Comments by "Gilad Barlev" (@GSBarlev) on "Why Isn't Every Linux Distro Shipping KDE?" video.

  1. ​ @mjdxp5688 That's the optimum in my book—GNOME is bad, GTK is bae.
    43
  2.  @keit99  true, but: 1. I absolutely avoid Dependency Hell 2. Disk space and network speed increases have vastly outpaced increases in Linux framework installation footprints since 2008
    7
  3. I still don't get that choice—yeah, the assumption is that the majority of people using desktop mode will be Windows converts using a docked keyboard, but MATE is so much more touch-friendly, and the first-time launch lets you choose to style your desktop UI after "Redmond" (or "Cupertino")
    6
  4. All-things-Flatpak has really been a game-changer. Back when I started using Linux (2006), if I wanted GNOME Mahjongg and KDE Konquest, I'd have to install both frameworks and would end up with an extremely bloated desktop where the theming was just a mess—and that's assuming I even managed to avoid Dependency Hell.
    6
  5. I could be misremembering, but my recollection was that the whole Qt landscape was a giant mess ca 2008. Nokia had recently acquired Trolltech and was much more interested in pivoting the toolkit to support mobile. And while GTK was aggressively FOSS-first, with high-quality tools like Glade being GPL, Qt was at least toying with the idea of a "freemium" developer ecosystem. If my 15-year-old recollections are wrong, hopefully someone will correct me, but I distinctly remember consciously choosing to go the GTK+-2.0 route even though it made cross-platform development a bit jankier.
    5
  6.  @DDracee  SteamOS does, but not desktop mode—that is a fully X11 desktop environment.
    5
  7. Part of it might be the frameworks. I haven't really played around with the SDKs since 2008, but what I remember learning Qt4 vs. GTK+-2.0 was that the APIs and (FOSS) tooling were significantly better on the GNU side (plus Qt was going through a bunch of acquisition drama that put its future in question).
    5
  8.  @MisakaMikotoDesu  I respectfully disagree, though I'm sure it's largely a matter of personal preference. To be clear, I've used OSX/macOS for work for about a decade. In my experience: tiling is clunky, notifications are cluttered; on first install the dock is disgustingly crowded; Finder is horrible, with "default applications" settings beyond non-intuitive. And while hardware is orthogonal to this conversation, I'm still incensed that we had seven whole years of "Pro" laptops without a dedicated escape key!!
    5
  9. Meanwhile GTK-based Pantheon is OSX (explicitly not macOS) done better than Cupertino has managed to deliver since Jony Ive was around.
    3
  10.  @vilian9185  Wayland isn't really an issue because SteamOS' Desktop Mode is fully X11. As for the project status—Valve did a pretty good job of funding the projects they were relying on, so they probably would have helped turbocharge whichever DE they chose. 🤷‍♂️
    2
  11. Veronica Explains pronounces it Guh-Noam, and she explained (🥁) that she does because she heard one of the early core developers pronounce it that way. So that's my answer. More importantly, and much more rarely known—it's not Cue-Tea, it's Cute.
    2
  12. I have never seen a KDE-based desktop I've liked (if I'd liked the look and feel of Windows XP, then I would have kept using XP). I'm not a huge fan of modern GNOME either, but GTK-based distros (Pantheon, Budgie, Pantheon, MATE) are great! And as to your whiteboard—yes, Hyprland is bae. 😂
    1