KDE article

[RichardET]

http://www.datamation.com/open-source/seven-things-you-can-do-in-kde-but-not-on-other-linux-desktops-1.html?google_editors_picks=true

[Linuxratty]

It used to do even more,but some features have been removed.

[montag dp]

KDE has always been about letting the user do anything and everything they want. That can be good, but most of the time these days I just can't be bothered with all these extra options. Looking at that list, for most of them I find myself thinking "why on earth would I want to do that?" For example, why would anyone need to use multiple virtual desktop configurations and "multiple desktops" through Activities?

Also, I don't get the point about changing icons. I can change the icons on Gnome-based systems too, very easily.

[RichardET]

I used to be a KDE fan back around 10 years ago, so I guess that was version 1.x, but after the 3.x series was abandoned, in favor of 4.x, I gave KDE up entirely.
For many years, I found that GNOME 2.x was the most compatible on my laptops, and liked it until 3.x took over. Now I am settled into Unity. It seems pretty good overall.

[buzzingrobot]

When I read that article, I wasn't convinced that everything it highlighted can be done *only* in KDE. I'm still not. Sometimes we confuse how we do something with what it is we're doing in the first place.

[DeMus]

People are different. For me it is just the other way around: I started with Gnome 2 and used it till it was abandoned for Gnome 3 which I hate, just as I hate Unity. This afternoon I installed Ubuntu 13.10 in a virtual machine to see what is new and after about one hour, with 1 simple mouse-click, it was gone again. Still hate it.
I moved over to KDE and am sticking with it, loving it.

[lykwydchykyn]

KDE is cool tech. Plasma's a neat concept, and it's gotten really stable and solid. I mostly use awesome wm now, but we still have many KDE systems around the house.

What's a shame is that articles like this set a competitive tone and provoke comments and attitudes along the lines of "Oh yeah, well my desktop environment can do that, and if it can't then I don't care because that's a dumb feature!".

[malspa]

I agree with this:

What's a shame is that articles like this set a competitive tone and provoke comments and attitudes along the lines of "Oh yeah, well my desktop environment can do that, and if it can't then I don't care because that's a dumb feature!".
Anyway, I like to use different environments, and don't really have a favorite. One environment might be better in certain ways, and for certain situations, than another; overall, we're lucky to have lots of great options. The environment that one person thinks is awful is gonna be the next person's favorite one ever...

I do think that KDE is fantastic these days. One thing that I really don't like in comparison to other environments is when it comes to configuring the date and time on the panel, but that's a kind of minor complaint. And, for a low-spec computer, I'd rather use something other than KDE. But I love how KDE lets you have different wallpaper set-ups and widgets on different desktops. And, for me, Dolphin beats file managers like Nautilus and Thunar, hands down. I feel that KDE (perhaps more than any other environment, but YMMV) gives me tons of great tools for setting up my desktop to improve my workflow.

Still, on a given day, I'm likely to be using Xfce, Openbox, GNOME Shell, Unity, etc. Typing this from Fluxbox...

[mastablasta]

For example, why would anyone need to use multiple virtual desktop configurations and "multiple desktops" through Activities?



it's explained in the article:

You can have a separate Activity for work, school, and home. Alternatively, you have one for each of your most common tasks, such as programming, playing games, or designing graphics. If you are a professional, you could have a separate Activity for each active client, each displaying a different directory. Some Activities can be highly organized, with specific launchers, widgets, and links. Others can be a dumping ground for material you mean to read later, or arrange as sources for an article or essay.

let's say you have normal desktop and then when you want to game you flip to gaming desktop that is set for gaming. that's how i understand it. however i do not use them as well.

default options are preety sane and since most stuff you can do in intuitive GUI it's my desktop of choice. Gnome hides too many options and requires a bit too much terminal. the extra options are nto an issue as long as they are nicely and logically arranged. i mean you dont' have to use them and they don't get in the way.

an example is old windows game space empired. part 3 was awesome for th etime. everything accessed via right or left click. you had a ncie game set up in 2 or 3 min. then came 4 and now version 5. when i saw all those option... and where they are.... first it took me 15 or 20 minutes to set up a game and then i couldn't mnove the ships arround easy or assemble them propperly. there were just too many options.

another example are some other stratefy games with plenty options. like hearts of iron 3. you can use them or leave the default (on easy at least). but they don't get in the way and they are nto hidden. and that's how i see KDE. plenty of options, but you are not overwhelmed by them nor do you need to use them.

