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Ten Years of Kubuntu

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Re: Ten Years of Kubuntu

#51

Post by weland »

sandGorgon wrote: post #31
m_mueller wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple's reputation when it comes to customisation is not entirely deserved. What's true for iOS, isn't really for OSX. I'd say the gradient goes something like KDE > Windows > OSX > Gnome > Unity. When you go through OSX's system preferences there's quite a lot of options, plus there's tons of hidden ones accessible through the terminal and the very effective defaults system inherited from NeXT.

This is NOT true - IMHO you havent seen https://extensions.gnome.org/ . It allows you to customize everything right upto the alt-tab behavior [1] and access to D-BUS for core OS behavior [2] If you really want to see where Gnome is going, please do check out Fedora 22. That really is the showcase for cutting edge Gnome (unfortunately, its not Ubuntu/Debian) [1] https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/15/alternatetab/…

> IMHO you havent seen https://extensions.gnome.org/.

Of course I've seen https://extensions.gnome.org/ , Gnome is almost unusable without it. But Gnome extensions aren't supported by the core development team. They can (and do!) break from one release to another.

The barrier for "customizing things" is pretty high, too. E.g. if I want to change my window decorations in KDE, I download a new set of decorations and change it. If I want to change my window decorations in Gnome, I have to install gnome-tweak-tool and that-program-that-removes-the-bloody-client-decorations-crap and now most (but not) all of my apps are going to use the decorations I want. With some glitches. That's not ok.

> If you really want to see where Gnome is going, please do check out Fedora 22. That really is the showcase for cutting edge Gnome (unfortunately, its not Ubuntu/Debian)

I don't need to check out Fedora 22, I can already compile Gnome from their public repos. The showcase for cutting edge Gnome isn't too impressive; it can be boiled down to "we really like tablets and you're going to like them too because two releases from now all our applications are going to look like they're running on a tablet."

Re: Ten Years of Kubuntu

#53

Post by claydoh »

notfoss wrote: post #49
zanny wrote: post #19

Kubuntu is in a great place today. Five years ago KDE developers were pretty fragmented between Mandrivia, Suse, Fedora, and Kubuntu. Today, thanks to Blue Systems adopting Kubuntu and the general decline of most other KDE spins (Suse lost its commercial support, Mandrivia died and got forked a bunch, Fedora continues to be Gnome-first in a good way) my impressions from the ML and general developer mindshare is that…

I think you are forgetting Linux Mint KDE. It is updated regularly and is fantastic to work on.

You forget that Mint KDE is Kubuntu, if you look at the package sources ;)

Re: Ten Years of Kubuntu

#54

Post by [deleted] »

notfoss wrote: post #49
zanny wrote: post #19

Kubuntu is in a great place today. Five years ago KDE developers were pretty fragmented between Mandrivia, Suse, Fedora, and Kubuntu. Today, thanks to Blue Systems adopting Kubuntu and the general decline of most other KDE spins (Suse lost its commercial support, Mandrivia died and got forked a bunch, Fedora continues to be Gnome-first in a good way) my impressions from the ML and general developer mindshare is that…

I think you are forgetting Linux Mint KDE. It is updated regularly and is fantastic to work on.

[deleted]

Re: Ten Years of Kubuntu

#55

Post by m_mueller »

sandGorgon wrote: post #50
m_mueller wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO downloading extensions to change your OS is not too different from downloading additional software to do the same [1][2]. [1] http://bahoom.com/hyperswitch [2] http://superuser.com/questions/548146/change-command-tab-to-...

no - Gnome extensions are installed in 5 seconds from a browser. It is very different than the experience of traditional installing . It is one of those It-Just-Works experiences.

Judging by Firefox Extensions: It just works until it breaks since extensions are usually not part of the core team's responsibility, and the APIs they use may change with every FF/Gnome release. The time it takes me to install something is really not that relevant, as long as it's <10min - what's relevant is the time it takes me to keep it running for the next 5 years at least.

Re: Ten Years of Kubuntu

#57

Post by m_mueller »

weland wrote: post #52
m_mueller wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://imgur.com/iaaBe0n ;-)

Am... I missing a color picker there?

It's the 'invert colors' checkmark, which does do what parent requested - maybe not what he meant though ;-). The inverted colors don't show up in screenshots though.

Re: Ten Years of Kubuntu

#58

Post by pbhjpbhj »

worklogin wrote: post #27
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you actually want the default to be pretty vanilla. Opinionated design tends to polarise opinions which means put a lot of people off. KDE - especially now with the "get hot new stuff" interface - is very easy to mod and there are loads of style packs available. The sort who'll be attracted to a specific look are also more likely not to go with the default IMO. Personally I like my UI like my DE - out of the…

Well if the vanilla is itself ugly and polarizing, perhaps it's best that a distro take the initiative to make it better. As long as KDE retains its flexibility to make the desktop how you like it, why not try to make it better by default? Disclosure: I've tried KDE several times, and have never stayed with it more than a few days, due to its wacky ratios of window and icon sizing, and bubbly appearance.

https://www.kde.org/workspaces/plasmadesktop/screenshots/gen... - ugly and polarising? It's a bit "candy" or "fisher price" but as a friendly default I don't think it does so bad.

http://kde-look.org/index.php?xcontentmode=17x18x19x20x21x75... gives an idea of the thinks that are popular for KDE desktop style, decoration, etc..

Re: Ten Years of Kubuntu

#59

Post by digi_owl »

weland wrote: post #18
voteapathy wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an aside, I decided to try out Cinnamon on my Debian box, and I actually found it to be a breath of fresh air. It's a modern approach to the non-bloated Gnome desktop of years ago. Reminded me a bit of when I first used xfce; very clean and straightforward. I feel Gnome and Unity try far too hard to dazzle and stand out, when it reality it all just gets in the way. No comment on KDE since I haven't tried it in a l…

I have very mixed feelings about some of the stuff Gnome is doing. Some of them are at least interesting from a certain point of view, like sandboxing applications. I get why this would be nice to have in corporate environments, and that brings money to Linux, which Linux does need. I also think it's solving problems at the wrong level for everyone else. (Selective) communication between sandboxed applications seems…

I wonder if the whole sandboxing thing will go the way of polkit, doing its best when it is disabled.

https://plus.google.com/+TheodoreTso/posts/4W6rrMMvhWU

Re: Ten Years of Kubuntu

#60

Post by notfoss »

claydoh wrote: post #53
notfoss wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are forgetting Linux Mint KDE. It is updated regularly and is fantastic to work on.

You forget that Mint KDE is Kubuntu, if you look at the package sources ;)

Hmm.. but the Mint team does a fairly good job of customizing KDE.
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