I have a long history of Windows usage, and after trying out Linux + KDE for around a month now, this has been my experience:

1) Definitely, the KMenu needs to be reorganized and made more intuitive. Often, I have to go through almost every menu to find what I'm looking for. Personally, I'd like to see it simplified and a lot of the items instead migrated to the System Settings app.
2) Some new, polished window decorations are in DIRE need. I can achieve a Vista-age taskbar with a desktop theme, but IMO, the most modern window decoration is XP-age. I say "age" because I don't mean the new decorations necessarily need to look like Vista, just that they look as polished and modern. (But Plastik does look like XP, obviously.)
3) Add/Remove Applications is FAR superior to Adept in presentation to newbs, but in all package managers, the lists are WAY too lengthy to just scroll through and find software you'd like to try. Please, organize and simplify that (ie: in the 'Games' category, there should be subcategories 'Board Games', 'Arcade', 'Shooter'). Honestly, I still don't even know of any way to find out which packages are "good," and which aren't.. And there are a lot more bad, useless packages than good. I've broken my KDE several times with the bad ones. For instance, right now, GUI shutdowns just hang at a blank screen.
4) I know this is difficult to just achieve, but really I feel like KDE should be a lot faster. All too often am I sitting with the little loading cursor bouncing up and down for several seconds to open an app that should be lightweight (Dolphin? FF? Everything?) I just upgraded my PC, too. (E5200@3.3GHz, 4GB DDR2) Windows 7 is WAY faster for me, and it looks much more polished. Vista(and beyond)-age looks and functionality going faster than XP-age looks and functionality?

I don't want to use Windows, but what is there to attract me to Linux? Aesthetically, Linux is sub-par AND considerably slower (how does that even happen?). To be honest, my FF looks like **** (SS included). KDE menus aren't very intuitive, and items are scattered. And I have no guidance for installing packages, no trusted, updated source with modern reviews of any powerful Linux software. I know, it's not fair that Linux should have to provide all of these commodities that Windows doesn't (or hasn't in the past), but as of now it's just too hard on the user to make this switch.

Even the PC enthusiasts (gamers) who WOULD be motivated to learn the new OS, as complicated and difficult as it may be, don't have motivation to switch. Maybe working to ensure Windows-emulation runs smoothly out-of-the-box would be a bigger (and easier) step than anything else that tries to draw from the less enthusiastic, casual population.

Now, having said all of that, I can't express how much I appreciate the KDE team. Without you guys, Linux wouldn't even be where it is today! I'm not complaining because I am not willing to learn and use this DE and OS, but because I wouldn't even recommend it to my own friends, who I would like to show off to and convince to switch. So it's less me griping than expressing where I think the OS/DE fails to meet important mainstream standards. Also, I realize that not all of these are necessarily the fault of or fixable by KDE. But I'm really too much of a newb to know which is or isn't.. :P

PS: I can't figure out how to attach an image.. Sorry

First of all, which KDE version are you using?

1) KMenu is replaced by Kickoff in KDE4. Personally I dislike it even more, but it has a nice search feature. There's also a traditional menu (resembles KMenu) and Lancelot. Raptor is still being developed.

3) The package manager doesn't have anything to do with KDE but is something your distro provides. It sounds like you're using Kubuntu.

4) I don't suffer that much from this in KDE 3.5.7. Sure, Firefox takes some time to start up, but KDE apps are in general snappy. Konqueror, for example, appears almost instantly (I always keep one instance preloaded). I use preload but I can't say that it has made any difference. Maybe it has.
By the way, my computer is nothing compared to yours in terms of performance.

I don't think gamers are very likely to switch to Linux since most "mainstream" games don't run natively on the platform.

Oh, and you can attach images with the [ img] tag. But first you need to upload it somewhere, for example imageshack.

(Just for fun: check out what regular people think of Windows 7. )

Gotaro wrote:1) Definitely, the KMenu needs to be reorganized and made more intuitive. Often, I have to go through almost every menu to find what I'm looking for. Personally, I'd like to see it simplified and a lot of the items instead migrated to the System Settings app.

That is to a large extent depending on the distro. They can, and do, set up the default menu-structure differently. OpenSUSE and Kubuntu's defaults are, as just one example, somewhat different. I'm not saying one is better than the other, but they're different.

