Killer Looks of KDE in Kubuntu Entices a Long Time GNOME User!

I had been a KDE user for more than 3 years at one time and those were my early days with GNU/Linux operating system. Once I felt comfortable enough with GNU/Linux to start trying different window managers, I evaluated a few and finally settled down with the GNOME desktop environment as my primary desktop manager, mainly for its simplicity and ease of use. It was less cluttered than KDE and more featureful than XFCE. Above all, I personally preferred the sleek look of GNOME to that of KDE. I tried my best to stay clear of all the KDE vs GNOME flame wars but got really frustrated my the insolent remark made by Linus that GNOME developers treat the users like noobs. Incidents like these might have converted me from being ‘just another fan’ of GNOME desktop to a loyal user of it, but that was not to be. Enter the newly released Dapper Drake version of Kubuntu.

amaroK: Media Player for the KDE Desktop. Strongly recommended to give it a try.

The look and feel of the Kubuntu operating system totally blew me away! For the first time I have understood that no other distribution had put enough effort in customising the look of KDE targetting the casual users, barring Kubuntu and SuSE. Perhaps the fact that Kubuntu(all Ubuntu family of distributions) ships with minimal set of essential applications(only one application for any given job) did the trick for me. I hated to see multiple text editors, web browsers, media players, and even terminal emulators, being installed for KDE by most of the popular distributions. It was abused in GNOME too, but only to a limited extent. The main menu of KDE always used to contain many more items present than the GNOME menu for the same distribution. Its different with the Ubuntu family of distributions.

Hold the mouse over a file and it will display all the information related to that file in a nice popup window.

Using Kubuntu for less than 3 days was compelling enough to convert a long time GNOME user to a KDE fan! Though I have become used to a lot of GNOME applications over time and can’t imagine living without any of them, or having to always install them separately on the KDE desktop, I will surely be using the KDE environment more regularly from now. The fact that a lot of KDE applications in Kubuntu are crash-prone isn’t helping me if I want to consider a complete shift to the KDE environment – its only good for fun as of now. (This is a Kubuntu specific issue, not related to KDE, that too only on my hardware; I haven’t seen too many Kubuntu users complaining about the stability issues that I am experiencing.)

Edit programs in MS Windows-like Kate editor or in the powerful emacs editor.

So shall I take this as a sign of more fierce competition between KDE and GNOME desktops in the Ubuntu family of operating systems in the coming months or will the GNOME desktop remain the undisputed king for still a very long time to come?

Below are some screenshots of KDE desktop on Kubuntu operating system.

Akregator: RSS Feed Aggregator for the KDE Desktop

Kopete: Instant Messenger for the KDE Desktop

Adept: Package Manager for Kubuntu Operating System

K3B: A CD/DVD burning application for the KDE Desktop(I use it in GNOME too)

Hold the mouse over one of the Workspace tabs in the taskbar and it will list all the Windows in that Workspace in a popup balloon.

Sticky note taking application that supports rich text editing and various background colors. I love this tool.

Kontact: Personal Information Manager for the KDE Desktop.