Debian's KDE Team Needs Some Help

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Debian's KDE Team Needs Some Help

The Debian developers working on the KDE desktop support are in need of help from interested developers, testers, and others within the community...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=MTY4MTA

[phill1978]

I think half the problem is, less people are interested in KDE in general these days. All KDE distributions struggle to look and feel any different. There is always this big boned look almost late 1990's feel, that even with font changes, theme changes, icon changes it still looks 'big and flouncy'

Its actually quite a chore to get KDE looking minimal like openbox or xfce yet with all the compositing and effects and it still never looks the same always feeling wooly and lower definition. Cinnamon is more exciting even though its less stable and much less recoverable, at least you can get some modern crisp UI going and not feel like your trapped in some windows 98 desktop with a 3rd party effects application installed.

[tomtomme]

I think half the problem is, less people are interested in KDE in general these days. All KDE distributions struggle to look and feel any different. There is always this big boned look almost late 1990's feel, that even with font changes, theme changes, icon changes it still looks 'big and flouncy'

Its actually quite a chore to get KDE looking minimal like openbox or xfce yet with all the compositing and effects and it still never looks the same always feeling wooly and lower definition. Cinnamon is more exciting even though its less stable and much less recoverable, at least you can get some modern crisp UI going and not feel like your trapped in some windows 98 desktop with a 3rd party effects application installed.

what? when did you used it last time? And on what distro?
For me it looks similar to win7, not win98 (on opensuse)

[TheBlackCat]

I think half the problem is, less people are interested in KDE in general these days.

Right, that explains why KDE routinely ties with Gnome as the most popular DE. It can't possibly be that Debian has a version of KDE that is several years out of date, or that Debian is not known as being KDE-centric.

All KDE distributions struggle to look and feel any different.

Right, that explains why distributions have their own unique themes, and that KDE developers actively support and encourage distro-specific theming (compared to, say, Gnome that actively discourages theming by breaking themes all the time).

There is always this big boned look almost late 1990's feel, that even with font changes, theme changes, icon changes it still looks 'big and flouncy'

Right, if you don't like the look then nobody can.

[dee.]

KDE/Gnome, round 3923 - Fight!

(someone pass the popcorn, please)

[ferry]

what? when did you used it last time? And on what distro?
For me it looks similar to win7, not win98 (on opensuse)

Yeah, Win7 is a pretty good KDE imitation, although they missed a few things. Examples:
- the task switch (Alt-Tab) in win7 is still win98 like (pictograms), compare that to KDE flipswitch or cover switch
- on dual monitor systems with win7, only the primary monitor has a task bar, the second not. With KDE you can give each monitor its own task bar, showing only the applications on that monitor. This is great when you are working on 2 tasks at the same time, so you can designate a monitor to each task.
- win7 should probably revert their control panel to win98 style, now with some much configuration stuff hidden away from the user it is almost impossibly to find (where to find the firewall settings, not under 'firewall' but under 'security', hidden between the virus scanner and windows update stuff). Actually KDE has just extended the simple model from win98, just point to input devices and a popup will show you there are the settings for mouse, keyboard, joystick, tablet, touchpad.

Oh well, maybe for win9 MS will take a good look at KDE again and get it right. In the mean time I will just be using KDE.

[doom_Oo7]

what? when did you used it last time? And on what distro?
For me it looks similar to win7, not win98 (on opensuse)

Honestly, I think that Windows 7 looks AWFUL, and every time I used to install it I instantly switched it to the "Classic windows" theme.
Goddamit, transparency SUCKS.

At least they understood this in Win8, it's for me the best-looking Windows (in "desktop mode") so far.

[phill1978]

what? when did you used it last time? And on what distro?
For me it looks similar to win7, not win98 (on opensuse)

your saying that like its a good thing

i used KDE on Mint 15 last and customised the hell out of it just to get it to look interesting and not window'sy

[phill1978]

Right, that explains why KDE routinely ties with Gnome as the most popular DE. It can't possibly be that Debian has a version of KDE that is several years out of date, or that Debian is not known as being KDE-centric.


Right, that explains why distributions have their own unique themes, and that KDE developers actively support and encourage distro-specific theming (compared to, say, Gnome that actively discourages theming by breaking themes all the time).


Right, if you don't like the look then nobody can.

i have ran KDE for a long time. Its stability and feature set are amazing but it does feel old school .. perhaps it just needs a refresh for its default look?

The reason KDE ties with Gnome is that it is hitting that group of people who migrated from Windows and want to keep that simular (same) feel and are comfortable with what they know. That doesnt make it better per say

[TheBlackCat]

perhaps it just needs a refresh for its default look?

It is getting one. The Visual Design Group is hard at work at that as we speak.

The reason KDE ties with Gnome is that it is hitting that group of people who migrated from Windows and want to keep that simular (same) feel and are comfortable with what they know. That doesnt make it better per say

Citation needed.