Why I won’t use Kubuntu (or KDE for that matter)
It is pretty and all, I will give it that. It tries so hard to please the eye that it would be easy to overlook its shortcomings. Alas, I cannot.
First of all, it tries so hard to look like the Windows interface, or at least the bastard offspring of Windows and OS X now with KDE 4 (not that it looks bad). This is where the problem is. It looks like it but when you expect it to act like it (or at least somewhat similar) it doesn’t.
For example, when you have Windows XP installed and you go get yourself a nice media keyboard it allows you to control the Volume, open up programs, put your computer to sleep if you accidentally hit that button and so on. It is very handy. The same thing goes for using it in Gnome which does not even try to resemble a Windows desktop. It is nice to not have to set up hotkeys to do this, or have to use your mouse to change the volume, you can just move your hand up (try to avoid hitting the sleep button) and turn up/down/off the volume, open a calculator or perhaps even an email program. There is probably a way to set it up in the kde control panel, but you should not have to these days it should be detected that it is sending the volume up command (I would even settle for something that noticed that you had attached a media keyboard and asked you if you wanted to set it up). I guess what annoyed me most was that I installed it along side my Ubuntu install which just recognized my media keyboard and I figured that it would do the same in KDE installed over a Ubuntu backend.
Another thing is the single click on an icon to open it up. That is just annoying, it may be more efficient, but if you don’t expect it (coming from OS X, Gnome or Windows you might not) it is one of the most annoying difficult to get used to default behaviours that there is (aside from not picking up multimedia keyboards).
Related posts:
Thanks, though it was not a traffic grab… It is true that I don’t like KDE.
congrats on the traffic sean
but I think I shut everyone up o.O
When you double-click on a link in the web (which my boss does every time), it doesn’t open the page twice, in two different windows.
When you double click on something in KDE (single-click by default still on), it DOES open up twice. if your computer is slow, this can cause your computer to crash.
I think what Sean is trying to say is that for a desktop environment that proclaims to be easy to use *and switch to from windows*, KDE still has a lot of work to do. Double click is just more familiar to those making the switch.
As for plug and play, Ubuntu is way ahead on that one. Aside from Ubuntu, you shouldn’t expect much as far as your peripherals go – you’re lucky if you can get online with a wireless network card. Of course, this depends on the distribution you choose. This, of course, will change over time.
No one was *nix bashing, and seriously, if people get called stupid for raising *valid* concerns because fanboys won’t tolerate anything but praise for the OS, I have think something is very wrong with the *nix community.
The web works that way and people are used to it working that way. It is an expected behaviour. I was not bashing *nix for the sake of bashing *nix, I was complaining about it’s innaccessability to a larger group of people who are less technical because of its default behaviours. I know that you can change these behaviours, you can make Windows XP single click if you really want to (and possibly in other versions of Windows as well), but most people don’t because they are used to double clicking to open a file or folder. I have yet to use a distro that uses Gnome that sets the default to single click.
I think that this post was mostly motivated because of KDE 4. I was using it and all was fine, I had changed the default to 2 clicks. I could not however, get my media keyboard to work. Then I tried to use evince instead of the KDE default program (kpdf?) to open up PDF files. It crashed hard and I could not log back in to kde because of it.
Hmmm, I do not use my media keyboard as such.
But the single klick in KDE is a non-issue, that can be changed with one click to double-click Windows users
…Another thing is the single click on an icon to open it up. That is just annoying, it may be more efficient, but if you don’t expect it (coming from OS X, Gnome or Windows you might not) it is one of the most annoying difficult to get used to default behaviours that there is…
That’s the way the web work! Oh wait, it wasn’t the web you was whining about?
This is bashing *nix for being *nix and just stupid. Single click _is_ , and have always been the default behaviour in *nix. Since when, and in which distributions have you been using Gnome?
Besides, not much is simpler to change in KDE if you don’t like it.
It tries so hard to please the eye that it would be easy to overlook its shortcomings.
nonsense
Noone tries to copy here anything. They are just trying to make best, most customizable and flexible desktop enviorment there is. So it simply contains the best features there are. It really doesn’t matter from which platform these features come.
And single-click openings are cool too.
But if you are too windowish u can disable this feature.