Die-Hard KDE User adopts Gnome

[Azazel]

I, a once die-hard KDE advocate, has abandoned KDE and switched to Gnome. I prefer many attributes of KDE, however recently its lack of stability and general bugginess has led me to Gnome.

Has anyone else left KDE for another less buggy environment?

[Iowan]

Moved to Cafe

[jerenept]

this is the purpose of Linux..... to choose.

But if you want a really good KDE interface, Fedora is known to have a better KDE implementation than Kubuntu.

[JBAlaska]

I use KDE on my Mandriva 2010 machine and have very little problems with it.

I do however prefer Gnome as long as I install all the cool KDE apps that I love (Krusader, k3b, Konsole etc.).

Welcome to Gnome...now check out IceWM LOL.

[Dustin2128]

I use KDE whenever possible. However, I agree with an above poster that kubntu's buggy implementation is partly to blame. Try it out on slackware; it's rock solid.

[BigCityCat]

I used to use KDE. It's not bad. I'm using Gnome now. Just a preference. I like the GUI for Gnome better.

[Dragonbite]

For KDE, openSUSE and Mandriva have the best reputation. Right now I'm using openSUSE KDE and enjoying it.

I've also heard KDE 4.5 is a significant improvement over 4.3-4.3 and you can upgrade KDE to 4.5 in openSUSE 11.3 according to an article in OMG! SUSE!.

[Khakilang]

I did try Open Suse and just to see how KDE was like. Its pretty cool. But I have use Gnome since day one and I am comfortable with it.

[Dragonbite]

I did try Open Suse and just to see how KDE was like. Its pretty cool. But I have use Gnome since day one and I am comfortable with it.

I understand. I've been a long time Gnome user, but I figured I would "try out" KDE and openSUSE for the experience.

From it I found digiKam a better fit for my photo management or more specifically my wife's photo management (once i teach her ;) )

[Naiki Muliaina]

mandriva = kde done right :)

i thought they went poof a few months back but apparently still realesed spring... What happened there?

[Azazel]

I have only extensively used KDE with
Kubuntu, maybe that is why i have had so many problems? From the sounds of it Kubuntu isn't one of the best implementations of KDE. Problem is, i have philosophical problems with many of the other distros mentioned. I supposed I will be using Gnome for awhile until Kubuntu becomes more stable, which won't be so bad, Gnome has come a long way since the last time I used it

[NightwishFan]

Kubuntu is fine. >_>

I left KDE for Gnome after being a K user for nearly 2 years. I just like the way it is organized better.

[BrokenKingpin]

I was a KDE user, but switched to Gnome a while before KDE4 even came out. Gnome just seemed more stable, and more usable out of the box. Even now KDE seems to have every default option set to the opposite what I prefer lol.

[ctrlmd]

for KDE i always trust opensuse and i love it
for gnome i always trust fedora ubuntu
:)

[Dragonbite]

for KDE i always trust opensuse and i love it
for gnome i always trust fedora ubuntu
:)

ditto! :popcorn:

[neoargon]

In the lucid, Kubuntu seemed very good quality .

I didn't try any other distribution . But if as everybody say, The bugs are only in kubuntu, I wonder why it is possible as everybody is using the same KDE . Infact Kubuntu is having the purest KDE . And many of the Kubuntu contributers(devs,... etc) are direct KDE contributors too

[ronnielsen1]

Has anyone else left KDE for another less buggy environment?

Used KDE from 2004 to 2009

[bailout]

Used to use kde until kde4. Since then it has just been too buggy/unfinished. I don't have the time or inclination any more to be constantly searching for fixes or working around bugs and broken features.

The attitude of the kde devs and the way they released kde4 mean I am very reluctant to go back and suspect that when kde4 reaches a stable state it will be scrapped and an unfinished, buggy kde5 will be released. I did install kubuntu lucid with kde4.5 on my laptop the other day and knetworkmanager still didn't work and kpackagekit as still awful after getting used to synaptic.

