The ModdingDen has an interview with the lead developer of SimpleKDE, a cut-down, lightweight version of KDE. "The main reason is that we find KDE too cluttered and too bloated; and we want something faster, more simplistic and easier to use. Honestly, I'm pretty happy with my own KDE installation, but I especially observe beginners having difficulty in adapting themselves to it." The interview dates 9th January 2006, but since we never covered SimpleKDE on OSNews, it's interesting nonetheless. Read more about SimpleKDE at their website. And yes, boys and girls, there are screenshots too.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
Member since:2005-07-07
I wouldn't mind a tiered KDE, offering beginner/intermediate/expert interface templates (all configurable, of course)
This has been discussed more than once. The problem is that those levels are hard to communicate, i.e. the user has no or very few information about what he'll loose or gain on each level, thus resulting in a bad choice.
Choosing a level too low will make it look incomplete, choosing to high has no advantage over the current situation.
Moreover support gets trickier, as changing something might involve temporarily switching complexity levels, etc.
The conclusion is more or less that since KDE is easily tailorable without changing much or any code, it can be done "closer" to the target user, e.g. at distribution or administration level.
Some distributors that target user who likely prefer less complexity do this, e.g. Kubuntu, Xandros, Linspire
Member since:
2005-07-02
...but as a selectable "complexity" level. I wouldn't mind a tiered KDE, offering beginner/intermediate/expert interface templates (all configurable, of course).