Research says KDE is Best DE (and my personal opinions)

[Waleed Hamra]

http://beta.techradar.com/news/software/operating-systems/what-s-the-best-linux-desktop-environment--1045280

According to this techradar test between GNOME 3, Unity and KDE 4.7, KDE
was the easiest to use.

To quote, "While there was something to like about all of the desktops,
KDE 4.7 drew the lowest number of groans. A major factor in KDE's
success is its familiar interface [...] When all's said and done,
though, every one of our testers was floored by KDE 4.7 across all
devices. Only the most basic users noticed that instant messaging and
other online services weren't integrated. There was a lot of praise for
Activities, which was described as the natural extension to virtual
workspaces on the Linux desktop."

I am a happy KDE user, and I don't plan on moving away of it. I started
using Kubuntu with 7.04. After the release of Hardy (8.04), Windows was
wiped out to make space to the new master of this computer.

Yes, KDE 4.0 and the first few releases after it were a huge nuisance.
After KDE 4.2 was released, I installed OpenSUSE on a second partition
to try it out. The main attraction was that I was told in OpenSUSE they
apply many unofficial bug fixes, that aren't implemented upstream yet,
something that is only done in the *buntu/Debian world for only the
extremely drastic of bugs. OpenSUSE was nice, much more stable than
Kubuntu's KDE 4.2. But, few months later, I was starting to hate the RPM
system, it can never be a match to aptitude. Yast was kinda cool, but
for a terminal junkie it was a nuisance. Lots of config files keep
getting overwritten by other automatic programs, though I can't remember
now what files these were. it was nearly 6 months, and I came back to
the Kubuntu world, and wiped out OpenSUSE.

Considering the release cycles, and packaging efficiencies of Kubuntu, I
think this distro provides the best image for KDE. If you ask me, I
think the KDE folks should even help the Kubuntu community with
packaging, but I understand they can't take sides with 1 distro and not
with others.

I am sticking with Kubuntu for now. Kubuntu uses the Ubuntu
repositories, with its 6 month release cycle, so we get a huge portion
of Debian's stability and robustness, while being able to stay somewhat
on the cutting edge. As much as this can draw complaints of us being
beta testers, I would like to remind that had Canonical not taken that
controversial path, KDE would have never gotten enough testers, and we'd
probably still be in the KDE 4.3 phase now. We're not on the extreme
bleeding edge, we're somewhere below. For those who want bleeding edge,
there's always a ton of PPAs available on launchpad, which is a great
way of staying current, without the risk of downloading deb packages
from untrusted sources. So for these reasons, I am sticking with
Kubuntu, as the best distro today.

Hopefully, by June, I would have been done with my senior project (which
is a QT program, thanks to all the KDE goodies and influence on me :) ),
and I can have a lot more free time to be of more help, on this list,
and elsewhere in the Kubuntu universe.

Thank you for being patient enough to read all this, and sorry for this
long email :)

-- 
Waleed K. Hamra
Manager of Hamra Information Systems
Lead Technician at Illusion Computers Megastore

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