I currently use lxde on lubuntu with a mix of gtk and kde apps. I have never liked gnome but would probably prefer to use even gnome rather than kde4 in its current state.

[scrapmetal]

Changing back to Gnome now!!
KDE looks great, promises much, but for a newbie -
its I LOVED 8.04.4 LTS.:D

KDE (Kubuntu 10.04) Akonadi killed me. (program committed suicide)

May try Susie? if 4.5 is a good improvement.

Meanwhile there are three computers needing Ubuntu to replace Kubuntu 10.04. - wish me luck

[garyedwardjohnston]

ive tried numerous versions of kde on different distros and they are all too unstable for me

[perspectoff]

I have had ubuntu and Kubuntu side by side on all my computers for years.

KDE 4.0 on Intrepid was painful, but since Jaunty I have had few, if any, problems.

I use KDE 99% of the time, now.

KDE on Mandriva or OpenSuse (or others) may be a bit more stable (I haven't tired them), but the Ubuntu team works hard to integrate Gnome and KDE applications into the same repositories and to enable cross-platform compatibility. Is that being done in Mandriva or OpenSusE ?

I do use, even in KDE (Kubuntu) a lot of Gnome applications, so the cross-platform compatibility is important to me.

After reading this thread, I intend to play with LXDE further, since I have heard so many great things about it.

(However, I had heard a lot of great things about the Xubuntu desktop, Xfce, and that was a total dog.)

[98cwitr]

neverLikedKDECrew holla

[Dragonbite]

KDE on Mandriva or OpenSuse (or others) may be a bit more stable (I haven't tired them), but the Ubuntu team works hard to integrate Gnome and KDE applications into the same repositories and to enable cross-platform compatibility. Is that being done in Mandriva or OpenSusE ?

I think Mandriva has a Gnome offering, and I know openSUSE has a Gnome offering since that is what SLED (their corporate sponsor's enterprise desktop version) uses.

Plus the Gnome version is a bit like a Mono showcase since openSUSE and Mono are sponsored by Novell.

How well they cross-pollinate, I am not sure. I suspect it to be pretty good overall since there is a relatively healthy Gnome user base.

[NightwishFan]

Long live KDE 3.5, the awesomest DE ever. :)

[Ransoms]

I was a die-hard KDE user about a year ago and switched back to Gnome about 6 months ago. Since then i've become bored of gnome and moved to openbox.

I tried KDE 4.5 recently and i was in shock at the amount of ram it chewed up on startup. 650MB! I remember 4.3 using 200MB on startup. I dunno what they've done, but i'm not going back to it with those figures. Kinda loving doing most things through the terminal now anyway, kinda inevitable being an arch user, damn influences! :p

[NightwishFan]

I doubt the RAM usage really means anything.

[Spice Weasel]

Tried KDE and didn't like Qt. At all. So I stick to the usual lightweight window manager + GTK apps. :D

[ironhoof]

I really like Enlightenment DR17, and gnome. I have them both installed ATM. I know DR17/E17 is still in development. I believe when its fully stabilized its use will pick up. Its very flashy, and yet faster than KDE. However until then I think only people like me will use it. I have KDE on my second HDD, and this computer is pretty fast. It just seems to have a lot of quirks IMHO. I of course use it from time to time. I think as long as everyone is happy with what they have. Its options like this that make Linux great! You can have one, you can have two, and if your really into it you could have them all. I don't think I am going to try that out though. I think two is enough on a single boot. I use gnome for 90% most of my work though. I like to get right down to the point.

I do use Kopete in Gnome though; since it will let me file transfer between 2 of my friends who are still using MS Fail, and AIM. It seems to be the only Linux messenger that does that well. I could be doing something wrong though with the others.

[Ransoms]

I doubt the RAM usage really means anything.

