Although I’m a Gnome user, each time I log into a KDE session I’m amazed at all the settings available to me. Since I decided to familiarise myself with KDE, I have it as my default desktop environment.
For a start: Eye Candy. Don’t get me wrong, I like the simplicity of Gnome’s looks, and I love the Wii theme I have on Gnome. But KDE has some really nice looks. I have semi-transparent menus with a drop shadow. The window manager buttons fade in and out as I move my mouse over them. The quick-launch buttons have tooltips that wipe-in in a real nice way. The taskbar entries fade out. I can customise it so it doesn’t look quite so much like Windows (which is one of my gripes about KDE - it’s always so Windowsy).
Speed: KDE feels a little slower than Gnome, unfortunately. This is saying a lot, because my Gnome installation is the full “ubuntu-desktop” package, whereas my KDE is just “kdebase-bin” with a little extra stuff.
Customisation: This is where KDE shines. I could have sounds for events that I would never have sounds for. I can have different desktop backgrounds on different virtual desktops (I can hide the picture of my lady friend on a rarely-used desktop; one click shows me her picture, but if my parents are coming I can just drag all my windows onto some “safe” desktops). I can change the amount that my arrow cursor accelerates, and the threshold before KDE determines a click to be a drag. I can even have Mac-style menubars, in the top panel (only for KDE programs - still, it’s better than having to patch the GTK source code).
Maturity: KDE has so many feature-packed programs. K3B and AmaroK are so good because they have been around so long; each new version has new features, and eventually you end up with brilliant apps. I’m sure there are others too, these are just the ones that I remember off the top of my head, that most Gnome users also have.
There are heaps of options that I haven’t looked at yet, and many many standard KDE programs that I haven’t even got yet. Some I don’t need - I don’t need the stuff for a dual-head setup, and I don’t need knetwork-manager that Sal keeps talking about
I’m sure I’m missing a bunch of programs that get installed by default - Kate for instance. I’d like to see what I’m missing; maybe I’ll find a DVD with all the packages from main.
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