9 ms·

KDE for Windows 10 Exiles – Upgrade your software, not your computer

86 points by jlpcsl 1y ago

Pet_Ant 1y ago
It's not relevant now, but back when I started using Linux (Red Hat 7.1 I think) what made me choose KDE was that with KDE all the apps had a conspicuous 'K' in their names whereas Gnome app did not, so it was easier to get a consistent user experience. After that it was Konqueror with the different protocols like "wk:" in the address bar to search Wikipedia. Then when I learned more, it just seemed like Qt was a much more capable foundation to build a desktop on, and I wanted to bet on the winner. In the end KDE did win the desktop... because they built WebKit (as KHTML) and everything is now a webapp and the desktop is otherwise irrelevant.
- rhabarba 1y ago
  > everything is now a webapp When, why and how became this a good thing?
  - anonym29 1y ago
    (edit, misread)
    - rhabarba 1y ago
      I did not say otherwise.
  - FirmwareBurner 1y ago
    When? When the majority of SW dev work became synonymous with web dev. Why? Because that's what web devs are comfortable with. How became this a good thing? When web apps became the easiest way to deploy cross platform.
    - AnotherGoodName 1y ago
      Also the native UX kits all suck and have done so forever. There i said it. There’s a reason KDE looks better, has better consistency across apps, does theming at the os level better etc. Html/javascript/css for your native app frontend is actually quite reasonable.
      - const_cast 1y ago
        The native UX toolkits wouldn't be so shit if everyone wasn't so greedy. We don't need to reinvent a better wheel every 5 years (windows) or force some proprietary garbage nobody cares about (mac). It just needs to be reasonable, easy to adapt to other platforms, and long-lasting. The web isn't even that good, the competition is just self-destructive to a point it can't be justified.
  - jollyllama 1y ago
    Because, relatively speaking, it solves the distribution problem. Distributing to your set of servers is easier than distributing to the set of desktops.
    - neepi 1y ago
      At the cost of a generally worse end user experience and no offline ability. I am glad Apple didn't do that and stayed native for nearly everything. This is a big selling point for me.
      - jollyllama 1y ago
        > At the cost of a generally worse end user experience and no offline ability. Yes. This is a cost and a benefit you weigh according to the capabilities of your development team. If there is nobody to outcompete you, that is factor into the decision.
        neepi 1y ago
        What happened to the customer in that line of thinking?
        jollyllama 1y ago
        "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good."
        neepi 1y ago
        I read that as "We feel the customer be happy with mediocre"
        cassianoleal 1y ago
        Yeah... I don't think happy is even a consideration. Due to the lack of choice, the customer will have to content even if the experience is way off. As long as all the competition is more or less as bad as your product, there's very little incentive to improve on that.
  - liotier 1y ago
    >> everything is now a webapp > When, why and how became this a good thing? Cheap instant all-terrain deployment trumps most other considerations, especially where technical onboarding is on the critical path to customer acquisition.
    - gspencley 1y ago
      There are definitely advantages to companies. As an end-user, the only advantages I can think of are data centralization and device portability. While we're talking about "webapps", generally, and not SaaS specifically... the two often go so hand in hand that it is the exception to see a webapp that is not also a SaaS product.. and as a consumer I kind of mostly hate SaaS. With the above two advantages noted, lets look at the cons: - Companies can, and routinely do, push unwanted UX changes on me without my opt-in. Pre-SaaS you would wait for a new version to come out and could see what the reviews were saying before deciding if you like the changes and