I finally 'get' KDE and I am about to switch over!

Desktop Environments Plasma
#1

Hey all,

So, in 2018, around the time of Proton, I switched over to Linux. I finally was able to leave Windows behind. At the time I picked Cinnamon, I had experience with it before and it felt familiar.

I have been using Cinnamon with great pleasure but I did miss better theming and effects and a few months ago I tried KDE, kinda got overwhelmed with all the options and I didn’t got it to feel right and basically a day later I was back on Cinnamon.

Still, the grass was greener on the other side and I always saw amazing desktop screenshots all over the place and most of the time, they where on KDE.

The problem was, I was unable to safely test KDE in VirtualBox since my resolution got reset to 800x600 if I change it (without 3D acceleration there was no issue, but KDE with 3D acceleration is pointless).

But, a few day’s ago I went to Google again and I found the source of the problem. It seems there is a bug in the background service of kscreen that resets the resolution back! I disabled that service and I was finally able to properly mess around in KDE, really gave it a good try this time.

And this time it clicked for me. I took my time, went through all the system settings and after a few hours playing around, it isn’t all that scary and the list of options I need to tweak isn’t that much in the end.

I finally got my slippery smooth animations, wobbly windows, lamp effect and the snap helper so I can position windows in the center (plus a script that can do it with a key-bind). I discovered I can actually have proper window border since KDE allows you to define how big you want your borders! And window drop shadows!

I knew theming was great, but this is just amazing and it fixes all the minor annoyances I had with Cinnamon.

I even had a poke at a Wayland session and that was just icing on the cake. Everything (as far as I could see) works just as good and with double the performance (judging by that fps helper effect, but I could also tell it was even smoother).

So, yeah, I am happy and preparing a new version of my install script and getting things ready so I will have a smooth transition when I install it bare metal.

But really, everything in KDE is so damn slick and coherent. It’s amazing what the developers have done.

Thanks for reading!

8 Likes
#2

Bearing in mind that I’ve been into computers since the Commodore 64 and TRS-80 Model 3s, I’ve never understood why people don’t ‘get it’ and why it takes them so long to like something.
Not really picking on you, but…umm what is there to get ? :slight_smile: Enlighten me…really…
I do agree with your assessment that KDE offers the most customization of any desktop I’ve ever seen. I don’t understand why that actually bothers people, and they are scared by all the customization available. You don’t get forced to do it all at once…it’s usuable out of ‘the box’ so to speak. You don’t have to make every possible change the first day.
I don’t understand people…

#3

Just because you may find a concept easy to visualise, doesn’t mean the rest of the world are aligned with you. :wink: So here’s why customisation is a double-edged sword, it’s a mix of something called paralysis of choice, with the need to fundamentally and constantly rethink the processes you work with. It’s not about being scared, it’s about being overwhelmed. Our brains work in weird and wonderful ways, it’s okay to not understand them all, but that doesn’t make them any less valid.

#4

What’s there to understand? Everyone has their own likes and dislikes, vision, needs, wants, wishes. What ever makes them happy. I get it. Otherwise we always buy the same car. :grin:

Edit: Sometimes choices are hard!

1 Like
#5

No, I’m not making fun of anyone…I just really don’t umm ‘get it’ :slight_smile:
I’ve always felt my mind works quite differently than most.
I can almost understand what you’re saying…just that I have never experienced that sort of paralysis.
Oh and I buy the car that lasts as close to forever and gets the best gas mileage.
Edit: I suppose if I was a mechanist, I might want the car that I could modify the most heavily (lol). As it is…I am not mechanically inclined."
Oh and back to the OP, glad you’re seeing Wayland as an option, more people need to try it…that’s what will get the remaining wrinkles worked out (more eyes).

1 Like
#6

@Sojiro84
I understand exactly where you are coming from as i was and still am a huge fan of Cinnamon. But now i mostly use KDE because of the same things you mentioned. It is very fluid, responsive and customizable. My favorite features are the wobbly windows, magic lamp, the global settings for resolution, etc etc. I have also just been running it on Wayland and it works as well as X11 so I’m impressed how far they have come. The only thing not working is screen recording on Wayland. Most of the apps don’t work yet. I am running it on amdgpu with newer hardware. I also run Xfce and Cinnamon on triple boot with rEFInd booting individual grub. All on separate drives. I have had it set up on Btrfs with and without encryption with tiimeshift and snapshots. Most likely i will be going back to that in the future. This system is my test unit so i’m always installing or reinstalling something.

4 Likes
#7

I agree with you. People who prefer to have less choice rather than more, deserve to be restricted. Freedom is all about having choice.

But to end this philosophical digression and get back on topic:

Plasma is pretty good. One might even say… great!

