is it Kubuntu or is it KDE?

[Luca Ferrari]

Hi all,
I don't want to start a flame here, just to discuss and share opinions on my 
favorite (until now) desktop and distribution. At the moment I'm running 
kubuntu 10.04 with kde 4.5.
I've been running KDE since version 1 and never left it to switch to another 
desktop, even when the "not-so-usable" 4.0 issued. I personally believe KDE is 
the best desktop ever made, with ideas 100 steps behind other desktops. Plasma 
is amazing in concept, QT are wonderful to use and develop, the desktop is 
fully integrated, KMail and Kontact are the best mail & pim program I've ever 
seen.
However, in the last kubuntu releases I'm having too much problems, and I 
don't understand if it is the distro or the desktop. My audio is not working 
at all, the network applet is unable to connect me to a not WPA2-PSK access 
point, my broadband modem is recognized, but does not work, and in general the 
desktop is too much slow when switching between applications. Moreover, 
konqueror is freezing sometimes and making the whole desktop locked for almost 
a minute. Finally, amarok fails to tag my mp3s without errors. All the above 
has been reported to this mailing list.


Now, just to give it a try, I installed the gnome desktop and...everything 
worked fine: the modem, the audio, the network applet and most notably all the 
desktop effects were running smooth.
This led me to think that the problem is not in the desktop itself, but maybe 
in the distro, that is not giving to the desktop the same care as the gnome 
counterpart. I personally don't like gnome very much, because I believe KDE is 
too much better. I don't like the file manager, the menu without the search 
(that is an upcoming of gnome 3) and in general the look and feel. However, my 
desktop as it is now is almost unusable for me, so I'm considering switching 
to something that "just works".

I remember kde 3.5 (the old major release) having all the above problems just 
working, and I guess kde 4.5 should be enough mature to let the users 
experience the desktop, not suffering the desktop.
I can see a lot of messages of people having troubles with kde (as well as 
with other desktops), and since I don't believe that KDE developers are not 
seeing the above problems, I guess there is something wrong with the 
distribution, but I have not tried another KDE based one.

So far, I'm considering a concrete desktop switch, and the application I will 
miss the more is KMail (in my opinion even Evolution cannot compete).

Thoughts?

Luca