want the new features. Now you're a guinea pig and get the new "features" whether they are a benefit to you or not. - Forces me to have my data on someone else's computer - The "other peoples' computer" issue means that if there is a software or a hardware failure that prevents me from being able to do urgent work that it is entirely outside of my hands and my ability to troubleshoot the majority of the time (though this is a double edged sword since for the average non-technical user it can be a big benefit) - Can't work without an active Internet connection (though I'll concede that not having an active connection is becoming pretty rare these days) - If the company goes out of business, say goodbye to your data in the majority of cases - Often goes hand in hand with renting the software rather than paying a flat fee for a perpetual license. Given the choice, I will always opt for a perpetual license. I try hard to have as few recurring payments in my budget as possible. Utility bills are bad enough. If, however, by "webapp" we just mean a desktop application that uses a DOM-based rendering engine then I couldn't care less. There are tradeoffs, but they are purely technical and rarely impact UX directly in the way that a general approach to software delivery and consumption does.
      - bigyabai 1y ago
        Except a lot of these are problems with so-called native apps too. My experience using MacOS for the better half of a decade ended with >80% of the software I paid for being unsupported. My options were to continue using a non-secure OS version or update to an environment where my software doesn't run anymore. I think you're the last of a dying breed of users. The iPhone generation doesn't lose their internet connection, throw a hissy-fit when UX changes or even care all that much when data is on a remote server. They will pay for whatever is successfully marketed to them, and that company will be rewarded with success. This is what the App Store conditions users into wanting, if OnePass tells you to switch to their Electron app then you have zero choice in the matter. My solution has simply been to never pay for software. Not native, not SaaS webapps, not Electron containers. It's all just one big scam when free alternatives to 99% of meaningful software exists if you're willing to eschew laziness.
- carlosjobim 1y ago
  The desktop is only irrelevant on FOSS platforms such as Linux, because the native software is so incredibly bad. If you want the best software, it's in native apps, usually on MacOS. A modern classic absurdity: Linux enthusiasts who purchase MacBooks and use them to do all their computing in shitty web apps.
alyandon 1y ago
This really just blows my mind that Microsoft believes people are going to throw their perfectly functional laptops/desktops into the trash. All Microsoft has to do to keep people on Windows and in the Microsoft ecosystem would be to offer a supported version of Windows 11 without the CPU and TPM 2.0 requirements. For me, every one of the older machines in my household (laptops and desktops) that are currently on Windows 10 that cannot run Windows 11 in a fully supported manner will be migrated to a KDE based Linux distro.
- freeone3000 1y ago
  This is, in fact, the point. They do not want the support burden and negative security posture of supporting billions of computers that cannot have a locked bootloader.
  - alyandon 1y ago
    I get that security is part of the posturing - I just think it is tone deaf to the reality that not everyone is going to be willing to spend $500-$2000 USD just to be able to "run" Windows 11. I have friends and family that will continue to run EOL Windows 10 which is worse unless I convince them to migrate to Linux.
  - Zambyte 1y ago
    The legally enforced monopoly on support is to blame for this, not well-functioning hardware.
  - skydhash 1y ago
    Negative security?
    - hulitu 1y ago
      > Negative security? If you employ snake oil like Crowdstrike or "secure boot" (when the key stays on MS servers).
  - beeflet 1y ago
rhabarba 1y ago
