I know. I’ve railed against KDE for a long time. And yet here we are. Leaving GNOME behind.
Why
To be frank, part of it I’m sure is that I’m kind of restless with technology. And KDE has a lot that has impressed me. Not just slick appearance- maybe even too slick- but there is a focus in KDE that feels lacking in GNOME. I think part of that is that with so many of the major Linux distributions- Red Hat, Ubuntu, etc.- standardized on GNOME, there’s lots of development but it’s fragmented. I like the ideas behind GNOME Shell, but I don’t understand how that justifies a 3.0 label. As far as I can tell, the code that makes up the rest of GNOME will still just making baby step improvements. That’s fine. But the KDE 4 evolution to me says a lot about KDE, their ambition, and their potential. They are moving. There is a solid foundation- still a little buggy for me, but pretty solid. GNOME by comparison seems increasingly fragmented with different subsystems and architectures leaking out the sides. Do not misunderstand. I love GNOME and I love using GNOME. But KDE is what I have chosen now. I think it’s the future.
How
The great thing, one of them anyway, about using openSUSE is that it has fantastic distributions of both GNOME and KDE software. So it was just a matter of installing what I wanted. It will take a bit to get used to some apps, but I’ve been surprised how easy it has been to switch. Even KMail had an ‘import from Evolution’ option that made that shockingly easy. DigiKam read in my photos and Amarok is playing my music.
Should You Switch?
You don’t have to. Look, I think there is a lot to like about KDE, but it’s not perfect. Points I’ve made about it in the past I think are still valid- there are too many options, an inability to make choices for users. And yet, for me and my productivity, those are great, powerful features that make my workflow better. Does that mean we will lose users that can’t think? Yes. Luckily, most people can think- what I’ve found is that many just aren’t willing to- they have something that works ok so why would they switch? There has to be something that makes not switching painful.
What It Means for Tuxrocket
It is my site, so if you’re using GNOME, I apologize, but I will be moving things to a KDE focus. What I present here needs to be what I feel deeply or I will not make time for it in my life.