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1. Bernie (codewiz@mstdn.io)'s status on Sunday, 24-Sep-2023 03:30:12 UTC Bernie

   I'm testing an early snapshot of #KDE #Plasma Desktop 6 built from sources today.

   Everything is running so smoothly that I had to double check I hadn't accidentally logged into Plasma 5 again.

   So it's looking like it's not going to be a launch fiasco akin to KDE 4 and GNOME 3.

   #linux #linuxdesktop

   • Greg Slepak 🐢 (taoeffect@mstdn.io)'s status on Sunday, 24-Sep-2023 04:20:22 UTC Greg Slepak 🐢

     in reply to

     @codewiz KDE or GNOME - which do you prefer and why?

   • Bernie (codewiz@mstdn.io)'s status on Sunday, 24-Sep-2023 20:09:36 UTC Bernie

     in reply to

     • Greg Slepak 🐢

     @taoeffect I've been using KDE since 1.5... switched to GNOME 2 when Plasma 4 was released with huge quality and usability issues. Then GNOME 3 came out with its own set of issues. I used Unity for some time, which had its own array of quality issues with its fork of Compiz 😞

   • Bernie (codewiz@mstdn.io)'s status on Sunday, 24-Sep-2023 20:16:43 UTC Bernie

     in reply to

     • Greg Slepak 🐢

     @taoeffect While working at Google, I used #Cinnamon for a few years. It was unambitious but stable and usable. A bit of an evolutionary dead-end though.

     At SpaceX, I've been using #XFCE on an ancient Ubuntu LTS. It was also more stable and usable than contemporary versions of #GNOME and #KDE.

     Funny how large enterprise #Linux deployments spend time switching to a desktop environment which resembles classic Windows.

     Clearly, #RedHat and #Canonical weren't listening to their customers.

   • Bernie (codewiz@mstdn.io)'s status on Sunday, 24-Sep-2023 20:22:49 UTC Bernie

     in reply to

     • Greg Slepak 🐢

     After #KDE #Plasma 5 came out, Nate Graham started focusing the community on the "Usability and Productivity" goal.

     Finally, a stable #LinuxDesktop that's also configurable to my liking. I'm using it both on my personal laptop and at work, with 3 screens 🤩

     @taoeffect #linuxdesktop

   • Bernie (codewiz@mstdn.io)'s status on Sunday, 24-Sep-2023 20:49:31 UTC Bernie

     in reply to

     • Greg Slepak 🐢

     All it took was a truly great community manager who reads user comments on bugs and social media, and motivates #KDE developers to work on the ones that impact a large number of users.

     It's not an easy job: users often come with unreasonable expectations, and frustrated users become offensive.

     Here's a contentious bug on which I commented:
     https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=420280

     Here Nate keeps reminding everyone that a fix already exists, but not all distros have picked it up yet.

     @taoeffect

   • Bernie (codewiz@mstdn.io)'s status on Sunday, 24-Sep-2023 21:00:41 UTC Bernie

     in reply to

     • Greg Slepak 🐢

     I've also been trying #GNOME and I'm very pleased with the UX changes since GNOME 40.

     They finally rolled back some of the most controversial ideas from GNOME 3, such as the vertical arrangement of virtual desktops.

     The also reintroruced basic configurability for fonts, keyboard shortcuts and more. No need to install extensions and tweaks.

     If #KDE #Plasma 6 screwed up, I feel I could switch back to GNOME 45 with no regrets.

     https://release.gnome.org/45/

     Sorry for the long reply, @taoeffect !

   • Greg Slepak 🐢 (taoeffect@mstdn.io)'s status on Sunday, 24-Sep-2023 23:44:52 UTC Greg Slepak 🐢

     in reply to

     @codewiz No worries at all I appreciate the in-depth answer! It sounds like both environments are usable and have come a long way

   • Bernie (codewiz@mstdn.io)'s status on Monday, 25-Sep-2023 01:48:03 UTC Bernie

     in reply to

     • Benoit

     @benoit #Plasma 6.0 will have some minor new features and bug fixes, but no radical UI design changes.

     They seem to have learned from the big #KDE 4 launch fiasco.

     https://pointieststick.com/category/this-week-in-kde/

   • Benoit (benoit@toots.benpro.fr)'s status on Monday, 25-Sep-2023 01:48:04 UTC Benoit

     in reply to

     @codewiz Isn't is basically the same code built against QT6? KDE3-->4 got very major changes.