KDE is actually a good example of why non-Linux users say that Linux users would actually prefer to use Windows.
- Zambyte 1y ago
  This is weird to say when Microsoft has been very obviously inspired by KDE.
  - rhabarba 1y ago
    When KDE started, it was strongly influenced by CDE. It became more Windows-y with every major(ish) version, while Windows did not get any (relevant) inspiration from CDE.
    - 4ad 1y ago
      Indeed, KDE is like Windows, which is sad, because I don't like the desktop metaphor, yet KDE is the only group that is concerned with usability and improves the system with every release. I actually don't mind the GNOME metaphor... but they make it less and less usable over each release. Philosophically, what they are talking about sounds great, but pragmatically the system is just getting less and less usable. UX consistency is good, but not when it comes at the expense of functionality. Also, I don't like that GNOME has been ideologically captured by the extreme left. Back in the day I ran WindowMaker and FVWM, but nowadays, with Wayland, HiDPI screens and expectations of integration, it is not a viable strategy anymore.
      - rhabarba 1y ago
        Window Maker is still one of the most bearable desktops, even "with Wayland". I don't care about "integration", it is a desktop, not an office suite.
      - selivanovp 1y ago
        Usable and lack of additional functionality are absolutely different things. Gnome is the most usable DE in linux, and a default for major distributions for a reason. It’s simple, it’s coherent, pretty much never breaks and just in general designed to bother you as less as possible so you can just do your work. KDE tries to satisfy anyone with all kinds of options, but as a result most of such options are half baked and DE starts to fall apart with memory leaks and inconsistency as soon as you’re deviating from default experience enough. I do like KDE’s innovations and attempts to get as maximum performance as possible, but sad truth is that in he last 15 years I’m trying fresh KDE once in a year or two, but have to crawl back to gnome after about a week, as small but annoying problems, memory leaks or inconsistencies result in frustration.
the__alchemist 1y ago
#1: You can install Win 11 on older machines from boot media. #2: End-of-updates isn't the security vulnerability large software vendors make it out to be, in the context of PC use. The paragraph below the first picture is FUD.
jeroenhd 1y ago
Something often ignored by articles like these: you can still use Windows 10 safely past the 10 year support period, if you pay for additional updates: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/whats-new/extended-security-updates https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/whats-new/extended... Realistically, many people will use registry hacks and other forms of piracy to get those updates for free, of course, just like people did with Windows 7. Only businesses or people afraid of viruses will pay, but that's probably enough for Microsoft. I find it quite confusing to seemingly target people still unaware that Windows 10 is going out of support, but also list FTP/SSH/git/SVN integration as a feature. The people who use version control probably know what alternatives are or aren't available (even if they'd rather not need to find an alternative).
- bell-cot 1y ago
  Worth noting: For home users, the first year of that Win 10 Extended Support appears to cost only $30. Has MS decided that "make it cheap & easy to be legal" is their best counter-piracy strategy?
  - jeroenhd 1y ago
    I don't think my parents will be paying $30 for Windows 10, and neither will many non-IT friends. Plus, even if you decide to go legal after a year, you're still paying the cumulative price ($60 if you buy a year of support in November 2026). I think their pricing strategy is more "don't blame us for the lack of competition in the OS space, we offered you an alternative to replacing your hardware" than "make it cheap & easy to be legal". If they wanted to make the offer look good, I think they would've put out special offers with OneDrive storage and a year of extra security support for $5 per month rather than $2.50 a month for just updates.