That being said, I have yet to find a distro that has the default menu set-up in a way that I'm comfortable with. I always end up shuffling things around, but then again: I always did the same when I was using windows too.

Gotaro wrote:2) Some new, polished window decorations are in DIRE need. I can achieve a Vista-age taskbar with a desktop theme, but IMO, the most modern window decoration is XP-age.

Which one do you mean? Personally, I take Crystal or Oxygen over XP AND Vista any day (both the XP and Vista default ones look awful if you ask me).

Gotaro wrote:3) Add/Remove Applications is FAR superior to Adept in presentation to newbs, but in all package managers, the lists are WAY too lengthy to just scroll through and find software you'd like to try. Please, organize and simplify that (ie: in the 'Games' category, there should be subcategories 'Board Games', 'Arcade', 'Shooter'). Honestly, I still don't even know of any way to find out which packages are "good," and which aren't.. And there are a lot more bad, useless packages than good. I've broken my KDE several times with the bad ones. For instance, right now, GUI shutdowns just hang at a blank screen.

That's also distro-specific, and something you as a Kubuntu-user should take up on launchpad or the ubuntu-forums.

As for the bad ones, have you installed packages from outside the package manager (for example, downloading something from say getdeb.net)? It shouldn't, but sometimes that can cause problems you would have avoided had you stuck to the package manager.

Gotaro wrote:Windows 7 is WAY faster for me, and it looks much more polished. Vista(and beyond)-age looks and functionality going faster than XP-age looks and functionality?

I don't know why it's that for you, but all I can say is that my experience is the opposite. Everything flies in comparison.

Gotaro wrote:And I have no guidance for installing packages, no trusted, updated source with modern reviews of any powerful Linux software.

And windows does? No matter which OS you use, you always take a gamble when you install something. Whether it is a Open-source program, freeware, shareware, or commercial program you never will know for sure if it will work as intended, suit your purposes, crash constantly (or otherwise wreak havoc on your system). It can be mitigated (which is what the package managers are designed for, at least as far as the wreak-havoc factor goes), sure, but at the end of the day it can not be removed entirely.

Gotaro wrote:Even the PC enthusiasts (gamers) who WOULD be motivated to learn the new OS, as complicated and difficult as it may be, don't have motivation to switch.

Enthusiasts, sure. Gamers would probably be the least likely demographic section to switch to something else though...

I'm using KDE 4.2. Well, I do use Kicker. I thought it was all KMenu (KDE Menu Editor) :P. I liked Lancelot, but for some reason chose not to use it (can't remember). It changed the appearance, but it doesn't reorganize the apps or anything.

I don't know why you guys think gamers wouldn't switch.. They all think Linux is cool and "hardcore". At least, that's the way it was a few years ago.. That's how I was always treated when the topic came up, even though I'd never actually learned how to use the OS lol. "Gotaro, you've messed around with Linux, right?" "Yeah.." "That's badass! You have to do like.. command line sh*t and everything, right?" Lol.. I'm saying since games don't work on native Linux, bundle in a Windows emulator and give it a comfortable, stable, native feel.

Nice video, Hans :P. I was hoping to see KDE themed to look like 7, though. You had me all excited..

Kryten2X4B, the XP equivalent window decoration is Plastik. I don't even have one called "Crystal"? Oxygen doesn't look bad, but it looks like it predates even Plastik. I did not download the bad packages from a browser. :P I used apt-get. And I know Windows doesn't have a manufacturer's review on various software. But generally, the commercial nature of the software tends to drive the quality of final releases way up. And Windows is big enough that google searches easily turn up "top ten" (or similar) articles rating software for a given purpose. If I risk something like that with Linux, in my experience, I'm going to get an outdated list and very sub-par software that I won't realize is outdated and virtually unsupported until trying to install the package, running into errors, and researching how to fix them (where I am confronted with the cold, outdated truth).

