stemming from the vast number of Linux distributions:

Use Ubuntu and problems solved. It seems he's jealous there aren't so many options in Windows world. Now you have a point how meaningless this article is and when we put Windows into comparison it will be worse in many points in the end. The "enterprise" level problems are the most stupid and funny in this article. Reality shows the author is really a moron.

[Nevertime]

It's a shame he's leaving. He did a great job with dolphin, probably my fav file manager, though I use nautilus right now - which is also great - cos I love gnome 3 and its.. err.. default.

[asdx]

Not everyone has to be a bug reporter; it takes time, especially when there are a lot of them to report. Even less people want to fix bugs by themselves. What if somebody wants just use a system, not spend time on debugging it?

If some people can't contribute with something as simple as reporting a bug then those people don't have the right to complain about our software.

[slojam]

well I really would have liked to hear specific examples from him as to what he doesn't like in KDE and what he likes about Mac/Windows.