blyry 1y ago
Plasma on Ubuntu is the what windows 7 could've been. It's been my daily for a couple years now, with jetbrains tooling and vscode. The only reason I boot back into windows is if I have to work on a .net framework app with visual studio. And Ubuntu is even explicitly supported by dell and Lenovo? It's a no brainer tbh. I'm lucky that my corporate IT is cool with it: I showed them how it supports drive encryption, can join our domain and run our patching software to meet all their 'policy'
- TYPE_FASTER 1y ago
  I've been pleasantly surprised at how far I can go using Rider to do .NET development on a Mac. I was able to do pretty much everything, including running SQL Server in a container.
  - blyry 1y ago
    Yeah dude! Did you see linqpad is supported on osx now? I used a Mac for a couple years, last gen Intel, when I was doing mostly node work, but I never really got used to it. One of my coworkers though has been doing full-time .net on a Mac with jetbrains for probably about 2 years now and he said he's just as productive as before at this point.
    - TYPE_FASTER 1y ago
      I hadn't used LINQPad before, thanks for sharing. Going to try it out.
neepi 1y ago
Tried this with my mother. I had to rebuild the machine with Windows 11 LTSC afterwards. Which she hates but less than Linux which was totally unusable for her. YMMV but this isn't a real option for a lot of people.
- liotier 1y ago
  My 87 years-old dad has no idea what OS he runs and migrating a laptop to KDE gave him a stable system with none of the confusing commercial offers, uncontrolled upgrades and forced account creations.
  - neepi 1y ago
    That would have been my post on here exactly two days before I was rebuilding it with Windows 11 LTSC...
- 0xAFFFF 1y ago
  I've been pondering switching to Linux for my mother in-law that has a pretty limited use of her computer (online groceries, emails mostly) and their page is pretty unconvincing in that case. I mean yeah OK, you guys have extensive customization, virtual desktops and all the bells and whistles that appeal to power users, but is it easy to put it in the hands of someone else without having to do customer support all year long?
  - neepi 1y ago
    No - support was the problem. I was spending an hour a night helping her through things. It's not just "stupid users can work it out" situation. It's like moving to another country. And there isn't a lot of information out there to solve a lot of problems. And it's even worse trying to do phone support with someone who doesn't understand what they are looking at because it has all changed. One cost me a 100 mile round trip to turn airplane mode off after I assume she'd accidentally whacked the mouse wheel button on the icon instead of the browser which for some completely unknown reason does that?!?!?!?! I'm not sure that was even what she did but I spent ages trying to work out how she could have even done that in the first place.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
nicholasbraker 1y ago
My 85 years old dad uses Win10 right now, but using KDE (or similar environment) seems to be a good alternative. He only uses Firefox and mail anyway.
kalaksi 1y ago
I now run KDE on Fedora after I got fed up with snaps and bugs in Ubuntu 24.04. For linux newbies, I'd actually suggest checking out Linux Mint with Cinnamon desktop. I used to run Mint a long time ago and recently installed it for someone trying to change from Windows. it was nice to see that they still provide a good, preconfigured UX. And no snaps. It's probably simpler than KDE but not too simple.
GrantMoyer 1y ago
I find Plasma much more pleasant to use than Windows' shell. There's no specific big feature that makes it stand out, but it works just a little more smoothly in almost everything it does. Maybe it's a case of [1], but I think Plasma is ready for the average desktop user. The other parts of the system may have some ways to go. [1]: https://xkcd.com/2501/ https://xkcd.com/2501/