Yeah i know, it's more of an ocd for me now to keep my ram usage to a minimum. I know it makes no sense. But running KDE and a music player, browser and Eclipse would obliterate my ram. Until i upgrade in a few days anyway.

[xircon]

+1 :)

I am a Mandriva refugee due to wireless problems on my new Dell lappy.

I was a die hard KDE user, but KDE4 is style over substance. So I run a bastardized collection of mainly KDE apps on a heavily modified Gnome base.

[Dragonbite]

I do use Kopete in Gnome though; since it will let me file transfer between 2 of my friends who are still using MS Fail, and AIM. It seems to be the only Linux messenger that does that well. I could be doing something wrong though with the others.

I'm going to probably be running Empathy in KDE because I don't believe Kopete can do Google Chat (w/video) and Facebook. Or at least Kopete has not liked my webcam, while Empathy has (or had.. it has been a while since I've used that feature in Emapthy).

[BrokenKingpin]

I doubt the RAM usage really means anything.
This type of thought is probably what lead to KDE being horribly bloated.

[Dragonbite]

I'm going to probably be running Empathy in KDE because I don't believe Kopete can do Google Chat (w/video) and Facebook. Or at least Kopete has not liked my webcam, while Empathy has (or had.. it has been a while since I've used that feature in Emapthy).

Nevermind about Empathy in KDE, Kopete does what I need (so far).

[Shining Arcanine]

I, a once die-hard KDE advocate, has abandoned KDE and switched to Gnome. I prefer many attributes of KDE, however recently its lack of stability and general bugginess has led me to Gnome.

Has anyone else left KDE for another less buggy environment?

Are you referring to KDE 4.5.x? If you are, it is your graphics hardware's fault.

http://blog.martin-graesslin.com/blog/2010/09/driver-dilemma-in-kde-workspaces-4-5/

Why would you switch to GNOME over that? Just stick with KDE 4.4.5 until graphics drivers catchup.


I was a die-hard KDE user about a year ago and switched back to Gnome about 6 months ago. Since then i've become bored of gnome and moved to openbox.

I tried KDE 4.5 recently and i was in shock at the amount of ram it chewed up on startup. 650MB! I remember 4.3 using 200MB on startup. I dunno what they've done, but i'm not going back to it with those figures. Kinda loving doing most things through the terminal now anyway, kinda inevitable being an arch user, damn influences! :p

I am running KDE 4.5.1 on Gentoo Linux and it only uses 250MB on my amd64 desktop according to System Monitor when I start my system. I think that the bloat is probably more distribution specific than anything else. What distribution did you use?

Edit: I just did some more measurements. KDE 4.5.1 uses about 180MB of RAM on my x86 laptop according to System Monitor. I have Chromium open right now on my desktop and system memory usage has increased to 650MB, so chromium by itself uses more RAM than KDE. I suspect that is because that is mostly because Chromium is not a native Qt4 application, but I have 8GB of RAM and I like Chromium, so I do not care.

[NightwishFan]

You misunderstand me. I doubt the reading really is entirely correct. Effective memory usage is so hard to measure. I am guessing if he had less total RAM that what he is currently using KDE would still run. :)

[Azazel]

Shining Arcanine: I actually never made the upgrade to KDE 4.5.

I think memory hogging is something we better get used to ever since Vista and 7 came out. You need like 4 gigs of ram to run anything on those, twice that if you want to game. This has increased the demand for RAM so much the the price is being driven down. Having a system eat up 650Mgb isn't so bad anymore

[foxxxy]

I do like KDE, but in my opinion, it's bloated and kinda confusing to use :/ I like GNOME a lot :)

[Shining Arcanine]

Shining Arcanine: I actually never made the upgrade to KDE 4.5.

I think memory hogging is something we better get used to ever since Vista and 7 came out. You need like 4 gigs of ram to run anything on those, twice that if you want to game. This has increased the demand for RAM so much the the price is being driven down. Having a system eat up 650Mgb isn't so bad anymore


If you did not upgrade to KDE 4.5, why are you having problems? Given my lack of issues, I think your issues might be distribution related rather than desktop environment related.

