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Comment by w4rh4wk5 | Hacker News Reader

You think KDE is a clusterfuck?! When was the last time you used GNOME? File Roller still doesn't support drag'n'drop in Wayland; issue now open for over 5 years.

It pains me to see them throwing money at the wall instead of creating dedicated jobs, paying (German) engineers to fix bugs and develop long needed features. Given how low German wages are, they could pay around 10 engineers for a full year with that money.

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Reading these Linux DE threads always makes me glad that the only desktop Linux I use is SteamOS.

Which SteamOS? The old Debian one fort he cancelled SteamBox, or the new Arch one for the Steam Deck?

The Arch one for the Steam Deck, which makes it really easy to forget that it's even Linux.

Ok, but that's just KDE, no? Do you use it in desktop mode?

I doubt that many people use the desktop mode on it to be fair.

So you are using KDE

Pretty sure that it's not KDE outside of the desktop mode considering that the SteamOS and its GUI is proprietary and KDE is GPL.

Of course Steam itself is not KDE

Steam runs on KDE on SteamOS

Can't find any "kde" or "plasma" references in the process list under normal operation. It's only after you reboot into the desktop mode that you start seeing process names like "plasmashell", "kded5", "startplasma-x11" and so on.

I'm not entirely convinced that using SteamOS can really be counted as "using KDE" in any way.

> in any way

Well, I wouldn't make that statement so strong. KDE Plasma is the default desktop environment on SteamOS, it's just that it doesn't boot into its desktop environment by default (but you're two buttons away from switching into it).

It does not, unless running in desktop mode. In gaming mode, Steam runs on top of gamescope.

Desktop mode is KDE on X. In that case your comment is true, steam will just run on KDE.

Game mode is a wayland session with gamescope as a WM, but it isn't controlled directly by the user. The steam client controls the WM and exposes those controls to you through menus and handles stuff like notifications and being a driver for the controller, so you could call it a DE in game mode.

> Game mode is a wayland session

More like X session running under XWayland. gamescope doesn't really expose Wayland interfaces to clients (well, technically it does expose some stuff, but I wouldn't qualify that as anything else than implementation detail - although that may have started to change recently, I've seen some stuff being done around xdg-shell there).

SteamOS is just a slow release Arch with KdE on top so your comment says what we need to know

And it just works without any tinkering. Maybe that part is more important than the choice of DE.

I'm partial to KDE myself, but honestly anything with a sensible panel is usable.

> I’m partial to KDE myself, but honestly anything with a sensible panel is usable

I’m the same! I’ve never understood how people have such strong emotions when it comes to a desktop environment. They all (including Windows, macOS, and even iPadOS) feel like they are good enough to me and I enjoy switching to something different once in a while.

> just works without any tinkering

Yes. It'samazing how much better Linux runs when the hardware vendor actually supports Linux.

It also helps that the Steam Deck has a narrower Mission than a desktop computer.

I just switched my work computer from a Linux laptop running Gnome (on Wayland, with working drag and drop) to a MacBook Air M2. The hardware is a great improvement, the desktop environment is not.

I think it’s also a matter of getting used to it. I used Linux from 1994-2007 and Mac since. I had some Linux desktop excursions in between and I always come back surprised how broken the Linux desktop experience is. Let alone there would be something great like Shortcat or Raycast app menu search.

The only thing that is annoying in macOS is the lack of good tiling, but there are good third party options that add tiling.

Same here. Recently moved to an M2 pro from Gnome. Mac desktop seems like a downgrade to me.

I’m not sure there is a piece of software in existence that doesn’t have a group of angry HN users posting about their pet bug that no one else has heard of.

From cars to microwaves to soldering irons, if it's got software on it, there's a bug in the code.

https://xkcd.com/1172/

Yes it could always be better.

I've been using Linux as my primary desktop environment for 19 years. It's unbelievable how little I know about Linux these days. Things just work!

I wouldn't attach too much weight to negative comments. People love to complain, and on the other hand those who are perfectly content often don't feel the need to advertise that. That is not to say that Linux DEs are perfect, mind you, but maybe not as bad as comments on HN would suggest.

Yeah, I use GNOME on my laptop every day, and I say it's pretty good. Things "just work" enough for me to focus on doing my work or enjoying myself without having to worry about the DE, and I like the defaults, mostly; it's not just a matter of convenience. And the keyboard shortcuts and mousepad gestures on GNOME are great as well. But from the way GP complained you'd think the Linux desktop were ruined.

If it's only for that, don't worry, that's also a steaming pile of s... /s

And reading any HN thread about Windows or macOS makes me glad I'm not using them.

File Roller isn't a GNOME app: https://apps.gnome.org/

What is it then, part of GTK? It's certainly a core part of a Gnome desktop.

No, it isn't a core part of the GNOME desktop. It's not in the Core Apps list at https://apps.gnome.org/.

It's just an app that describes itself as being ”for GNOME”.

"An archive manager for GNOME."

<https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/file-roller/>

<https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/FileRoller>

To my understanding it is a GNOME app, but it isn't a core GNOME app. Meaning it isn't something that would be shipped in a "GNOME" package group.

Yes, it's a GNOME app in the sense that it was intended to be used with GNOME. In the same way, Netscape 6 is a Windows app.

I don't think it's fair to judge GNOME's quality based on 1 app that targets the platform.

Wow! Irrelevant and wrong!

Historically it was a GNOME app, but it isn't any more. All apps that are currently part of GNOME are listed at https://apps.gnome.org; File Roller isn't there.

> File Roller still doesn't support drag'n'drop in Wayland

Neither does KDE Ark on Wayland. Tested yesterday.

Maybe it depends on what you're dragging to? Dragging from Ark to Dolphin works fine on my Wayland machines.

German wages are low? Are you serious?

Yes, talking about the IT sector here. I am from Austria, it's about the same over here.

US tech wages for a single position are probably on average more than the typical EU tech company makes in total revenue per year. 60k is like a god tier wage here.

The duck? Are you living in the same Germany as I am?

That's not god tier, it's pretty average: https://www.stepstone.de/gehalt/Software-Developer.html

It'd be low for a senior dev: https://www.stepstone.de/gehalt/Senior-Software-Entwickler-i...

60k is very average for someone with 3-4y experience in Vienna and our salaries are much lower than in Germany. You should find another offer.

Unless you're talking about net income, then it is truly god-tier...

> File Roller still doesn't support drag'n'drop in Wayland

Fwiw Wayland is a bit of a disaster, see: https://gist.github.com/probonopd/9feb7c20257af5dd915e3a9f2d...

There was an HN thread on this, but it was flagged: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38210694

This page is mostly a bunch of lies and shows little understanding of what wayland is and what it is not. It should definitely be flagged

For someone as clueless as me, would you care addressing them all one by one? That would be more than welcome.

Use the search bar at the bottom. Every week we have a new Linux post with 200 comments of complaints about Wayland.

Reddit, Phoronix, the entire internet has people complaining about Wayland. It's really not hard to find them.

Time's too valuable to make that worthwhile, especially when a large amount of them boil down to: Wayland is not X and tools designed for interfacing with X-specific details will not work on Wayland without modification.

X-specific details here include being in control of your own computer.

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