86 points by jlpcsl 1y ago

It's not relevant now, but back when I started using Linux (Red Hat 7.1 I think) what made me choose KDE was that with KDE all the apps had a conspicuous 'K' in their names whereas Gnome app did not, so it was easier to get a consistent user experience. After that it was Konqueror with the different protocols like "wk:" in the address bar to search Wikipedia. Then when I learned more, it just seemed like Qt was a much more capable foundation to build a desktop on, and I wanted to bet on the winner. In the end KDE did win the desktop... because they built WebKit (as KHTML) and everything is now a webapp and the desktop is otherwise irrelevant.

rhabarba 1y ago
> everything is now a webapp When, why and how became this a good thing?
- anonym29 1y ago
  (edit, misread)
  - rhabarba 1y ago
    I did not say otherwise.
- FirmwareBurner 1y ago
  When? When the majority of SW dev work became synonymous with web dev. Why? Because that's what web devs are comfortable with. How became this a good thing? When web apps became the easiest way to deploy cross platform.
  - AnotherGoodName 1y ago
    Also the native UX kits all suck and have done so forever. There i said it. There’s a reason KDE looks better, has better consistency across apps, does theming at the os level better etc. Html/javascript/css for your native app frontend is actually quite reasonable.
    - const_cast 1y ago
      The native UX toolkits wouldn't be so shit if everyone wasn't so greedy. We don't need to reinvent a better wheel every 5 years (windows) or force some proprietary garbage nobody cares about (mac). It just needs to be reasonable, easy to adapt to other platforms, and long-lasting. The web isn't even that good, the competition is just self-destructive to a point it can't be justified.
- jollyllama 1y ago
  Because, relatively speaking, it solves the distribution problem. Distributing to your set of servers is easier than distributing to the set of desktops.
  - neepi 1y ago
    At the cost of a generally worse end user experience and no offline ability. I am glad Apple didn't do that and stayed native for nearly everything. This is a big selling point for me.
    - jollyllama 1y ago
      > At the cost of a generally worse end user experience and no offline ability. Yes. This is a cost and a benefit you weigh according to the capabilities of your development team. If there is nobody to outcompete you, that is factor into the decision.
      - neepi 1y ago
        What happened to the customer in that line of thinking?
        jollyllama 1y ago
        "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good."
        neepi 1y ago
        I read that as "We feel the customer be happy with mediocre"
        cassianoleal 1y ago
        Yeah... I don't think happy is even a consideration. Due to the lack of choice, the customer will have to content even if the experience is way off. As long as all the competition is more or less as bad as your product, there's very little incentive to improve on that.
- liotier 1y ago
  >> everything is now a webapp > When, why and how became this a good thing? Cheap instant all-terrain deployment trumps most other considerations, especially where technical onboarding is on the critical path to customer acquisition.
  - gspencley 1y ago
    There are definitely advantages to companies. As an end-user, the only advantages I can think of are data centralization and device portability. While we're talking about "webapps", generally, and not SaaS specifically... the two often go so hand in hand that it is the exception to see a webapp that is not also a SaaS product.. and as a consumer I kind of mostly hate SaaS. With the above two advantages noted, lets look at the cons: - Companies can, and routinely do, push unwanted UX changes on me without my opt-in. Pre-SaaS you would wait for a new version to come out and could see what the reviews were saying before deciding if you like the changes and want the new features. Now you're a guinea pig and get the new "features" whether they are a benefit to you or not. - Forces me to have my data on someone else's computer - The "other peoples' computer" issue means that if there is a software or a hardware failure that prevents me from being able to do urgent work that it is entirely outside of my hands and my ability to troubleshoot the majority of the time (though this is a double edged sword since for the average non-technical user it can be a big benefit) - Can't work without an active Internet connection (though I'll concede that not having an active connection is becoming pretty rare these days) - If the company goes out of business, say goodbye to your data in the majority of cases - Often goes hand in hand with renting the software rather than paying a flat fee for a perpetual license. Given the choice, I will always opt for a perpetual license. I try hard to have as few recurring payments in my budget as possible. Utility bills are bad enough. If, however, by "webapp" we just mean a desktop application that uses a DOM-based rendering engine then I couldn't care less. There are tradeoffs, but they are purely technical and rarely impact UX directly in the way that a general approach to software delivery and consumption does.
    - bigyabai 1y ago
      Except a lot of these are problems with so-called native apps too. My experience using MacOS for the better half of a decade ended with >80% of the software I paid for being unsupported. My options were to continue using a non-secure OS version or update to an environment where my software doesn't run anymore. I think you're the last of a dying breed of users. The iPhone generation doesn't lose their internet connection, throw a hissy-fit when UX changes or even care all that much when data is on a remote server. They will pay for whatever is successfully marketed to them, and that company will be rewarded with success. This is what the App Store conditions users into wanting, if OnePass tells you to switch to their Electron app then you have zero choice in the matter. My solution has simply been to never pay for software. Not native, not SaaS webapps, not Electron containers. It's all just one big scam when free alternatives to 99% of meaningful software exists if you're willing to eschew laziness.
carlosjobim 1y ago
The desktop is only irrelevant on FOSS platforms such as Linux, because the native software is so incredibly bad. If you want the best software, it's in native apps, usually on MacOS. A modern classic absurdity: Linux enthusiasts who purchase MacBooks and use them to do all their computing in shitty web apps.

alyandon 1y ago

This really just blows my mind that Microsoft believes people are going to throw their perfectly functional laptops/desktops into the trash. All Microsoft has to do to keep people on Windows and in the Microsoft ecosystem would be to offer a supported version of Windows 11 without the CPU and TPM 2.0 requirements. For me, every one of the older machines in my household (laptops and desktops) that are currently on Windows 10 that cannot run Windows 11 in a fully supported manner will be migrated to a KDE based Linux distro.

