I started using Linux distros as my main OS near the end of 2004. That would most likely be KDE’s K Desktop Environment 3.3.
At the time, I was always distro-hopping and moving between Gnome and KDE. But I always felt much more at home with KDE. And that continues today as I’ve been using KDE exclusively on my main rigs since around the KDE 4 to 5 transition in 2014.
The opposite here, I always disliked KDE, I mean look at the above screenshot, ugly as hell.
And I still have a problem with KDE.
The beauty of Linux… choice.
I always preferred KDE/Plasma, but whenever I tried it, it would break, crash, something would fail, or just not work (for my use case).
That’s why, after trying KDE/Plasma once again, I always used to return to XFCE (Xubuntu), which I did not like the look of, but which was very stable.
From the late 5.x versions of KDE/Plasma things changed. Since that time KDE/Plasma proved to be stable and ever since that time I’m happily using it.
So the older it gets, the better it gets…
If only that would be true for myself as well. 
Happy KDE bunny me. 
I’ve started with Gnome 2 (my favorite). Migrated to Cinnamon during the Gnome 3 and Unity fiasco. Migrated to kde 5 in 2020.
Kde 6 is my new favorite because of these two features
- adaptive icons
- day/night switcher
This news makes me feel so old 
I just looked that up some days ago: my first distro was SuSE 6.1, I think… with KDE 1.1… I switched back to Windows fast (me young then, needed games!), but it was the start of a long journey on and off Linux for years. Also, my dad started selling PCs with SuSE then… good old yast… good old KDE.
(Important: this was written on a modern Plasma desktop on my EndeavourOS, in these modern times installed via the Internet, not 5 CD-ROM discs!)
For that time it was normal. Looks the same as windows 95/98/2000.
Don’t forget that people did this voluntarily. Not paid like Microsoft for sample.
You mentioning CD ROM made me remember that I first got in contact with Linux when a friend brought a CD ROM with Ubuntu 6.6 on it, which was a freebie that came with a pc magazine we read in those days.
In those days I liked new things, so I tried it out the same day as I remember.
Yer I remember getting a disk out of a book in the local library about linux with fedora on it and getting a ubuntu disk mailed out to me about 15+ years ago
Oh man, that screenshot brings back so many (good) memories, KDE3 was such an amazing desktop. The icons and UI were so freaking different compared to everything else.
Doesnt this still exist as Trinity Desktop environment (i.e. TDE)?
Trinity began as a fork of KDE in 2010. So, similarities between KDE 3 and Trinity would be evident. Though it probably had more in common with KDE 4.4, which was released in February, 2010.
It was a fork of KDE 3.5
I had it installed a while back, not bad, but not for me
Looks almost similar to win xp luna theme 
What happened? What made you ditch TDE? How much was the memory footprint?
I just prefer KDE (it’s spoiled me with choices)
From the screenshot that I shared there it was using 683mb RAM with just the console open.