I’m always amazed at how blo   rich in features it is, while still being one of the lightest DEs when it comes to resource usage. It will work on 10 year old hardware without much trouble, wobbly windows and all… :rofl:

After almost a decade of being an exclusively Linux user, Plasma still remains my DE of choice, even though I’m trying hard to switch over to dwm permanently (as its minimalism, and the fact I can easily understand its source code, is more aligned with my philosophy). But I somehow always end up returning to Plasma…

2 Likes
#8

Yes, it used to be considered heavy…but it’s now about as light as anything but Enlightenment or Sway. It also used to be soooo very crashy back years ago. Things have changed.

#9

I don’t remember it being crashy (perhaps I was lucky with the hardware configurations I used), but yes, back in the day it was the heaviest DE around, and GNOME was much lighter. Now they’ve switched places in terms of resource usage, but Plasma remains the one richer in features. It’s astonishing how much the devs were able to optimise it…

Also, I am addicted to Konsole and Kate. Not counting the web browser, I spend 99% of my time in these two programs. I think Kate is the best text editor currently in existence (better even than Vim), and Konsole is just a fantastic terminal emulator. I use its split view feature all the time, and its image preview feature is really nice…

I don’t use Dolphin that much, since I find it easier to do file management through the terminal, but I can’t really find any flaws with it. Its embedded terminal (F4) that automatically cds into directories is a very sweet feature.

One default KDE program that I use often but don’t quite like1 is Okular, but I do find it better than the alternatives. It’s just terribly slow, and has no middle-button autoscroll (probably intentionally, because it’s so slow, it couldn’t handle quick scrolling)…

1 Apart from akonadi, kmail, kontact, and similar rubbish that nobody uses…

1 Like
#10

I’ve tried KDE several times but it is still a no go for me.
The things that are holding me back are those big-sized window-borders and especially the ugly font KDE is using.

#11

I’m very happy with it ugly font & all. Big size window borders? :thinking: Hmm…I’m just not seeing what you mean.

Edit: You mean like this?

Screenshot_20210309_122800
Screenshot_20210309_122800755×563 20.6 KB

Just set it like this:

Screenshot_20210309_122918

1 Like
#12

I think you can remove window borders?

Although i forget which setting that is, maybe someone else can point it out.

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#13

It’s toggle show menu bar or not.

Edit: I think you are referring to something else?

#14

You can change the fonts and the thickness of window borders. These are the most basic of settings.

This is not GNOME, you can actually customise Plasma…

frog_rofl

#15

I right click at the top of say konsole select more actions, then no border. But its not permanent, when you relaunch konsole the border is back. IF I remember correctly i thought there was a setting somewhere lol. :thinking:

#16

You can make Konsole nice

image
image1249×808 280 KB

I’m not the biggest fan of KDE coz it’s very bloated, but since i don’t have too much time now - it’s good enough for fast setup (if you use scripts or know where all those settings are, and they certainly are somewhere :laughing: ) :yum:

2 Likes
#17

@Kresimir

I am very impressed with Konsole. Initially I slightly disliked it since I use Tilix on Cinnamon and I am used to that, but I tried out Konsole, played with it and it can do what Tilix could as well, and for me, the important features are splitting planes and moving them around.

Kate has too much features for my taste so I am going with KWrite. KWrite only lacks tabs, the only downside of it, other then that a good replacement for Xed that I currently use on Cinnamon.

@dbarronoss

For me, I have a slight OCD regarding tech. Most people, for example, buy a phone and use it at face value. For me, that is not the case. When I first got my Android phone, I started up all the apps and explored all the settings there are, it’s just a thing I do.

I did the same with a iPhone and also Windows. It’s a blessing and a curse that I want to know every option and tweak it to my liking.

So, Cinnamon is pretty simple in that regard. There are plenty of options but not that many too overwhelm you.

But it is as @anon79501528 said, I initially felt overwhelmed by the list of options and then opening some of them gave even more options!

But as I mentioned, I gave it a good try, let it all sink in and gave me time to remember how it all works and where they are and what settings works for me, it’s all good now.

But I am not a person that can just let options be, what if there is a awesome setting somewhere that I might miss for weeks or months or ever? Hence my need to explore!

@Lemon

You can remove the window borders if you want. I dislike windows that don’t have a border so I am very happy that with KDE I can add those back. You can change font’s just as easily. I always use the Arial font on Cinnamon and use them as well on my KDE.

4 Likes
#18

I feel your pain bro © :sweat_smile:

1 Like
#19

That is a sexy looking Konsole.

On my first go I went with the default install and it had a lot of apps indeed.

On my second try I went without:

  • kde-utilities-meta
  • gwenview
  • okular
  • dragon
  • elisa

I use ncspot (terminal spotify) for music, mpv for media and qview for pictures and Dolphin works just fine to use as gallery viewer.

So, it is not as bloated anymore for me this way.

#20

My advice is: give Kate a chance. “Suffer” a bit until you get used to it, you’ll love it, I promise. Personally, I minimised all the panes and got rid of the toolbar, so it looks very sleek and minimalistic:

kate
kate1564×889 92.3 KB

1 Like