2011 LinuxQuestions.org Member Choice Awards KDE News Article

Hi, Lydia asked me to write something up concerning the
LinuxQuestions.org member choice awards, here it is:

The 2011 Members Choice Awards from LinuxQuestions.org(0) wrapped up
this year and KDE was voted best Desktop Environment of the Year. Many
users remember others abandoning ship after the initial 4.0 release,
but now popular opinion has shifted back in favor of KDE. Tech Radar
agrees and has also declared KDE the best desktop environment, stating
that the activities manager wows them and the interface doesn't impede
their execution of simple tasks. Even Chris from the Linux Action Show
is switching back to KDE!(1) Joking aside, there weren't many reasons
given for why the users at LinuxQuestions.org chose KDE, but there
were some complaints from users on why they decided against KDE.

Most KDE advocates are well accustomed to others citing bloat as a
reason not to use KDE, and the comments left by the forum users seemed
to have a similar sentiment. I've came to accept that this opinion is
simply not well formulated. KDE's codebase is slim and modular, it's
performance is just as good as other desktops(1), and it has the
underlying codebase to make for an extremely useful, intelligent
system. The default KDE desktop shipped by most distributions isn't
going to be suitable for older desktops, but that doesn't mean it
won't work on older systems. This is a scenario where the statements
have some truth, even if most of us would know how to remove services
that hinder performance. But there are still aspects of KDE which some
Linux users find unsuitable, for instance, Dragon, Kaffeine,
Konqueror, Kopete, and Krita all lost in their respective categories.
What can be learned from this situation? What are the expectations for
these applications, and what do they not find suitable about the KDE
apps available? These are questions definitely worth pursuing if we
want KDE software to retain and improve upon its relevancy to desktop
users.

Two individual applications did come away as winners this year. Amarok
scored the Audio Media Player of the Year award and Dolphin was
selected as the best file manager. Congratulations to these teams and
all the clever individuals working together to make KDE the best
desktop available in 2011!


(0) http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-news-59/2011-linuxquestions-org-members-choice-award-winners-928502/

(1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=-1iYRkYtyxA#t=1095s

(2) Gaming/Graphics Performance of several Desktop Environments:
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=ubuntu_1204_desktops
Note compositing may have been turned on, and if it was, this speaks
volumes concerning the amount of bloat KDE truly contains. See also
Martin Gräßlin's comments concerning these benchmarks:
http://blog.martin-graesslin.com/blog/2012/02/about-compositors-and-game-rendering-performance/


--
Here are some nice graphs to possibly include with the article:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/2011mca.php
-- 
Heath Matlock
+1 256 274 4225

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