KDE celebrates the 29th birthday and kicks off the yearly fundraiser
62 comments
·October 14, 2025frameset
dapperdrake
GNOME essentially gutted itself when it switched away from GNOME 2.
Somehow they still stuck around as a broken default. Go figure.
IIRC, then a lot of documentation still mentions GNOME first and then KDE second.
Furthermore, Ubuntu without the prefix is GNOME. Kubuntu is KDE. And all the others like Lubuntu, etc. all seem "special" to casual users.
Think of what the average university student installs in a VM, when they need to run some random command-line tool. Plain stock Ubuntu.
And GNOME lives on as a sorry excuse for a bad copy of MacOS desktop looks without the feel.
guerrilla
As a long-time GNOME user, I support this sentiment entirely. What a disaster.
happymellon
There are two minds of thought.
1. Like yours, KDE is similar to Windows so it's less scary for new users.
2. KDE is similar to Windows so will confuse users when it doesn't run Windows software or doesn't quite behave in the same way. Macs don't look the same and people don't get scared or expect their Windows software to run on it.
I can see both arguments, and I've definitely seen internet complaints about both KDE and Gnome being either too similar or not similar enough and they are confused.
dapperdrake
Point 2 doesn’t count. As far as Windows 11 is concerned even Windows doesn’t run games like old Windows.
daveidol
What do you mean?
goalieca
I think there’s more thoughts to…
I migrated my non-technical mom from windows to Ubuntu in 2005 and my daily support questions on how to do this and that went to once a few weeks. Gnome 2 and Firefox was very simple. The OpenOffice stability was also great when Microsoft switched to ribbon.
Eventually I got her on a Mac and she hasn’t asked a question since. She keeps buying new ones ever since.
BolexNOLA
Maybe I need to lower my expectations a bit but I feel like someone who is explicitly leaving windows for Linux by that point would understand it can’t run everything windows does right? In the same way basically everyone gets that a lot of software doesn’t operate on Mac and Windows.
happymellon
> I feel like someone who is explicitly leaving windows for Linux by that point would understand it can’t run everything windows does right?
I get it, but it's unfortunately not true.
The amount of folks I've seen complain about their Windows pirate copy of Photoshop CS6 not working on Linux so they will go to Mac over the years has been quite silly.
outadoc
I can easily see a novice user coming from Windows accidentally getting into the edit mode of Plasma and being completely confused. I like KDE as an advanced user but I wouldn't install it on my grandma's laptop.
I agree that it would be great to have it as a first-class citizen in more distros, but I guess the maintenance burden is not negligible. I'm glad Fedora promoted it though.
Rooster61
I've had the opposite experience. I installed KDE on a new desktop I built for my mom, and outside of a handful of growing pains (mainly things Windoze had vendor locked), she's been happy as a lark with it. She hasn't gone very far off the beaten path and really doesn't have too much of a need to.
And she is in fact a grandma.
Sammi
The average Linux user is not your grandma and lets not overstate how easy it is to mess up your KDE config. Most of the config ui in KDE is delightful compared to other desktop environments, and most non-technical users would shy away from even trying to fiddle with technical stuff. And those that do fiddle and mess up are likely to have a technical person at hand to help them, because someone had to install Linux for them in the first place.
KDE is a much more sensible default for the highly technical person who is likely to install Linux themselves. There are other great options if you want something more locked down and noob proof. KDE really is the most relevant choice for default for most distros atm.
noisy_boy
Playing devil's advocate, KDE settings are clear but there might be a possibility for a "Advanced Mode" button (with a first-time click warning) on the top-right of the "Quick Settings" screen that opens up when we launch the Settings. That can hide the "risky" stuff (e.g. "Window Management" etc). There might be value in adding a "Lock Panels" options to handle accidental modifications/removal etc.
noisy_boy
It feels good to donate to a high quality sane default that has been serving my needs as a daily driver. The more I see the mistreatment of Windows users by Microsoft, the more I am grateful for Linux and KDE.
rookderby
I've installed two KDE+Tumbleweed machines in the past two days. One for a friend into retro gaming and the other time for older family into solitaire/youtube. KDE is an easy drop-in for Windows. If you have a better recommendation than Tumbleweed for new people, I'm open to looking into it, but so far it's been easy and I'll probably be the one to support it.
PapstJL4U
Thanks KDE - I always liked the Windows-like design (that's what I would call it coming from Windows like many people).
Instead of hiding "power-user" features so well you have to google them to find them, I can interact with the OS on gui or command-line level - really depending mostly on my mood.
Although KDEConnect to easily connect a Windows PC, a Linux laptop and an android phone to share files and control my pc while watching a movie was the "step-up". When they are in the same network and approved, they simply connect.
fragmede
and iPhone!
janwl
>Case in point: Microsoft is stopping free support for Windows 10 on hundreds of millions of computers this very week. Many of these old yet perfectly usable devices will not be able to upgrade because of spurious hardware requirements. Microsoft’s solution? “Throw away your computer and pollute the planet because we want to make even more money.”
