Reading several Internet news media, it is apparent that KDE has gotten a lot of heat recently from several quarters. The main issue seems to be the KDE 4 release and its buggy-incomplete quality, and the fact that several distributions rushed to place KDE 4.0.x as a replacement of KDE 3.5.10, something which clearly was never intended to be.
To get the facts clear, Groklaw put a page explaining several myths about KDE. This is recommended reading, and helps a lot to dispel several criticisms made to KDE in general.
But the best thing is that today KDE 4.1 was released With this release, several concerns were addressed, and in general it looks like a promising desktop. For starters, Kontact (the PIM Suite) and the printer applet are back! However, there are several apps regarded by many people as essential, such as amaroK, Koffice, and Krusader, that are in alpha status yet. Yet, with PIM and printing working, it will be an usable desktop again.
Once again, I had the privilege of helping with the Spanish translation of this release. I plan to download the tarballs and start compiling ASAP. Let’s see if KDE lives up to the hype this time.
With my current install of openSUSE 11.0, this will be the last time I use KDE. I won’t be trying out any part of the 4.x series, but will stick with the likes of IceWM supported by GNOME stuff. I like this highly integrated desktop business less and less. There is just too much junk running in the background. Not sure I can explain why, but I’ve had enough.
I would concur. Sometimes you get the sensation that there’s so much junk.
However, my suggestion is that if possible you wait until you get a stable, pre-packaged version of KDE 4.1.x or higher and see whether you like it or not. I say this because even when I experimented with KDE 4.0.0 some improvements were really noticeable, and it showed a lot of promise.