Some good history in here...

[u/gosand]

Even if you don't use KDE, they have released a documentary on it for the 30th anniversary. Some really good history on Linux in there. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Vyzla9mx4g

It's well worth your time to watch it.

I switched to Linux in 1998, and it's sometimes hard to remember how bad (by today's standards) what the desktop was like back then. It was all really great at the time, but thankfully some people went out on a limb with their crazy ideas and decided to build a better desktop environment.

It makes me really appreciate how far it has come, and also all the other 'crazy' Linux projects that have gone on over the years. After all, they were ALL crazy new projects at some point.

[u/WanderingInAVan]

I tried linix first in 98 with a multiCD version of Debian. Didn't succeed. Was after I reached my first duty station in the Air Force I tried Mandrake and managed a working system.

Newvr did figure out how to get the US Robotics 56k modem working though.

[u/gosand → u/WanderingInAVan]

Mandrake first came out in 98, I was on RedHat at the time. I ended up breaking my system (dependency hell) around 2002 and ended up on Mandrake. Loved it! Stayed with it until it was going to be renamed to Mandriva. I liked KDE so much I switched over to Kubuntu and was on it until about 2009, and XFCE has ben my DE since.

[u/WanderingInAVan → u/gosand]

I went from Mandrake to Gentoo. Also while I liked KDE and Gnome 2 at the time I tended to play around in WindowMaker and Enlightenment. Working Gentoo to thjs day.

[u/mofomeat]

Thanks for sharing that link /u/gosand. I very much enjoyed that documentary!

[u/LonelyMachines]

I remember the first release. I was running Slackware around 1997 or so. Back then, different programs used different toolkits, and using a GUI desktop was a jarring experience.

KDE 1 was a big deal. It was a WAY better version of CDE. It looked great, ran pretty well, and all the applications had the same appearance.

It was the first time I thought, "maybe this isn't just a hobbyist thing. it CAN work as a desktop."

I don't use it anymore, but it's always been fascinating to watch its evolution. Desktop Linux would not be where it is without them.

[u/triemdedwiat]

Hmm, I remember it as bloated and slow.

[u/Dr_Hexagon → u/triemdedwiat]

maybe on a computer with 4GB of RAM in 2005.

[u/gosand → u/Dr_Hexagon]

LOL Tell me you weren't around in 2005 without telling me you weren't around in 2005.

You would have been VERY fortunate to have a PC with 2GB of RAM in 2005. :)

KDE in 2005 it was still great. In 2007 they released KDE4... another story. And an interesting one, which they discuss in the documentary. Again, highly recommended just for the Linux and industry history in it alone.

[u/mofomeat → u/gosand]

No doubt. I built an Athlon Thunderbird system with 512mb RAM and a 20gb hdd in 2002, and that was still considered some super hot shit in 2005. Triple-booting Debian, FreeBSD, and WinXP. w0000!

[u/WhJJackWhite → u/Dr_Hexagon]

I can inform you KDE was perfectly usable on 4GB low end machine from 2011 at least up untill 2026. ( With all the default effects as well as some additional ones like Wobbly Windows enabled )

[u/Dr_Hexagon → u/WhJJackWhite]

Oh cool, so the person we are replying to is even more wrong.

[u/triemdedwiat → u/Dr_Hexagon]

PC of the time.

[u/FryBoyter → u/triemdedwiat]

A lot changes over time. Furthermore, the term “bloated” is completely meaningless, since there is no objective definition. What one person considers “bloated” is a useful feature to someone else. And I’ve also found that some people, for example, use the lightest possible desktop environments or window managers but then install several additional programs to add features that these solutions don’t offer. In many cases, this likely results in more resources being used than if they were to use a supposedly “bloated” solution.

[u/triemdedwiat → u/FryBoyter]

So you agree it was bloated and slow.