[buzzingrobot]

What's a shame is that articles like this set a competitive tone and provoke comments and attitudes along the lines of "Oh yeah, well my desktop environment can do that, and if it can't then I don't care because that's a dumb feature!".

Absolutely. It's a common and traditional technique to attract clicks. The web inherited it from magazines, which would set up comparative reviews of similar products as some kind battle or combat. Car magazines were famous for it. PC Magazine used to do an annual printer issue with headlines like "10 Laser Printers Fight It Out for Space in Your Office!".

It's understandable, if regrettable, that a commercial site would do business this way. But, it's sad that this phony notion that everything is a zero-sum game has rubbed off on all the amateurs.

This dumbing down has turned Linux media into something pretty useless.

[SeijiSensei]

I don't use separate activities, but I do have two separate desktops with different background images. Sometimes I'll run Win7 in a VirtualBox using "seamless mode." I attach the Windows panel to the top of the screen then move the VM to the second desktop. When I need to do something in Windows I just need to scroll my mouse button on the background.

I have always thought "Activities" was a bit of overkill, but some people obviously must like it.

Having used KDE for about a decade now, I decided to give vanilla Ubuntu a try on an older EEEpc netbook yesterday. I like the sleek look of Unity, though the icon bar at left is a bit too big. (I've gotta move those window control buttons, too!) I think I'll probably keep KDE as my main desktop environment, but I might stick with Unity on the netbook for a while.

Now that I'm in my sixties, I don't have the same enthusiasm for playing with things like desktops that I did in my thirties! Around 1986, I bought a honkin' i386 box for $5K and bumped it to 2 MB of memory so I could run Desqview/386 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DESQview), a program that could multitask DOS programs. Having access to WordPerfect, Lotus 123, and SPSS in three separate windows was an enormous improvement in productivity over a single-tasking system. Now we multitask whole virtual machines.

[RichardET]

[QUOTE=SeijiSensei;12831333]I don't use separate activities, but I do have two separate desktops with different background images. Sometimes I'll run Win7 in a VirtualBox using "seamless mode." I attach the Windows panel to the top of the screen then move the VM to the second desktop. When I need to do something in Windows I just need to scroll my mouse button on the background.

I have always thought "Activities" was a bit of overkill, but some people obviously must like it.

Having used KDE for about a decade now, I decided to give vanilla Ubuntu a try on an older EEEpc netbook yesterday. I like the sleek look of Unity, though the icon bar at left is a bit too big. (I've gotta move those window control buttons, too!) I think I'll probably keep KDE as my main desktop environment, but I might stick with Unity on the netbook for a while.

Now that I'm in my sixties, I don't have the same enthusiasm for playing with things like desktops that I did in my thirties! Around 1986, I bought a honkin' i386 box for $5K and bumped it to 2 MB of memory so I could run Desqview/386 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DESQview), a program that could multitask DOS programs. Having access to WordPerfect, Lotus 123, and SPSS in three separate windows was an enormous improvement in productivity over a single-tasking system. Now we multitask whole virtual machines.[/QUO5TE]

I recall Desqview! I had a copy of it!!

[neu5eeCh]

7. Configure Virtual Desktops SeparatelyThe Voyager edition (http://voyager.legtux.org/) of Xubuntu can do this.

6. Choose Desktop LayoutsDitto.

6. Swap Icon SetsUnless I'm misunderstanding this feature, XFCE can do this as well.

4. Choose from Three MenusXFCE lets you choose from (at this point) Five menus (by virtue of its compatibility with Plank).

3. Configure Multiple Item ClipboardsAs a standard feature, maybe? But the same clipboard is just a .deb away for any DE?

2. Manage Fonts from the DesktopDon't know about that one...

1. Use Multiple DesktopsYeah, this is cool. I'm just learning about it.

For the record, I've been using Voyager/XFCE-Spin for the last couple of years and have just switched to NetrunnerOS/KDE/Kubuntu-Spin. I'm really impressed with KDE these days. What drove me away from XFCE was the WM -- XFWM4 -- and XScreenSaver. The latter should be taken out to pasture and shot. It's long past it's due date.

[SeijiSensei]

2. Manage Fonts from the Desktop Don't know about that one...

KDE has always included a Font Manager like Windows has. You point the installer at a directory and select the fonts you want to import. You can set the ownerships to everyone on the machine or just to your personal installation.