My most recent example? Trying to get animated desktop wallpaper, I researched and found XWinWrap. After trying the first tutorial unsuccessfully, I realized it was way outdated, but linked to a newer one. After the second unsuccessful attempt, I realized the one I was reading was also outdated. It happened a THIRD time, before I finally found a recent tutorial on my fourth attempt. After installing, I find that there are no HD screensavers for Linux, and that looping movies flashes a black image while reloading EVERY cycle, and that there is no known fix. So the app is useless to me or anyone who doesn't want a very tacky looking animated wallpaper (or the matrix one). Windows Dreams +1.

Gotaro wrote:I'm saying since games don't work on native Linux, bundle in a Windows emulator and give it a comfortable, stable, native feel.

Which is exactly why I think gamers are not all that interested in Linux. There are not enough (enough for me, but I haven't been a gamer since the Amiga was all the rage) games for it. Wine is a great program, but it is still too much of a hit-and-miss affair. Sometimes it works great, sometimes you need some serious voodoo to make the program work, and sometimes voodoo doesn't help.

Gotaro wrote:Kryten2X4B, the XP equivalent window decoration is Plastik. I don't even have one called "Crystal"? Oxygen doesn't look bad, but it looks like it predates even Plastik.

Plastik and Redmond must be the worst ones available though...sorry about Crystal. I should have been clearer on that one: it is not installed by default on any distro I know of. I don't know if it's available in the kubuntu repos, but worth a try if it's there.

To be honest, I'm not sure how the window borders should look to look modern to you but if it means it should have the glassy look, it's certainly possible. I uploaded a picture to show it:

http://flickr.com/photos/29319276@N02/3 ... 817836285/

Nevermind the rest of the screenshot, since my idea of how a desktop should look probably is a lot different to everyone elses...That's using deKorator (also not installed by default) for the windows-look, and the Fedista deKorator theme. Kwin has also been configured to make the window border partially transparant.

Gotaro wrote:But generally, the commercial nature of the software tends to drive the quality of final releases way up.

Sometimes. And sometimes commercial software is released as what can be best described as alpha+ quality. And sometimes, even when the software is of good quality, there is no reason to buy it since good free software is just as good for the intended purpose. For an example of the latter, why would anyone buy a commercial burning-app on any platform today? And unless you need the extra power of Photoshop (few do), why not use Gimp?

Gotaro wrote:And Windows is big enough that google searches easily turn up "top ten" (or similar) articles rating software for a given purpose. If I risk something like that with Linux, in my experience, I'm going to get an outdated list and very sub-par software that I won't realize is outdated and virtually unsupported until trying to install the package, running into errors, and researching how to fix them (where I am confronted with the cold, outdated truth).

Sure, that can happen. Partially because Microsoft's market share is so much bigger to be sure, but I would also bet that a part of the reason why you have that experience is because you're used to how windows work (for better and worse). I'd say someone who tried windows for the first time after being used to Linux or MacOS would be equally bewildered in the "How do I know which programs are worthwhile?" and "How do I make them interoperate better?" sense. Whether Windows is better or worse in that regard is irrelevant: what is relevant is that a new (to the user that is) platform does mean that you have to unlearn some old habits, or change them to suit the new platform really.

Linux is not windows, and windows is not Linux. It would be a IMO big mistake for either to mimic the other. In looks or otherwise.

For a good windows decoration try Bespin it's in Kubuntu repos somewhere, or if you wish you can compile a newest version from svn. It's not that hard once you get all the necessities. Look at the comments on this link for details what you'll need to get it working on Kubuntu if you decide to use the svn version...
And to add a screenshot of how it looks:

I just watch the clip that Hans provided and it's funny to see them use old nVidia driver with the really bad rendition
You know that "screen-garbage" that used to happen with 177 driver

While it is true, Kryten, that there probably aren't "enough" games that run well with Wine, on the top 10 "gold list" you have WoW, CS:S, TF2, and CoD4, and L4D in the "silver list" which is a pretty massive chunk of the population.

Modern borders should look like a more realistic material (metal, glass, plastic, crystal, marble, whatever), and less cartoony. They should also be higher resolution (naturally). And I know it's possible to achieve somewhat Vista-like borders (haven't figured out the frosted glass, though, or the blur behind the transparency, either of which is extremely important since KWin's "Translucency" makes even the text and buttons translucent). My opinion is that modern versions of KDE should ship with native window decorations that are up to par, as they have started doing with Plasma/Desktop themes (or maybe I had to download this one..).