[ElSlunko]

Haven't had any issues with Kubuntu myself in Lucid. Been using KDE for about a month now and it's been fine. I do miss the simplicity of gnome sometimes but I like kopete, basket, and a few other kde apps.

[Dragonbite]

If you did not upgrade to KDE 4.5, why are you having problems? Given my lack of issues, I think your issues might be distribution related rather than desktop environment related.

My attempt to upgrade openSUSE to 4.5 failed, so I ended up "upgrading" from the CD back to 4.4. I think they just came out with a "stable" repository so I may try again sometime. I think I just flubbed the update somewhere.

The one problem I ran across was when I was debugging a PHP application in NetBeans right after installing DigiKam, it opened it up in Konquerer (huh? I didn't realize it installed that too!). That was fine, but unfortunately it changed my entire theme to something KDE~esqe! This was fixed by telling NetBeans to use Firefox instead, but still it caught me off guard.

Another reason to try 4.5 is Konquerer can be changed to use WebKit instead of KHTML for its engine. Not only is it supposed to be faster, but I am assuming it will be better supported (which is one reason for keeping Firefox even if I dont' use it).

So while using KDE apps in Gnome may have a few "huh?" moments, it works alright enough. This will also be handy as there are some apps that there are no Gnome equivalents that I have heard of yet, such as BasKet. If anybody has used OneNote on Windows, this is the closest equivalent.

[Shining Arcanine]

My attempt to upgrade openSUSE to 4.5 failed, so I ended up "upgrading" from the CD back to 4.4. I think they just came out with a "stable" repository so I may try again sometime. I think I just flubbed the update somewhere.

The one problem I ran across was when I was debugging a PHP application in NetBeans right after installing DigiKam, it opened it up in Konquerer (huh? I didn't realize it installed that too!). That was fine, but unfortunately it changed my entire theme to something KDE~esqe! This was fixed by telling NetBeans to use Firefox instead, but still it caught me off guard.

Another reason to try 4.5 is Konquerer can be changed to use WebKit instead of KHTML for its engine. Not only is it supposed to be faster, but I am assuming it will be better supported (which is one reason for keeping Firefox even if I dont' use it).

So while using KDE apps in Gnome may have a few "huh?" moments, it works alright enough. This will also be handy as there are some apps that there are no Gnome equivalents that I have heard of yet, such as BasKet. If anybody has used OneNote on Windows, this is the closest equivalent.

You can use webkit in Konquerer in KDE 4.4. As a Gentoo Linux user, I have been doing this for a while. It probably would be better to use something like Opera, because Konquerer's webkit module is not as stable as it should be.

[ilovelinux33467]

I like KDE and GNOME so I dual boot my laptop with 500G HDD

250GB for Ubuntu 10.04 with GNOME
250GB for openSUSE 11.3 with KDE 4.5.1

They are both good :)

[perspectoff]

I'm the opposite.

I far prefer KDE/Kubuntu over Gnome/Ubuntu.

All OS's have bugs and require tweaks. The more you do and the more complex stuff you try to accomplish, the more tweaks you will need.

I have Windows 7/Vista/XP, Mac OS X, Ubuntu, and Kubuntu on my 8 home computers. I end up using Kubuntu 99% of the time.

It helps to RTFM. That's why I use Kubuntuguide.org.

http://kubuntuguide.org

[Pogeymanz]

I have a bad habit of using beta software and then getting upset when it doesn't work well...

I was using Xfce4.8-devel and got sick of crashing the panel. For a long time I was using Compiz-Standalone, which was great but had a few niggles to deal with (emerald needing to be restarted sometimes, bad sloppy focus policy).

Now I'm back on Openbox without compositing and it's fantastic.