KDE Connect: Enabling communication between all your devices

My experience is that KDE 6 has very little visual nonsense right out of the box. 4 and 5 did have a lot more, but most/all of it could be disabled. Most other Linux DEs don't really let you customize them to your own personal level of nonsense at any rate.

I probably see a lot more than other people since I spent a good few years doing pixel perfect web dev.

I am not being hyperbolic when I say that I can see a pixel out of place on a webpage on the other side of the room.

https://kde.org/content/home/main.jpg

This is a screenshot from their site. Just in this screenshot I see the following:

1) there is an horrendous text shadow effect on the text under the "Home" desktop icon in the top left.

2) Clock text is too large compared to the rest of the interface, especially the icons next to it.

3) Trash Icon looks like out of place compared to the other icons.

4) Drop shadow effect on the window and the start menu thing. It kinda too dark really.

5) Every single gap between interface elements seems different and off. The icon sizes seem a bit all over the place.

6) There is a gradient on the window title bar and rounded corners. Cinnamon does this as well. I dunno it is very Window XP Luna (which I never liked).

7) The window control icons look off to me and don't fit in with the rest of the interface IMO.

A lot of this I appreciate can be probably be changed. But that is how it comes OOTB if it is an official screenshot. It feels like a Windows Vista ripoff.

Generally I find KDE lacks "taste". None of the Linux GUIs are that great tbh. People put up fancy screenshots, but I guarantee the moment the windows are arranged in any other way it looks not so great.

I agree with your assessment of KDE lacking "taste". Imo, it looks like a system designed by engineers, not designers.

GNOME has the opposite problem imo. I feel like it has "taste", but it feels like a system fully designed by designers, with no engineers giving practical pushback. It's the same issue macOS has, but amplified: Designers have some grand idea about their vision being the one true way of using the system and made it hard to impossible to customize.

I currently use KDE, but am not happy with it for the reasons you described. I used to use GNOME, but wasn't happy with it for the reasons above.

I have high hopes for Cosmic [0]. It seems like that one might get the balance right.

[0] https://system76.com/cosmic

That screenshot is very old, for an actual screenshot. For an actual screenshot, you can find one on today's announcement: https://kde.org/announcements/plasma/6/6.5.0/

Btw as one the web developer behind KDE's website, do you mind telling me where you found that screenshot?

> That screenshot is very old, for an actual screenshot. For an actual screenshot, you can find one on today's announcement: https://kde.org/announcements/plasma/6/6.5.0/

Those do look better admittedly. I still think it looks a bit "Fischer Price" but that is personal taste.

> Btw as one the web developer behind KDE's website, do you mind telling me where you found that screenshot?

Of course. It was on your screenshots page that I found via DDG

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=KDE+screenshots

The first result I go was:

https://kde.org/screenshots/

> I agree with your assessment of KDE lacking "taste". Imo, it looks like a system designed by engineers, not designers.

TBF, I was linked their more up to date screenshots in a sibling thread and it does look more consistent but it still seems off.

> I currently use KDE, but am not happy with it for the reasons you described. I used to use GNOME, but wasn't happy with it for the reasons above.

I don't like any of the Linux DEs tbh. They all have issues.

I might give KDE a go. But I think Debian does a poor job at packaging it and I don't really want to change distros.

> I have high hopes for Cosmic [0]. It seems like that one might get the balance right.

I tried compiling Cosmic on source on Debian 12. I ran out of memory on the VM I was doing it on. I also found out that on Debian 12 their rustc was broken!

Do you think GNOME has similar UI issues? In my view, it's "pretty", but just doesn't let me configure it the way I want it to without hacking around way too much.

The clutter is real though, take a look at this screenshot: https://imgur.com/a/nkedVYq

Stock Konsole on the left, stock Ghostty on the right. Note that both terminals have multiple tabs open. The amount of wasted space and visual noise in Konsole is baffling. Not to mention Ghostty is able to display 4 more lines of actual console output (you know, the whole point of a console).

In my experience, many KDE apps follow the same UX. Great for configuration and being able to use primarily the mouse, bad if you are more interested in a keyboard centric flow with a focus on the content.

Yes. I agree. Gnome is kinda weird OOTB.

I ended up installing Dash To Dock and Ubuntu App Indicator Icons when I was using it and I ended up with something decent. I also usually have to faff around in the gnome tweaks tool to get the old "legacy" apps and the new apps looking consistent.

I disagree with all your points. What gives?

Thanks for the link to the screenshots page, I completely forgot we had one

With that level of nit picking everything is off and there is no OS / DE with zero inconsistencies.

KDE is good for me. I admit that I simplify the interface in a new setup turning off some things but the fact that it gives me that capability is a huge plus for me.

KDE Connect rocks by the way...

No problem.

I use KDE on Debian and found it is well packaged

> With that level of nit picking everything is off and there is no OS / DE with zero inconsistencies.

It isn't nitpicking. Those are like quite noticeable and actually quite bad. By the looks of it, a lot of this has been addressed now. But tbh it shouldn't have been there in the first place.

Of course there isn't any OS/DE with inconsistencies the fact that I spot that within like literally a few seconds on such a basic screenshot is indicative of other issues.

Even if it was nitpicking, to create something of high quality you should be extremely critical of your own work. That is how you actually make improvements.

> KDE is good for me. I admit that I simplify the interface in a new setup turning off some things but the fact that it gives me that capability is a huge plus for me.

Things shouldn't need a bunch of changes out of the box for them to be okay. I find that KDE (and have always had this impression since KDE 2 or 3) is it feels they bung a bunch of features in as a checklist. That doesn't create a good interface.

Unfortunately people will defend it. I am not sure why.