Evolution of the Linux desktop

[GreyGeek]

From the day I bought my Sony VAIO desktop, on Dec 29, 1997, I had nothing but crashes, crashes, crashes. Sony even had an intermediate layer between the hardware and Win95 called the "Sony Medikit", IIRC. It was supposed to intercept a crash and do a graceful recovery. Most of the time it failed and a cold boot was necessary. I reinstalled Win95 FIVE times in those four months. I went to Barnes & Nobel to buy a new copy of OS/2. which I was using on my previous machine, and which ran faultlessly. While there I saw a book titled "Learn Linux in 24 Hours", which included a free copy of RH 5.0 on a CD on the back cover. On May 1, 1998, I replaced the Win95 OS on my Sony VAIO desktop with Red Hat 5.0. My Sony running RH 5.0 NEVER crashed once from May 1, 1998 until I replaced it with SuSE 5.3 in September of 1998.

Why did I switch to SuSE 5.3? RH, as most Linux distros did in that day, used the TWM, a windows manager which interfaced to the xserver. One ran programs whose names began with "x" and created "windows", which indicated it was to run on an xserver window manager. TWM, FVWN, etc ... (IIRC, there were about two dozen flavors of them) all looked similar, ran similar, and were very limited. Switching several times per day between Win95 or some TWM desktop created mental dissonance. SuSE 5.3 was the first distro to offer a new desktop: KDE 1.0 alpha. It was a beauty, and had the look and feel of Win95, but prettier. And it was as easy to use as Win95. AND, neither it or SuSE ever crashed.

Now, running Kubuntu 18.04, I am using KDE Plasma version 5.12.9, KDE Frameworks version 5.44.0, Qt version 5.9.5 on a 4.15.0-72-generic 64bit kernel. IMO, it is the best, most powerful and beautiful desktop on the planet, and it has never crashed on me. (Neither did 16.04, 14.04, 12.04 or 9.04). Oh, I've had a handful of crashes since I began using Kubuntu over the last 10 years, but the fault wasn't with Kubuntu. Lightening strikes, hardware failure, fumble fingers, experiments gone wrong, etc.... KDE Neon ran on this machine between 14 and 16 for about a year and it, too, ran faultlessly.

Anyway, enough of the trip down my memory lane. Here is the article which triggered this post:
https://opensource.com/article/19/8/...-desktop-grown

[WWDERW]

My very first laptop was a Sony Vaio. The really thin ones. Came with Win 98. My top favorite of the Window's versions. I actually still physically have that laptop, just don't have the power cable to it. Everytime I VM Win 98, I think of that computer. I got started late with Linux though, never even knew it existed before 2010. Missed a lot of the earlier whoas from what I hear. For the most part, been clear sailing with installation and most of the time devices being recognized.

[Don B. Cilly]

Oh, KDE has crashed on me countless times.
Whether it's doing so less and less over time because I've gotten better at prevention or because it's gotten better itself, is hard to tell... I guess a bit of both but more the latter.

Still, I remember years ago, can't recall exactly how, I saw the KDE cursor. I was using Gnome, but I said, I want it.
I actually got it, don't ask me how.

About the same time, Gnome switched to Unity. I remember I said, I don't want this.
Tried to get used to it, couldn't, thought a bit, ah, let's try KDE then, eh.

Pam. Love at first sight. Now, this is a DE. WZF (it's supposed to be French, so excuse my French ;·) are those people at Canonical thinking.
Gnomes? Unities? Palindromes? Er, well.

I was a bit disappointed when they switched from KDE4 to Plasma5.
But only because I lost a few things I liked (some of which I really liked), which since then I learned to replace... well not quite but OK... and apart from those, Plasma 5 is amazing.
It's clever. It's efficient. It's no-nonsense.
Aesthetically, it's light-years ahead of anything else. Efficiency-wise... the same. I've actually tried all sorts of other DEs. Recently. They don't compare.

In any respect.

Evolution(of the desktop)-wise, KDE is to [anything else] what Sapiens is to Rhesus.

[Worzel]

Late starter played around learning programming on an Atari then onto Win98 on an el-cheapo desktop. Read about Suse in some mag and thought 'give it a go'.

Liked it but then someone suggested RH - in and out asap, not my style. Breezy Badger appeared, tried it and felt almost at home. Then via Debian + minimal KDE, not so much a learning curve as a dodgy corner brought me to Neon and home.

Older? yes, wiser? doubtful, pc-ful?, most certainly.

Happy New Year to each and all.

[GreyGeek]

.... Evolution(of the desktop)-wise, KDE is to [anything else] what Sapiens is to Rhesus.

That has a nice turn of phrase!

... Happy New Year to each and all.

Diito, and to all other Kubuntuer's!!!