I really cannot believe we fucked printers in so many unique ways.
Etc. etc.
Sad to know you have such a case. But yes, this has to be addressed alongside.
This is always a tradeoff.
KDE tries to be universal and useful for everyone. No matter what you plan to do with your system, KDE has convenient tools for that. But, no matter how they try to make the system less busy, full set of easily available functions always stands in the way of minimalism.
Threadiverse kinda captures it, but it also calls association with Threads (by Meta), like if it’s the parent of it, while in fact it’s not even part of it.
Gonna talk from KDE positions here. GNOME, too, has its place, but I recognize it’s not for everybody.
More pleasant to look at
Certainly not for the average person. For a normie user, KDE looks way way nicer, and it’s certainly way more modern than either XFCE or Cinnamon. Sure, the latter can be made into something modernishly enough, but the customization options are way more limited here. Either way, out of the box, KDE is much more preferable to most.
User-friendly
Can hardly find anything that is more user-friendly than KDE. Everything you can possibly think of is available graphically, the interface is extremely sleek and ergonomic, and you can change anything at all to your liking. Which leads us to…
Customizable
Why would anyone say XFCE or Cinnamon are more cutomizable is beyond my comprehension. XFCE can be somewhat reasonably customized, but the anount of technical knowledge required to do anything more than resizing bars is beyond the scope of normal users. Cinnamon is outright rigid, and its customization options are extremely poor by any means. KDE is easily customizable and can be turned into anything through a what-you-see-is-what-you-get graphical editor that requires 0 technical knowledge. Still, if you really want to go the old school way because you’re used to it, want something not offered, or can’t imagine yourself descending into the GUI designed for plebs, you can do it too. KDE is king when it comes to this aspect.
Stable
As far as XFCE goes, this does hold quite some weight. It has a mature codebase, allowing it to have plenty of things figured out. For mission-critical systems, it might be preferable. Same can’t be said for Cinnamon, but either way, every popular DE is stable enough for home use without much worry - including KDE.
In any case, having used all four, I stopped exactly at KDE and GNOME - the former being perfect for casual multitasking and entertainment, the latter being nice for focused work.
Honestly, on my Fedora I have to fix things more rarely than in Windows 11. Granted, Linux troubleshooting is sometimes more time-consuming, but I haven’t met a single issue that would take hours to resolve in a long while. Ironically, my partner wasted about 6 hours recently getting Windows 11 to work with audio devices on a remote desktop client.
Still, we have to admit fixing some stuff in Linux is complicated enough to be outside the scope of regular everyday user.
Some apps and front ends support showing your post and comment “karma”. Eternity, for example
Probably Special Edition or above
Yep, called after a Blahaj, an IKEA shark and a trans mascot
OnlyOffice crashed for me repeatedly on Debian, LibreOffice did not.
But otherwise yes, I prefer OnlyOffice as well for a much friendlier interface.
LibreOffice just commonly puts mundane parameters God knows where.
Same for Dell; moreover, KDE actually features the respective indicators, so the laptop feels completely Linux-native
Underrated comment
Can’t say for TeamSpeak, but will say for Linux: setting everything up and figuring out your steps in edge cases is the hardest part. Once you figure it out, it gets so much easier.
Good to know!
Currently I run a secondhand Dell Latitude, it was well cared for and is in a great condition, even the battery capacity sits at 94%. Runs Linux like a charm. Couldn’t be happier about it and hope it lasts me a while.
It’s not hard, but the more laptop lasts, the longer it will take before you buy a new one.
Not only that, but it also affects the decision making. For example, quite recently Russian maintainers were removed from the Linux kernel, citing “compliance”.
It’s easy to imagine same thing happening to Chinese maintainers, for example. And then from other countries. This, too, can strongly affect not just Linux, but FOSS landscape as a whole.
Thanks for bringing up the European foundation, I’ll look into it!
The Linux Foundation itself is in the US jurisdiction - just sayin’.
Which is why I repeatedly called for the Foundation to move into Europe, potentially into Finland, back to its roots.
Yep, seen those for a while now
Samsung SSDs are great and industry-leading in terms of reliability