I think here is where I feel shorted: I'm used to pirating expensive, powerful software developed at high cost, that doesn't exist in the Linux world. If I were to download free software for Windows, the chances are probably a lot greater (though nothing like in Linux) that I might find a useless or outdated and unsupported program.

Since you're saying that, as a new Linux user, I'm lacking the correct habits for finding good, usable apps, how would you recommend I go about things in the future?

Primoz, thanks for the suggestion! I've seen Bespin before, but thought it looked too Mac-like. Your SS differs greatly from the KDE-look SS!

Gotaro wrote:While it is true, Kryten, that there probably aren't "enough" games that run well with Wine, on the top 10 "gold list" you have WoW, CS:S, TF2, and CoD4, and L4D in the "silver list" which is a pretty massive chunk of the population.

Maybe, but since the only two windows games I am interested in (well, except for the old LucasArts adventuregames which run fine natively using ScummVM) run fine (after some initial headaches...) I haven't kept on top of things. If you're curious, Lord of the rings online, and Worms armageddon.

Gotaro wrote:Modern borders should look like a more realistic material (metal, glass, plastic, crystal, marble, whatever), and less cartoony. They should also be higher resolution (naturally). And I know it's possible to achieve somewhat Vista-like borders (haven't figured out the frosted glass, though, or the blur behind the transparency, either of which is extremely important since KWin's "Translucency" makes even the text and buttons translucent).

Hm, if I remember correctly Oxygen uses svg files for the decorations so they should scale quite well. Whether frosted glass or blur are extremely important....well, I have to differ on that one. A nice touch, yes, but I wouldn't consider it vital. I mean, Vista is useful even if your graphics card can not accomodate Aero. Then again, I'm not sure why the graphics card in my laptop is considered "unacceptable" as far as Vista goes but KDE and/or Compiz can utilize it just fine...

Gotaro wrote:I think here is where I feel shorted: I'm used to pirating expensive, powerful software developed at high cost, that doesn't exist in the Linux world. If I were to download free software for Windows, the chances are probably a lot greater (though nothing like in Linux) that I might find a useless or outdated and unsupported program.

Well, I used to be that way too. Pirating a lot I mean. Including windows itself. The thing is, I don't really miss having to either pay up or hunt down cracks/serials. I realize this depends on what you use your computer for but the essential functionality of what I need are met by Linux-native software (the desktop, a browser, a office-suite, pdf-reader/writer, graphics editor (bitmap and vector), multimedia players, some games when I need a distraction, a PIM suite, a video-editor, semi-wysiwyg latex-editor, digital photo cataloging, photo-editing). Most of what I pirated was of the "Well, okay. It was nice to try but it wasn't used much, if at all, after the initial honeymoon-phase". I didn't really feel like I was giving up on much.

Then again, a lot of the "support" offered by windows programs (commercial or otherwise) is not worth a damn to be blunt. In my experience, they're only too happy to find something on your system that they can blame for the problem.

Gotaro wrote:Since you're saying that, as a new Linux user, I'm lacking the correct habits for finding good, usable apps, how would you recommend I go about things in the future?

I'm not sure. For me, it was a bit like this (note, I'm not a very long-time Linux-user. I started off with Ubuntu Edgy just before Feisty was released, so about three years maybe?. Can't recall exactly so say two years to be on the safe side):

I was fed up with Windows for whatever reason. Well, okay. My at the time windows install (XP SP2) was damaged almost beyond repair. I probably could have fixed it but it would have taken longer than to reinstall, so I pretty much went: I can just try Linux for the heck of it (I had tried Linux before though, Red Hat 5 as I recall it, but never full time).

It was not love at first sight. It took me quite a while to understand, at least a little bit, of how everything fits together and so on and there were a lot of times when I was ready to just give up and go back to windows - the comfort zone if you will. And no, I don't claim to be an expert now either. And I broke my installation a couple of times - to the extent that I needed to reinstall. Due to errors on my part no doubt, and things I hopefully could fix myself now. The thing is: I learned from those errors.

Still, what I found lifesaving was to use the forums. This one wasn't available back then, but ubuntuforums.org was. I browsed them, asked questions, and was generally a pest...well, I guess some old-timers may have thought of me that way but I hope not.

