Should Ubuntu Have Gone With KDE Instead Of GNOME?

[cj.wijtmans]

I do think gvfs/kioslave/gio should merge their efforts into a cross platform solution. Then other libraries, maybe even PHP, can use it.

[eidolon]

The XFCE founder is working on Gnome these day. That pretty much sums up the situation.

And what's Miguel de Icaza up to these days?

[darkbasic]

That would be awesome, but il will never happen

[Awesome Donkey]

I don't see why this argument matters when Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu, Ubuntu Budgie, Ubuntu MATE, etc. are available as user choices.

[boxie]

Like Bluecurve? That's around the time I switched away from RedHat. It was an absolute mess.

Nah, not like that - more like have the ubuntu devs support each DE and have the users determine how popular each is (i.e. running stats from both installation count and how long each installation is active for)

[Jahimself]

If KDE was main desktop, gnome would have been "gnubuntu?" There is Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu who cares about main deskop.

[onicsis]

I don't see why this argument matters when Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu, Ubuntu Budgie, Ubuntu MATE, etc. are available as user choices.

Windows users simply do not care about Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu, Ubuntu Budgie, Ubuntu MATE or any linux other distribution. They just want to get their work done not to live permanently in a toxic atmosphere around imperfect linux desktop where everybody hate everybody hates everybody.

[skierpage]

"At the moment Ubuntu Touch apps can run in Plasma Mobile"

That's huge. If you're a fan of convergence, I think Plasma Mobile is now the only Linux environment even attempting it. I've wondered why Unity 8 didn't share more with with Plasma Mobile, if it was a personality issue maybe yunity and UBPorts can move past it.

If you don't care about phones or convergence, switching to Gnome was a reasonable choice, for the reasons other commenters have mentioned.

[CrystalGamma]

Since there are Ubuntu flavors with each of the popular desktops (GNOME, KDE, XFCE, LXDE, …) I, too, don't see the point in having the discussion.

… but whatever, I'll throw my hat in the ring for KDE: I need a text editor that actually lets me change the font (I've tried a few times with gedit, couldn't find the setting; in kwrite/kate, I found the option immediately). I like being able to add and rearrange widgets in my shell panel instead of plugins which have to find the place their widgets go by themselves and in my experience crash way too often and cannot be restarted without restarting the shell. And I couldn't go without something with the characteristics of krunner: full-text search that is pervasive (searches almost everything including application data like contacts and bookmarks) and integrates with the window manager (you can search for open windows) and last, but not least, is compact and in the center column of the screen (important when you have a big screen like me, you don't want to have to move your eyes all the way across the screen to see the search results). These are the also reasons why I'm not switching to another DE that supports Wayland (in my experience KDE on Wayland doesn't work well enough yet).

[FuturePilot]

I'd say yes, but GNOME can do tear-free video with almost no lag in X.

So can KDE. I've never had a problem with either of those