A bit off topic, but this is why I started using KDE over gnome. I liked to use middle mouse button for drag-move/resize but in gnome it required editing the source code and recompiling.
The fact that in KDE, not only can I configure literally every pixel at times, I often must configure all kinds of things.
I very much prefer highly opinionated software for three reasons.
That softwares' defaults matter everything, so they are well researched and thought out. While with configurable software, defaults are often accidentally, historically, or whimsically defined.
Settings combine. One setting of two options gives two variations. Four such settings 16. Now imagine the combinations of a KDE app with a hundred settings, many of which can take several values. It's impossible to support, test, understand and debug all these combinations. Yet they often affect eachother. Updates in KDE were, for this reason alone, a break-fest. But even flipping some check boxes often brought my KDE in an invalid state so that (seemingly unrelated) parts would just stop working.
But most importantly, I realized my time is best spend on efficiently using software, rather than spending time on making it work efficiently for my personal workflows. I.e. better to adapt my workflow to some well thought out default, than to waste time thinking out that workflow myself. I still have vim and my shell configured, but that's where I spend almost all my time. For the rest: just vanilla Ubuntu with some nice wallpapers. It has "just worked" for over a decade and many updates now. Which is a much bigger timesaver than configuring the amount of pixels of grab-space of my window borders will ever be.
A lot of care has been put in the defaults in KDE (recently?). They have even set double click to open by default in Plasma 6, though most of the team actually prefers single click, recognizing that it's what users coming from other environment are used to.
Today, the default configuration in KDE software is well thought and usable as is. You don't need to change anything. But you can if you want.
I've used KDE for years now, and when I set up a new environment, I don't change much actually. It's ready to use out of the box.
You don't need to choose between "configurable but painful to set up" and "opinionated and non configurable". "Configurable with 'opinionated' defaults" is also an option and to me that's what KDE provides.
The problem with GNOME "researched and thought-out opinions" is that they often require all apps to follow it to work well. They ignore use cases involving non-GNOME apps (case in point - systray), but using only GNOME apps is extremely limited.
I used GNOME as my main IDE since v2.4 (2003), but slowly grew frustrated with the changes until the v40 was a bit too much and finally gave KDE a chance (after several previous tries which did not convince me). KDE was finally mature and stable, it took maybe 30 minutes to configure it to my liking - I don't think I had to change the config since then.
> The fact that in KDE, not only can I configure literally every pixel at times, I often must configure all kinds of things.
Neither of those things are true when it comes to KDE. While it is more configurable than GNOME, it's not a particularly high bar to pass, and it comes with perfectly usable and reasonable defaults out-of-the-box.
berkes|1 year ago
The fact that in KDE, not only can I configure literally every pixel at times, I often must configure all kinds of things.
I very much prefer highly opinionated software for three reasons.
That softwares' defaults matter everything, so they are well researched and thought out. While with configurable software, defaults are often accidentally, historically, or whimsically defined.
Settings combine. One setting of two options gives two variations. Four such settings 16. Now imagine the combinations of a KDE app with a hundred settings, many of which can take several values. It's impossible to support, test, understand and debug all these combinations. Yet they often affect eachother. Updates in KDE were, for this reason alone, a break-fest. But even flipping some check boxes often brought my KDE in an invalid state so that (seemingly unrelated) parts would just stop working.
But most importantly, I realized my time is best spend on efficiently using software, rather than spending time on making it work efficiently for my personal workflows. I.e. better to adapt my workflow to some well thought out default, than to waste time thinking out that workflow myself. I still have vim and my shell configured, but that's where I spend almost all my time. For the rest: just vanilla Ubuntu with some nice wallpapers. It has "just worked" for over a decade and many updates now. Which is a much bigger timesaver than configuring the amount of pixels of grab-space of my window borders will ever be.
jraph|1 year ago
A lot of care has been put in the defaults in KDE (recently?). They have even set double click to open by default in Plasma 6, though most of the team actually prefers single click, recognizing that it's what users coming from other environment are used to.
Today, the default configuration in KDE software is well thought and usable as is. You don't need to change anything. But you can if you want.
I've used KDE for years now, and when I set up a new environment, I don't change much actually. It's ready to use out of the box.
You don't need to choose between "configurable but painful to set up" and "opinionated and non configurable". "Configurable with 'opinionated' defaults" is also an option and to me that's what KDE provides.
The_Colonel|1 year ago
I used GNOME as my main IDE since v2.4 (2003), but slowly grew frustrated with the changes until the v40 was a bit too much and finally gave KDE a chance (after several previous tries which did not convince me). KDE was finally mature and stable, it took maybe 30 minutes to configure it to my liking - I don't think I had to change the config since then.
seba_dos1|1 year ago
Neither of those things are true when it comes to KDE. While it is more configurable than GNOME, it's not a particularly high bar to pass, and it comes with perfectly usable and reasonable defaults out-of-the-box.