Can you believe this is Linux?!? As anyone who has followed my blog knows, I've had mixed reviews of KDE in the past. I first saw KDE in Knoppix, my first experience using Linux, and it just looked foreign and strange, and not that inviting. I tried KDE again when I first installed Ubuntu and liked it okay. Actually I thought it was nice enough, but just a little boring maybe - a little too Windows-y looking for my taste. And I know it's shallow, but all the "K" names (Klipper, Konsole, Konqueror) were really bugging me there for a while. Since then, though I've kept a separate Kubuntu partition, just to be able to use it from time to time, if for no other reason than that it's free and that it gives me a well-rounded Linux experience to use both Gnome and KDE.
I replaced my monitor today, the CRT model that came with my Dell in 2004 with an LG 19" flat panel, and I wanted to see how KDE looks on it. Then decided to see if I could give KDE 4.1 a whirl. So I downloaded it to work alongside KDE 3.5 and wow, is it awesome! It's almost like an entirely different program, making my darling Ubuntu Gnome desktop look a little boring itself. I may even do a fresh install of Kubuntu in this partition with KDE 4, then upgrade to KDE 4.1. In any case, I'm sure I'll report back with more to say!
6 comments:
You don't need a separate partition/ubuntu install. Just type
apt-get install kubuntu-desktop-kde4 on your Gnome box, and it will install alongside. The login screen will ask you which you'd like to use, and all applications are available in both.
Thanks for that suggestion. I actually did that Gnome/KDE combination soon after I moved to Ubuntu, and I found that having all of the KDE programs in my Gnome menus was overwhelming, especially since several of them had functionality and display issues in Gnome. I had really just wanted to "test drive" it and be done, and I found that getting rid of all those programs was not nearly as easy as installing them!
I got the idea from a Linux reviewer to use a separate partition for a "clean" installation of KDE, separate from Gnome. When I shrank my Windows XP partition on my first hard drive, that's exactly what I did!
Chris
You can have the KDE apps not appear in your Gnome environment. Just go to "System", "Preferences", "Main Menu" and from there you can chose which apps you want to appear and which one's not to.
I have Gnome and KDE4.1 working side by side and I find that this way is the easiest to keep them separate from one another.
Thanks, John. I have a laptop running Ubuntu and that's exactly what I'm going to do!
Chris
If you want to have a good KDE testing distro, take opensuse. You can even get binary packages for de 4.2 dev series and de KDE4 experience on Opensuse is just better I think....
Hey - Thanks for that. I really haven't gotten out of the Debian branch of distros yet, but I'm interested in eventually trying OpenSUSE, though I have some concerns about Novell. Actually, since I'm learning more command-line-based skills, I've been moving toward the idea of keeping a non-GUI partition on my computer too. I'm learning that while things like virtualization have value, you don't really get a since of living with a distribution (or desktop environment) until you actually use as your main computer.
Chris
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