On Saturday 11 February 2012, Timothy Pearson wrote:
> A hypothetical poll for users here....
> 
> If TDE were to close down, which desktop would you use instead?  You would
> be allowed to abandon Linux entirely in this scenario. ;-)
> 

I would stick with KDE3/Trinity for as long as it would compile and run (as long as there were no known major security issues.

> Please state why you have not already switched; i.e. what item are missing
> or suboptimal in the other environment.

I have played around with KDE4 in Slackware 13.0 and 13.1 (including Alien Bob's updated KDE packages for 13.1), and while it wasn't too bad on the whole, there were a couple of things which drove me back to KDE3.

The biggest of those, as already mentioned by Darrell, was the whole bloated, resource-hogging Akonadi/Nepomuk/Strigi thing.  I absolutely do not require that database backend nonsense, and I cant't afford it on my 1133MHz/512MB of RAM machine (let alone my AMD K6II 475Hz/160MB of RAM machine).

Even though I switched off the Strigi indexing, the other stuff comes into play when launching Kmail, or even just Kaddressbook (which only had about 20 entries in it).  

The other minor niggles were some of the new application icons (e.g. Kmail) and later, the new system-tray icons.  They seem to be some sort of GNOME/Apple-like idea, but made a bit more glitzy.  What ever they are, I think that they are less legible and effective than the older icons.

Oh, one more thing.  I must confess that I do HATE the new menu with all its sliding around nonsense.  I don't mind Lancelot, but it takes several seconds to appear on my machine.


> 
> I am curious as to why TDE still exists and need some concrete examples to
> fall back on to counter detractors.
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> Tim
> 

I feel that TDE still exists because there are many users out there who want to continue with KDE3 because it is lighter on resources, and (in some respects) easier to use.

Richard.

-- 

Stupidity is its own reward.