Anyway, it takes time. You've only used it for about a month. You can't expect to be at home in unchartered territory after such a short time. No one can. Your windows expertize came at a cost too (namely time), even if it is easy to forget that since you've used it for so long.

The best advice I can give is: don't be shy. Even if you feel the answer should be obvious, ask anyway. Better ask one time too many than one too little. A saying in my part of the world goes "The only stupid question is the one not asked".

So, if you want to know if or whether there is a good/decent equivalent (even if there probably never will be a 1:1 perfect fit) to a specific windows programs, several people are bound to have an opinion and give examples of programs that may fit the bill. They may not be good enough for your needs, but that is no different than it is in Windows. If I may expand on that...

Say you want to accomplish task X. You ask windows users how they would do that, and using what program. Ten programs may be offered as choices, but one person misunderstood your needs, another program offered is buggy but the advicer was so used to the bugs (and know how to get around them) that he didn't think of mentioning it, another may require another program to be at its best, a fourth one was unsuitable thanks to the requirements of it, and so on.

Gotaro wrote:Even the PC enthusiasts (gamers) who WOULD be motivated to learn the new OS,

And I suppose you refer to street racing houdlums as Automotive engieeners?
A real PC enthusiest is someone with a strong desire to make something
usefull with a computer.

hmm i always thought KDE4 was a beautiful desktop, well at least in mandriva.KDE4 in lets say fedora was ugly, cuz it used the kde4 oxygen colors (gray yuck, but im still on 4.1 so im not sure at all about 4.2) and the kde4 window borders are pathetic, but those 2 areas la ora fills in quickly in mandriva and puts kde4 for me ahead of windows in looks.

kde4 is also MUCH hella lot faster then vista, vista i would be waiting like at least 10 mins for windows explorer to open, and with mandy i could have openoffice open, firefox, amarok, kopete, and all that **** and still just click on dolphin and it instantly appears on screen ( i have all nice goodie effects on too) i wouldnt for sure not reccemend kde4 for any system less then 1GB of ram, lol the local nons laptop was running soo SLOWWWWWWWWWWWWW with windows xp, i threw mandriva but noticed it was only 256mb of ram on it, and it would drown with kde4, but that is where LXDE saves the day.

also package manager also depends on what distro you use, kubuntu, suse, and fedora all i saw had a **** package manager that was a pain in the rear end to get anything done with, rpmdrake (mandriva urmpi system) is much easier to use and is fast and simple.

mandy is truely a shinning star of linux (oh yeah forget its logo is a shinning star;-) only drawback is the fact that it is stuck on 4.1 kde and 4.2 is not supported yet until mandriva 2009 Spring (only 2 months so no big deal)

Unfortunately, I had many issues with Mandriva ( it would temporarily freeze most of the time on bootup, ocassionally hardlock with flashing caps lock, network administration tools were broken, La Ora wasn't really to my taste, Urpmi managed to fail to install packages ocassionally because the mirror it had chosen went down ( download.opensuse.org automatically diverts to another mirror ), etc. ) this was with 2008.1.

KDE 4 runs pretty well on 512mb of RAM, so long as you don't use OpenOffice or use the web browser for too long as they eat too much memory. KDE 4 suffers from X server based memory leaks unfortunately ( using 50mb currently )

hmm that sucks, but mandy did address the bootup slowdown issue and has cut it to make it 25% faster then its previous release, 2008.1.La ora borders had fat cut off in kde4 2009, where its smaller and not a clunky glob.Your issue you had with urmpi is similar to the issues i had with YaSt and fedora package manager, urmpi seemed to be the only stable rpm package manager on my computer.

Kryten2X4B wrote:Hm, if I remember correctly Oxygen uses svg files for the decorations so they should scale quite well. Whether frosted glass or blur are extremely important....well, I have to differ on that one. A nice touch, yes, but I wouldn't consider it vital. I mean, Vista is useful even if your graphics card can not accomodate Aero. Then again, I'm not sure why the graphics card in my laptop is considered "unacceptable" as far as Vista goes but KDE and/or Compiz can utilize it just fine...

