is it Kubuntu or is it KDE?

[Luca Ferrari]

Hi guys,
it has been very intersting reading your comments, at least I felt less 
alone...

I guess one big problem is with the kubuntu distribution, since I tried some 
live cds and the KDE is working really better than with kubuntu on the same 
hardware. For instance, a korona 4.5 is doing very smooth with desktop effects 
and application start-up. On the other side, other things are really on KDE: 
for instance the network manager applet has been horrible since release 4.0, 
and I know there is people claiming about that since such version, so I guess 
it should have been fixed since a while!
As a side note, I've not been doing a fresh install, always updates, and if 
this is the cause of my breakings and problems, it means again that something 
is not working with kubuntu. I've not tired to install an ubuntu and then the 
kde desktop, but I will give it a try to see if this mix can be the best one 
(I've done always the opposite).
Finally, I don't like mixing things, such as running kmail on gnome or on 
xfce, I'd like to have a fully integrated desktop. I've got enough not-native 
applications, like Firefox and Eclipse that show how slow is to run non-native 
applications on the desktop. This is why I'm wondering about the desktop 
switch, to reduce as much as possible the mix of applications to improve the 
speed and integration.

Again, this is not a real claim or critique, is just a bunch of considerations 
about this wonderful desktop and amazing distribution.

Luca