A Call For KDE To Fully Embrace Simplicity By Default, Appeal To More Novice Users

[blackiwid]

If they would nail the advanced users needs I personally would not care about good defaults, but for me they seem to be not fish not meat, they fail at every ascpect / audience.

For beginners their 50 menues with 25 subtabs are unusable, for advanced users they even (correct me if I am wrong) miss a real tiling mode, heck even using the Unity Plugin(s) for gnome-shell is a more advanced way of using a desktop.

And on top of that they have UI(s) that at least to me look cheap and ugly, like windows xp the same cheap bubble gum optic, poppy instead of classy, like nice darker browner tones. Looks to me like a website made from a 15 year old that just learned xhtml and tries to embed to much gifs with moving figures.

So in the end it's not good for beginners nor good for really advanced users, so it's this weird middle ground ala they do some things and have similar looks to windows but different enough to be not just a 1:1 clone. I might miss the point, but the point must be hidden very well.

Mix in like permanent beta status quality from the software.

[schmidtbag]

As usual, seems people here didn't read the whole article.

You can have your cake and eat it too. Nate isn't wrong - there's nothing preventing you from having both a beginners and an advanced approach from the same product. This isn't a new concept. Even Linux distros themselves are like this. Think of it like Ubuntu vs Debian, or Endeavour vs Arch.

[lumks]

Well kde is for power users,

Not really. Poweruser do not change a thing. Probably not even the wallpaper. They need to work with the machine. KDE Plasma, and let me say this here, does have absolutely BAD defaults. Beginning with Window sizes after first start. So set up usable defaults would be something good.

Yet, I think the part that will bite the Project is the settingsflood. You can't have "one sane path to do it" and "the optional path the user wants" at the same time. On the other hand KDE shouldn't try to be GNOME. The upcoming change of GNOME to libadwaita will many people make switch to Plasma and it would be just a bad experience to take away and hide everything they are looking for, for simplicity reasons.

[GraysonPeddie]

For those with visual disability, why not move the Zoom feature out of the Desktop Effects into Accessibility section? Why? Because GNOME already has the Zoom feature in the Accessibility section and that's where visually impaired users would expect to find Zoom so they can make use of desktop magnification. In KDE/Plasma, the Zoom feature is not in the Accessibility section.

[mtk0]

i'd be really happy if session management worked. i'd be even happier if session management for konsole processes worked too.

[remenic]

Well, noobs tend to come from Windows. Believing otherwise is simply denial.

I wouldn't argue that. But I wouldn't try to convert them either. I think Windows is the better choice, for them.

The amount of Linux natives (people who didn't use Windows or Mac as their first ever OS) is negligible. Heck, Mac and Linux (and the BSDs and fringe OSes, for that matter) are a tiny fraction of the market even counting power users.

Absolutely right. So? Does that mean I can't get work done on my Linux? If I couldn't, would I be a native user?

This means whatever Windows does is what's gonna be intuitive for the bulk of noobs.

Yes, and they can keep doing that on their Windows PC.

At some point you have to adapt to reality to reach your goals, reality won't adapt to you. If that goal is being beginner friendly that means stealing a lot from Windows.

The goal should be to build the better system, not to copy (bad) concepts because that's what the users have accustomed to.

It seems that some people just want to turn Linux into an open source Windows.

[aufkrawall]

The taskbar's default window list with icons is still inferior to Windows 10 (let's not take 11 as model...), especially when it comes to window preview interaction etc.. Preferring the old window bar any day, far less confusing.

[timofonic]

Retard Computing is coming everywhere, not just Gnome and Mac.

This is sad news.

The solution is making Computing a very essential skill such as reading and math, not dumbing down computers.

May the brain be with you...

[torsionbar28]

As long as it doesn't take us from something like Gnome 2 to Gnome 3 . . .

Don't worry, if Gnome3 is any indication, it will only take 10 years and 40 revisions, to improve from truly abysmal, to moderately awful.

[sinepgib]

The goal should be to build the better system, not to copy (bad) concepts because that's what the users have accustomed to.

It seems that some people just want to turn Linux into an open source Windows.

It's perfectly valid to disagree on the goal. But that's the goal they defined, and they're free to pursue it. You asked why it should be a given way, well, because it's consistent with their goal.
Besides, having defaults matching the Windows behavior doesn't mean you can't get your work done. At worst it means you'll have to turn a few more knobs at setup time.