freeone3000 1y ago
This is, in fact, the point. They do not want the support burden and negative security posture of supporting billions of computers that cannot have a locked bootloader.
- alyandon 1y ago
  I get that security is part of the posturing - I just think it is tone deaf to the reality that not everyone is going to be willing to spend $500-$2000 USD just to be able to "run" Windows 11. I have friends and family that will continue to run EOL Windows 10 which is worse unless I convince them to migrate to Linux.
- Zambyte 1y ago
  The legally enforced monopoly on support is to blame for this, not well-functioning hardware.
- skydhash 1y ago
  Negative security?
  - hulitu 1y ago
    > Negative security? If you employ snake oil like Crowdstrike or "secure boot" (when the key stays on MS servers).
- beeflet 1y ago

rhabarba 1y ago

KDE is actually a good example of why non-Linux users say that Linux users would actually prefer to use Windows.

Zambyte 1y ago
This is weird to say when Microsoft has been very obviously inspired by KDE.
- rhabarba 1y ago
  When KDE started, it was strongly influenced by CDE. It became more Windows-y with every major(ish) version, while Windows did not get any (relevant) inspiration from CDE.
  - 4ad 1y ago
    Indeed, KDE is like Windows, which is sad, because I don't like the desktop metaphor, yet KDE is the only group that is concerned with usability and improves the system with every release. I actually don't mind the GNOME metaphor... but they make it less and less usable over each release. Philosophically, what they are talking about sounds great, but pragmatically the system is just getting less and less usable. UX consistency is good, but not when it comes at the expense of functionality. Also, I don't like that GNOME has been ideologically captured by the extreme left. Back in the day I ran WindowMaker and FVWM, but nowadays, with Wayland, HiDPI screens and expectations of integration, it is not a viable strategy anymore.
    - rhabarba 1y ago
      Window Maker is still one of the most bearable desktops, even "with Wayland". I don't care about "integration", it is a desktop, not an office suite.
    - selivanovp 1y ago
      Usable and lack of additional functionality are absolutely different things. Gnome is the most usable DE in linux, and a default for major distributions for a reason. It’s simple, it’s coherent, pretty much never breaks and just in general designed to bother you as less as possible so you can just do your work. KDE tries to satisfy anyone with all kinds of options, but as a result most of such options are half baked and DE starts to fall apart with memory leaks and inconsistency as soon as you’re deviating from default experience enough. I do like KDE’s innovations and attempts to get as maximum performance as possible, but sad truth is that in he last 15 years I’m trying fresh KDE once in a year or two, but have to crawl back to gnome after about a week, as small but annoying problems, memory leaks or inconsistencies result in frustration.

the__alchemist 1y ago

#1: You can install Win 11 on older machines from boot media. #2: End-of-updates isn't the security vulnerability large software vendors make it out to be, in the context of PC use. The paragraph below the first picture is FUD.

jeroenhd 1y ago

Something often ignored by articles like these: you can still use Windows 10 safely past the 10 year support period, if you pay for additional updates: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/whats-new/extended-security-updates https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/whats-new/extended... Realistically, many people will use registry hacks and other forms of piracy to get those updates for free, of course, just like people did with Windows 7. Only businesses or people afraid of viruses will pay, but that's probably enough for Microsoft. I find it quite confusing to seemingly target people still unaware that Windows 10 is going out of support, but also list FTP/SSH/git/SVN integration as a feature. The people who use version control probably know what alternatives are or aren't available (even if they'd rather not need to find an alternative).

