One of the many powers that come with soaking yourself in the world of Free/Open Source Software (aka FOSS, and “Linux” to the layman) is flexibility and modularity. With Windows or MacOS you’re limited to what Microsoft or Apple decides to give you. FOSS is not limited by this, and one of the more obvious facts of this is the desktop itself.
Windows and MacOS provides you with one environment. In Linux (yeah, I’m going to refer to this as Linux since that’s what I run) you have the choice of several different environments. These are commonly referred to as Desktop Environments (or DE, for short) and comprise the user interface. Gnome and KDE are among the more popular, but there are several other more obscure that might suit you just fine as well.
The DE consists of a large number of applications designed according to a common philosophy and using a common framework in the software. Gnome is based on GTK and follows the GUI guidelines of the Gnome-project. KDE uses QT instead and follows a different set of guidelines. Other DE’s use the same general principle, for example the XFCE-desktop is also based on GTK but follows a different philosophy when it comes to the user interface.
One this is however common among all DE’s. They’re what you use to interact with your computer.
For many, many years I’ve always preferred Gnome over KDE. Apart from a brief flirtation with KDE back in the late 90′s I have never liked the cartoony look and feel of KDE. I’ve always preferred the restrained and cleaner look and feel of the Gnome desktop. This didn’t change back in early ’07 when I made the switch fulltime to running Linux even on my desktop, and thus I chose Ubuntu for two reasons: It’s based on the rock-solid Debian distribution of Linux, and it uses Gnome as the default desktop environment.
But, just earlier today I got curious about where KDE stands.
I played a bit with it back when KDE 4.0 was released, and I was impressed. Gone was the plastic cartoony look, and instead it seemed as if KDE had matured. There were tons of new features, and the environment seemed lightyears more coherent and thought-through than the previous generations of the K Desktop Environment. It was polished, but like all point-zero releases it wasn’t really there yet. It was sluggish, it lacked a lot of applications still stuck in the 3.x series of KDE and overall wasn’t quite my cup of tea. But it showed a lot of promise.
And earlier today I punched in one command and installed the current stable KDE release. It stands at version 4.2 and it has matured even more. Now most of the applications have caught up, developers have polished the look and feel even more, and now the speed is up to par as well.
I’ve been playing around with it for the last hour or so, and I have to say I’m deeply impressed. I don’t think I’ll be making the jump to KDE within the foreseeable future – but golly geez, it’s tempting. KDE 4.2 gives both Windows and MacOS a run for it’s money in so many ways, which says even more since it’s free software. Also, since the QT toolkit now has been ported to Windows, you could run KDE under Windows as well, and leave that awful mess Microsoft calls a user interface behind.
And, it also gives Gnome a run for it’s money. Like I said, I never really cared much for previous generations of K, but 4+ is a much different beast. Unlike it’s previous iterations it’s polished, pretty and deeply usable.
Gnome developers, take heed. If you don’t get your game together I’m pretty sure KDE will be eating your lunch soon. You’d better shape up and put a lot of effort into Gnome 3, or KDE will quickly establish itself as the superior desktop – even on the desktop of a die-hard Gnome-man such as myself.