Well, without the blur or frosted effect, you can see everything behind the border, save for a small tint. When windows start to stack or you happen to be on top of an icon, you get jumbled letters. This issue is even more aggravated by the aforementioned translucent text.

Well, I used to be that way too. Pirating a lot I mean. Including windows itself. The thing is, I don't really miss having to either pay up or hunt down cracks/serials. I realize this depends on what you use your computer for but the essential functionality of what I need are met by Linux-native software (the desktop, a browser, a office-suite, pdf-reader/writer, graphics editor (bitmap and vector), multimedia players, some games when I need a distraction, a PIM suite, a video-editor, semi-wysiwyg latex-editor, digital photo cataloging, photo-editing). Most of what I pirated was of the "Well, okay. It was nice to try but it wasn't used much, if at all, after the initial honeymoon-phase". I didn't really feel like I was giving up on much.

Then again, a lot of the "support" offered by windows programs (commercial or otherwise) is not worth a damn to be blunt. In my experience, they're only too happy to find something on your system that they can blame for the problem.

With the popularity of torrents, programs are MUCH easier to pirate, and come included with working cracks. It's just as easy as, and sometimes faster than, downloading the official demo.

Still, what I found lifesaving was to use the forums. This one wasn't available back then, but ubuntuforums.org was. I browsed them, asked questions, and was generally a pest...well, I guess some old-timers may have thought of me that way but I hope not.

The best advice I can give is: don't be shy. Even if you feel the answer should be obvious, ask anyway. Better ask one time too many than one too little. A saying in my part of the world goes "The only stupid question is the one not asked".

Good advice. That's pretty much what I've been doing, too. And I'm pretty sure people get pretty tired of trying to help me, especially if the issue turns out to be difficult to fix (Thanks again, bcooksley!).

RyanMcCoskrie wrote:And I suppose you refer to street racing houdlums as Automotive engieeners?
A real PC enthusiest is someone with a strong desire to make something
usefull with a computer.

Hah.. Well, I guess you can argue that point. Those street hoodlums are the ones buying and testing the parts in mass quantities, though.. You could say they "drive" the industry more so than "enthusiasts"..

iceyintel wrote:hmm i always thought KDE4 was a beautiful desktop, well at least in mandriva.KDE4 in lets say fedora was ugly, cuz it used the kde4 oxygen colors (gray yuck, but im still on 4.1 so im not sure at all about 4.2) and the kde4 window borders are pathetic, but those 2 areas la ora fills in quickly in mandriva and puts kde4 for me ahead of windows in looks.

kde4 is also MUCH hella lot faster then vista, vista i would be waiting like at least 10 mins for windows explorer to open, and with mandy i could have openoffice open, firefox, amarok, kopete, and all that **** and still just click on dolphin and it instantly appears on screen ( i have all nice goodie effects on too) i wouldnt for sure not reccemend kde4 for any system less then 1GB of ram, lol the local nons laptop was running soo SLOWWWWWWWWWWWWW with windows xp, i threw mandriva but noticed it was only 256mb of ram on it, and it would drown with kde4, but that is where LXDE saves the day.

You may think Mandriva looks better than Windows, but you have to admit that the "modern" look of an OS is not what you find native in KDE. As mentioned before, "modern," meaning a shift towards realistic materials, away from cartoonish images. Also, Vista may have run slow on my PC as well, but I never tried it. Windows 7 is definitely significantly faster, though. I can't explain why your experience (and others) differs from mine. Dolphin never opens instantly for me, not even with nothing else open. Maybe it's possible that people have different ideas of "instant".. For me, I mean that there is not even enough lag to show a loading cursor. I have to wait sometimes through 5+ bounces of the loading cursor. As of now, though, I only have to wait through 1 bounce, and a total of ~3 seconds (keep in mind, it only gets slower from that at other times or with other apps) before the window is fully loaded, whereas Windows 7 or Gnome/E17 are <1 second.

I'm not really here to argue, though. I just wanted to state the opinion of someone who had just migrated to Linux from Windows, as is hoped that many more will do. In its current state, I can't really imagine that happening, though I do recognize that everything is being developed and maintained by volunteers that I really VERY MUCH appreciate.

No words about pirating again, please. It is like it is: illegal. And that's nothing we want here.