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Comment by JohnFen | Hacker News Reader

> Microsoft isn't crippling their user experience considering that doesn't benefit them

I have to use Windows at work, and have done so for decades. From where I sit, Microsoft is absolutely crippling the user experience. Every release after Win 7 has been a degradation in that.

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Compare KDE's Dolphin with Windows's Explorer (tabs, split view, dark theme a decade ago, file size/mod date under filename...)

Ten Dutch guys can make for free a better piece of software than a multi-billion dollar corporation can because better UX isn't profitable when you've already captured 99% of the market. :p

KDE is not relevant or even heard of aside from people on Arch forums and more isolated communities. Heck the rare times I've seen Linux in the wild, guess what DE they were using? It's the one that's actually used by mainstream Linux distros, and even outside of GNOME, I even saw a wild Ubuntu terminal running Unity about a week ago. KDE should stop assisting with fragmenting Linux, or get the DE up-to-par for mainsream distros to use :p

Meanwhile, guess what's the most popular operating systems for workstation use is. You're implying everyone using Windows willingly is dumb and being inefficient. Dolphin works, so does Explorer, Nautilus, and even Thunar. Only two of those are relevant for most people.

KDE is used by default in Suse, has first class support on Red Hat distros, and is the default on the Steam Deck.

Honestly, it's better than GNOME at being an alternative to Windows UX, so calling them out for fragmenting Linux is kind of moot.

I know quite a few Linux users, and not all of them are computer nerds (and none of them use Arch or are part of some small niche group). I'd say about 1/3 of them use Gnome, 1/3 use KDE, and 1/3 use something other than those two.

In general, it seems that those who are used to Windows get along better with KDE.

> KDE should stop assisting with fragmenting Linux

Having a selection of DEs to choose from is not "fragmenting Linux". It's a rather large strength of Linux to be able to select the DE that works best for you. I wish that were possible with Windows!

The fragment part comes from KDE nor GNOME coming close to the efficiency of DWM and Windows Explorer.

DWM and Explorer have low-latency, good hardware-acceleration, and power efficiency down to a T. GNOME 44 isn't on-par. I haven't heard anyone ever compliment KDE in these regards recently and back when I last tried it when Plasma 5 was relatively new it also wasn't up-to-par.

More work should go towards making these GUI toolkits run as efficiently as possible, instead of re-inventing the wheel slowly while macOS and Windows continue going strong.

The only way to make Linux DEs (at least on X11 -- I've never tried Wayland) as smooth as Windows 10's DE, I've found, is to disable composition. And KDE is the only DE I know of that lets you disable composition (yet another reason it's awesome). ;p

You lose transparency and animations, but the smoooooothness is amazing (and it even extends to games)!

I don't recall how smooth Windows 7 or Vista felt, but my conspiracy theory is that Windows lost all that Aero transparency IN ORDER to be so smooth (but that's probably apocryphal).

Nevertheless, Windows's DE and platform limitations are still horrible compared to Linux with KDE. :D As for Mac, that's tantamount to GNOME, so to me it's not worth considering as a contending GUI.

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