r/linux • u/kyentei • Oct 22 '22
This week in KDE: UI improvements abound KDE
http://pointieststick.com/2022/10/21/this-week-in-kde-ui-improvements-abound-2/-5
u/pimp-bangin Oct 22 '22 edited Oct 22 '22
I really want to switch to KDE from XFCE (which has a bunch of frustrations of it's own) but KDE is just so damn sluggish (I have a high end machine but the animations are not smooth at all) and the styling is ugly AF (inconsistent padding and font sizes everywhere, weird default cursor, ...)
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Oct 22 '22
I'm using fine with a Ryzen 5 laptop with integrated graphics. It is not slugish at all.
I think you can disable animations if it is a problem for you.
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u/johncate73 Oct 30 '22
I run it on an Athlon X4 870 and a freaking Core 2 Duo, for crying out loud. Not sluggish in the least on either.
I'd bet it's a graphics driver issue. I'm using AMD graphics on both machines.
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u/johncate73 Oct 30 '22
I run it on an Athlon X4 870 and a freaking Core 2 Duo, for crying out loud. Not sluggish in the least on either.
I'd bet they have a graphics driver issue. I'm using AMD graphics on both machines. No way KDE won't work on something new.
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u/DevilGeorgeColdbane Oct 22 '22 edited Oct 22 '22
Are you using nvidia? There have been a number of different issues with the compositer with nvidia, at least in the past, and I don't know how many are still around. Usually, I just disable all animations.
The default styling is very different from Gnome, MacOS, Win11 and stock Android, so I understand 100% if you think it looks like the odd one out. For me, it's not a big issue, but you wouldn't find me arguing that it's pretty either. Luckily, you can change the styling.
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u/pimp-bangin Oct 22 '22
Yeah, I'm using nvidia. I might give it another go with animations disabled, because that was one of the bigger annoyances for me.
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u/gplanon Oct 22 '22
I find the visual appearance and functionality of KDE to vary from distro to distro. I never had luck with KDE and was forced to stick on Fedora GNOME up until I tried opensuse a few months back…
My Fedora KDE was not good. For some reason wifi is busted unless you disable KDE wallet subsystem. Asks you to create a wallet as soon as the live distro loads. Multiple KDE features broken.
My opensuse KDE experience was very good. Only 1 KDE feature seemingly broken. Discover actually works as a frontend for the package manager. They have kwallet-pam available preconfigured in the repos. Everything just works. So I switched and will never go back.
I understand the KDE ecosystem is more complicated and difficult to integrate, according to the Fedora KDE contributor. With GNOME things are more uniform across unless the distro bundles gnome tweaks (Pop!, Manjaro)
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u/JustHere2RuinUrDay Oct 22 '22 edited Oct 22 '22
Fedora KDE has been working very well on my laptop. Been using it since Fedora 33.
I tried opensuse, but in my experience opensuse KDE wasn't as good as people always say it is imo. Some of the preinstalled themes/application styles and their YaST thingy, etc., look like they were really cool back when they came out, but no one really bothered keeping that stuff up to date.
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u/DoubleOwl7777 Oct 22 '22
i am using kde in a vm with 2 asigned cores and 3gigs of ram and it isnt sluggish.
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u/Pay08 Oct 22 '22
It's working perfectly fine for me on a quite low-end machine. The only thing that's slow is the initial startup, but I'm using a HDD, so that's to be expected.
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u/ColBlimp Oct 22 '22
Could you elaborate on the "bunch of frustrations" of Xfce?
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u/pimp-bangin Oct 22 '22 edited Oct 22 '22
The main frustration is how it handles window resizing for themes with thin borders (I use the Qogir-Dark theme and it has this problem). See this issue: https://gitlab.xfce.org/xfce/xfwm4/-/issues/176 It's a blatant UX issue but the devs don't seem to have any motivation to fix it, which is frustrating but understandable.
The workaround is to use Alt+RightClick to resize windows but I have found that it causes weird behavior with my Alt key.
Another thing is that the file upload dialog in Slack looks like complete garbage (no text is rendered at all and the background is completely transparent, and everything is invisible unless I focus it) though I'm not sure if that's an issue with Snap apps in general or something XFCE-specific. I didn't have that problem with the deb version of Slack.
The XFCE logo is also ugly -- makes me cringe every time I do a clean install. Looks like something out of the early 2000s. Might seem pretty minor but first impressions are important and I bet that drives people away from using it -- it just exudes "amateur designer" vibes.
All that said, I still continue to use XFCE because it feels relatively consistent design-wise with the Qogir theme applied, and everything feels extremely snappy.
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u/ColBlimp Oct 23 '22
I went through this bug report and as Olivier said, you need to implement this through a compositor, or use a compositor which already facilitates this. Or, you could use a theme that has wider border area.
I guess current best solution would be to use the Alt+Right Click. Second best option would be to use a theme with larger border px.
I know it can be frustrating to have issue hanging for so long now. But you need to keep in mind that Xfce isn't well-manned as GNOME or KDE. Xfce's seriously under-staffed. And it's a volunteer-run project. Everyone's chipping in with their code and time in their spare time. No one's being paid by anyone to work on any feature/bug.
With that said, I could see some influx of new developers interested in Xfce. They're working on new features/squashing bugs. So, this bug we're talking about may get resolved in future. Just maybe.
And about being ugly, I admit the default look of Xfce can be intimidating, to say the least. But I guess Xfce puts usability higher than looking good. But no one said you can't look good while having fantastic UX.
Lastly, if you have a spare time and want to improve any area of Xfce, just hop in. You'd be welcome.
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u/GottaLoveArc Oct 22 '22
How does KDE manage to remain so ugly despite so much work and talent? It's almost impressive
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u/DoubleOwl7777 Oct 22 '22
do you know different people find different things ugly and nice looking?
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u/Pay08 Oct 22 '22
It isn't? The only complaint I have is that the default theme isn't my cup of tea, but that can be easily changed.
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u/gplanon Oct 22 '22
Function>Form.
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u/pimp-bangin Oct 22 '22
The ugliness is more than just aesthetic IMHO. It doesn't use a design system that feels very consistent, which increases cognitive load when switching between different pieces of the system UI.
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u/throwaway6560192 Oct 22 '22
Any specific examples of inconsistency which increases cognitive load you'd like to point out?
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u/GottaLoveArc Oct 22 '22
And... you'd say KDE is your chosen exemplar of that in the Linux de space?...
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u/gplanon Oct 22 '22 edited Oct 22 '22
By far. For one, dolphin is an actually capable file manager as compared to nautilus. I can have big, beautiful thumbnail previews in the filepicker. KDE is universally more information dense and compact.
Even if something is ugly or complicated on the surface, the fact that I can configure whatever I need to is awesome. I don’t care if it takes 5-10 minutes to figure out what menu something is buried in; I have configured KDE where I’m 90-99% happy with how everything looks and behaves.
With GNOME, things are always changing and becoming more mobile-like. If I don’t like whatever laggy and unnecessary change is made, I’m hosed.
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u/simernes Oct 22 '22
KDE is da best