Kubuntu

I was playing around with several different Kubuntu distros, among them 8.04 with KDE4. Man, was that a pile of turd.

I mean, it's not bad enough they use the same colours as Vista, it uses just about the same layout, too. It's just ugly, all the way down. The K-menu updates look OK, but the cascading menu takes a bit to get used to. I'm not sure it is an improvement, per se, more of a compacting of the regular menu items spawning sub-menus external to the list. A bit less cluttered on the screen, perhaps, but moving between sub-menus is a matter of a few seconds anyway.





Sure, I get it. Familiarity with the interface makes the transition less troublesome. I think it is time to start showing some real innovation, however. For most people, Vista is made of epic fail. Copying the windows manager is not a good move in this case. Great things could have been done to keep the windowing simple, yet add features. I'm not 100% convinced there is really a need for a gadget bar or OSX-like dock. But certainly, they could have been done with more elegance than a ham-handed attempt to clone the features as directly as possible.

Linux is on the ascent. People are aware of it, but a second hand rip-off of Vista is not the way to take advantage of that. Come on, KDE Team, grab some innovation; start with the 3.5 interface and improve on that. Trying to copy what the 'cool kids' are doing isn't going to convince anyone to transition. No one seems to like what the cool kids over at Microsoft are doing anyway. There is a solid kernel under there, you don't have to worry about integration or software compatibilities. You can spend all your time on the interface itself.

Please, fork Plasma to an alternate build, and go back to the 3.5 interface for development.