> I understand that KDE is a clusterfuck
Nah it's the most capable desktop on Linux these days.
Nah it's the most capable desktop on Linux these days.
It's good that there are 2 distinct, competitive desktop environments, that each suit different people well.
Yes, I know there are other ways to do this (e.g. screen), but they require planning in advance and I don't always know when I want to do that. There have been other things that I used that have also been removed over the time that I used Gnome.
I appreciate Gnome for the smooth experience they provide but have switched to KDE which better meets my needs and wants.
People don’t make much art in MS Paint, or code in Notepad, despite those being the default for most computer users.
I think GNOME is very explicit in pushing you towards using independent applications that best fit your needs, while also providing simple to use, but not very feature-rich, defaults. I appreciate that approach.
That was my point: I understand who power users of terminals are; I understand who power users of graphics software are; I understand who power users of CAD are. But a DE is a glorified application launcher; there really isn’t much there of which to be a power user.
This is very Windows-specific problem. macOS, iOS, Android, ChromeOS, KDE nowadays all include decent sets of apps, thankfully. I will not miss the days of installing PDF readers (half of them full of ads), ZIP decompressors, image viewers (IfranView), MP3 players, etc.
Sadly, last time I was daily-driving GNOME (~2 years ago), this was exactly my experience - Evince was extremely laggy on big PDFs compared to Okular, Eye of Gnome had little functionality compared to Gwenview, File Roller lacked drag-and-drop and some formats that Ark supported, Gnome Terminal lacked many keyboard shortcuts that Konsole had, Gnome Software looked like just a proof-of-concept, etc.
> I think GNOME is very explicit in pushing you towards using independent applications
I wasn't aware this is the case, but I could accept this philosophy and be happy... if the distributions (Ubuntu, Fedora, etc) shared this opinion and thus made their default flavor have GNOME WM with e.g. KDE apps. Sadly this is not the case, so I've started recommending my non-tech-savvy friends (that became curious to try out Linux since Windows got so bad) to go for full KDE experience.
My examples of a drawing app and a text editor stand, I think.
> if the distributions (Ubuntu, Fedora, etc) shared this opinion and thus made their default flavor have GNOME WM with e.g. KDE apps
A distribution, typically, does not have a better way to guess your preferences than a DE does. Pushing overloaded applications on everyone is not a solution.
> I've started recommending my non-tech-savvy friends (that became curious to try out Linux since Windows got so bad) to go for full KDE experience
Do you support them afterwards?
No, they don't. Most of the time updating an extension for a new gnome version is simply a matter of adding a number in the manifest file, but even when it isn't, they all get updated very quickly. Gnome 45 changed some core APIs so basically every extension had to be updated, and yet from ~10 extensions I use only 1 was not supported immediately upon GNOME 45 release, and even it got updated less than a week later.
I still haven't used anything more 'just works' and 'capable' than xfce, what has KDE added in the past decade or so since I used it that made it 'most capable'?