Windows 10 was released in 2015. Does KDE still support whatever version of KDE was released in 2015?
emilsedgh
No but upgrading KDE is free. It also doesn't force new hardware requirements.
space_ghost
Counterpoint: any modern linux distro will run fine on your 10yo computer.
cgh
The point is that KDE from 2015 will still run on today’s hardware.
shoobiedoo
I've been running KDE plasma with wayland in arch for over a year now, it's been an absolute dream come true. Everything just works. Gaming with Proton, dual monitors with different resolutions, Japanese input, I only need to hop onto windows when my son wants to play Minecraft.
moxvallix
You might not need to even for Minecraft, have you seen this project? https://flathub.org/en/apps/io.mrarm.mcpelauncher (Android version of Bedrock made to work on Linux)
Kenji
Huh, why? Minecraft is Java. It works perfectly fine on Linux, both the server and the client.
wiether
Since MS bought it, aren't there two versions, a legacy one called "Java" and the newer one from MS, probably not in Java and with all the cool kids (multiplayer mode) on it?
c0wb0yc0d3r
There is Java and bedrock. Everyone I know has Java. There are other differences, but multiplayer is available in both.
wiz21c
I use KDE on my home PC since about a 15 years, exclusively. I like it a lot but it still has some rough edges here and there. For example, the network config interface is a bit messy. Sure you can configure many things with it, but it's hard to understand). Dolphin is the best file manager I have ever used, nothing come close nowadays (I have tested windows and macs). The desktop configuration is quite nice and the look and feel is really good too.
Unfortunately, it still crashes sometimes (about 2 or 3 times over 500 hours of usage, but my PC is 15 years old, so this may explain that).
And as many here, I sure don't think about changing.
Thank you KDE team !
wkat4242
I donate monthly anyway. KDE is amazing and I love the extensive options in this day and age of horrible opinionated design.
I just wish they weren't in such a hurry to deprecate X11 because Wayland isn't quite there yet on my OS (FreeBSD)
munchlax
How's the gpu driver? Which chip would you recommend for the beast?
saidinesh5
I'm still surprised at how smooth KDE Plasma + Wayland + Input actions on Arch feels on a fresh install on my new HP AMD laptop.
The Only slightly wonky thing has been the fingerprint reader. Other than that my Linux set up now feels smoother than my office Mac. AND I get way better battery life compared to Windows on the same machine.
Special call outs to: kwin, dolphin, yakuake, kde-connect
pjmlp
Happy birthday KDE, outside XFCE, KDE is the desktop I would go back to if I ever reconsider building a Linux desktop again.
Has all the developer goodies with KDevelop, written with tooling that empowers UI/UX development workflows, has a proper component system with much better tooling than COM, quite configurable without extensions all over the place.
Signed, a disillusioned former Gtkmm user, with how GNOME turned out.
noisy_boy
For a sec I read it as a former Gkrellm user
ak_111
I am used to having "Emacs key-bindings" on both gnome and Mac (so that for example ctrl-a will always go to the beginning of a textbox no matter the application, such as chrome).
For some strange reason this seems to be very hard thing to set up on KDE or am I missing something?
kps
> so that for example ctrl-a will always go to the beginning of a textbox no matter the application
And Control-W will always erase word no matter the application?
This is actually a major reason I use KDE: I can, with some effort, change keyboard shortcuts to avoid conflicting with terminal Control keys. It doesn't solve the textbox problem, though.
(I don't use Emacs bindings, but Control-W erase word came in the ‘new’ TTY driver in BSD2 in 1983 — predating Windows 1.0, incidentally — likely copying TOPS-20.)
sgc
This seemed like something relatively easy for chatgpt to handle. The response is a bit complicated compared to what it sounds like you are looking for (it's not from the kde settings gui), but still a two minute "fix".
tmtvl
On paper KDE's system is more elegant and practical than GNOME's. In practice the keyboard shortcut management via exporting and importing is rather unwieldy. Then again, if you want to go deep into setting up your shortcuts to something properly usable, it's a fair bit more convenient with KDE, where all your shortcuts are in a single place, than with GNOME, where you have to look in all the gconf categories and it's a right pain to find conflicts.
kace91
There are projects like kinto that achieve very good results at making Linux behave like macOS on shortcuts (cmd instead of ctrl only when it makes sense, etc).
I’m not sure how they do it, i suspect it’s mostly a manual grind for configuring the most common shortcuts and apps, but there might be some idea there that can be reused for the eMacs setup.
pedrogpimenta
I'm not sure this is the reason or a big reason, but I think this is very difficult to do in Linux, sadly.
What makes Linux great is also its biggest handicap, in my opinion, when it comes to User Experience: the fragmentation of UI frameworks and libraries.
I imagine having this control between Qt, GTK and other UI libraries and electron-type-apps os difficult if not impossible.
asimovDev
omg I found my people. Ctrl+A and Ctrl+E are so engraved into my muscle memory that it always takes a moment to readjust when using non Mac OSes. I didn't know Gnome also uses those as a KDE fan
Multicomp
Glad they keep using the mascots to help brand and punch up their images.
Both artist links are either private or show closed commissions, so the artists aren't fishing for exposure to do lead gen, they have a passion to help make KDE be a better marketable product.
I daily drive KDE, but I'm glad that in part thanks go the KDE projects approach to accessibility to newcomers and these artists' desires to help out, we get visual aids for the masses, which are pleasant for those of us who live in walls of text and can help humanize an otherwise dry technical subject, aiding newcomers considering joining the project to have an easier time understanding what they are looking at.
I'm absolutely loving KDE since I returned to desktop Linux after a long absence.
What really shocks me is how few of the big distros make KDE a default or "first class" DE choice. If I was a novice user coming from Windows, I'd much prefer KDE, which if you stick to the GUI is very navigable and similar in some ways.