The end of K-Pride?
Before starting at Oxford Archaeology I used Ubuntu exclusively and enjoyed the experience; I still continue to boot Ubuntu every day on my personal laptop. On my work provided laptop I loaded up Kubuntu, largely to see what all the fuss was about, and have been using it a lot for over a year now.
My period of K-Pride (don't click the link if swearing offends you) is likely to be coming to an end, however. This morning I downloaded the Ubuntu 8.10 beta, burnt it to CD, booted it up and started working. Once I'm sure I've got all the important stuff on here ready to be migrated, I'll get rid of my ageing Kubuntu install.
Upon hearing this, there is one response that a fair few people reply with:
"But KDE lets you change anything about it; that's a freedom you don't get with Gnome"
And they're right of course; you can put lipstick on a pig. KDE, whatever you do to it, seems to look awful. No, I haven't tried the latest 4.x releases, but I don't really want to either. Gnome looks fine out of the box, sure I can't edit every setting, but I don't want to either. KDE feels like a hack on top of Ubuntu; Ubuntu feels like Ubuntu. When I left Windows I loved Ubuntu because I didn't have to look after my computer so much; Ubuntu didn't need to be babysitted like Windows did and I could use my laptop to do stuff, not just use it for the sake of keeping it working. KDE feels too much like Windows in that respect; it's nowhere near as bad, of course, but it still feels like it gets in my way far too much.
I want an operating system that gives me access to the applications I want to use, shows me my files in a sensible way, lets me engage with network located resources and looks half decent; after more than a year of using KDE in the workplace, and over two years of nothing but Gnome for everything else, I think that Ubuntu has got the edge over it's funny looking brother. Flames in the comments please ;-)
On the subject of Ubuntu; Oxford Archaeology is proud to be a Ubuntu case study and very happy that every copy of Ubuntu that is downloaded includes details of our use of the software.
I still say KDE is better...
But you are right Kubuntu is not as polished as Ubuntu, reflecting the far greater amount of time put into the Gnome desktop as the primary.
Personally I've used most every GUI going from Win3.11 onwards. Enlightenment is the next one I'd think about shifting to, but never in a organisational environment. For that KDE (4.1+) is king, in manageability, broad familiarity and all-round shininess.
Posted by Chris Puttick on October 06, 2008 at 11:28 AM BST #
KDE 4.2 is a lot better than the 4.0 released with Hardy (let's face it, even the Developers say 4.2 is the real 4.0!) and it's really showing a lot of style now. My only niggle is that it has run a little sluggish for me in places. I'm already crying out for KDE 4.3 and full supported integration of Qt 4.5. If 4.2 isn't the version to turn heads, 4.3 will. :)
(Yep I use both KDE and Gnome!)
Posted by TGM on April 07, 2009 at 08:22 AM BST #