bell-cot 1y ago
Worth noting: For home users, the first year of that Win 10 Extended Support appears to cost only $30. Has MS decided that "make it cheap & easy to be legal" is their best counter-piracy strategy?
- jeroenhd 1y ago
  I don't think my parents will be paying $30 for Windows 10, and neither will many non-IT friends. Plus, even if you decide to go legal after a year, you're still paying the cumulative price ($60 if you buy a year of support in November 2026). I think their pricing strategy is more "don't blame us for the lack of competition in the OS space, we offered you an alternative to replacing your hardware" than "make it cheap & easy to be legal". If they wanted to make the offer look good, I think they would've put out special offers with OneDrive storage and a year of extra security support for $5 per month rather than $2.50 a month for just updates.

blyry 1y ago

Plasma on Ubuntu is the what windows 7 could've been. It's been my daily for a couple years now, with jetbrains tooling and vscode. The only reason I boot back into windows is if I have to work on a .net framework app with visual studio. And Ubuntu is even explicitly supported by dell and Lenovo? It's a no brainer tbh. I'm lucky that my corporate IT is cool with it: I showed them how it supports drive encryption, can join our domain and run our patching software to meet all their 'policy'

TYPE_FASTER 1y ago
I've been pleasantly surprised at how far I can go using Rider to do .NET development on a Mac. I was able to do pretty much everything, including running SQL Server in a container.
- blyry 1y ago
  Yeah dude! Did you see linqpad is supported on osx now? I used a Mac for a couple years, last gen Intel, when I was doing mostly node work, but I never really got used to it. One of my coworkers though has been doing full-time .net on a Mac with jetbrains for probably about 2 years now and he said he's just as productive as before at this point.
  - TYPE_FASTER 1y ago
    I hadn't used LINQPad before, thanks for sharing. Going to try it out.

neepi 1y ago

Tried this with my mother. I had to rebuild the machine with Windows 11 LTSC afterwards. Which she hates but less than Linux which was totally unusable for her. YMMV but this isn't a real option for a lot of people.

liotier 1y ago
My 87 years-old dad has no idea what OS he runs and migrating a laptop to KDE gave him a stable system with none of the confusing commercial offers, uncontrolled upgrades and forced account creations.
- neepi 1y ago
  That would have been my post on here exactly two days before I was rebuilding it with Windows 11 LTSC...
0xAFFFF 1y ago
I've been pondering switching to Linux for my mother in-law that has a pretty limited use of her computer (online groceries, emails mostly) and their page is pretty unconvincing in that case. I mean yeah OK, you guys have extensive customization, virtual desktops and all the bells and whistles that appeal to power users, but is it easy to put it in the hands of someone else without having to do customer support all year long?
- neepi 1y ago
  No - support was the problem. I was spending an hour a night helping her through things. It's not just "stupid users can work it out" situation. It's like moving to another country. And there isn't a lot of information out there to solve a lot of problems. And it's even worse trying to do phone support with someone who doesn't understand what they are looking at because it has all changed. One cost me a 100 mile round trip to turn airplane mode off after I assume she'd accidentally whacked the mouse wheel button on the icon instead of the browser which for some completely unknown reason does that?!?!?!?! I'm not sure that was even what she did but I spent ages trying to work out how she could have even done that in the first place.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

nicholasbraker 1y ago

My 85 years old dad uses Win10 right now, but using KDE (or similar environment) seems to be a good alternative. He only uses Firefox and mail anyway.

kalaksi 1y ago

I now run KDE on Fedora after I got fed up with snaps and bugs in Ubuntu 24.04. For linux newbies, I'd actually suggest checking out Linux Mint with Cinnamon desktop. I used to run Mint a long time ago and recently installed it for someone trying to change from Windows. it was nice to see that they still provide a good, preconfigured UX. And no snaps. It's probably simpler than KDE but not too simple.

GrantMoyer 1y ago

I find Plasma much more pleasant to use than Windows' shell. There's no specific big feature that makes it stand out, but it works just a little more smoothly in almost everything it does. Maybe it's a case of [1], but I think Plasma is ready for the average desktop user. The other parts of the system may have some ways to go. [1]: https://xkcd.com/2501/ https://xkcd.com/2501/