Due to coronavirus plenty of freetime here, I decided to give a test to kde5 and will post here my considerations, to discuss them with everyone interessed.

The first thing I've noticed is that this stuff is "huge". I have small space for my installation and on my -current running kde4 I have almost 9Gb free.
To make tests comparable I've duplicated ( with dump and restore ) my installation on another identical partition ending with less than 7G free. I can save 1G maybe by removing unwanted applications, which eventually would be easier if packages were identified by "games" "edu" and so on.
Not that I will to blame anyone absolutelly !
I think AlienBOB is doing more than a great work on his ktown ( thanks Eric ).
I'm only putting my feeling on forum

Following the guide I've managed to get a running versionin few steps and after login I've found the following problems ( at least ):

kwallet don't read old data, or it says it does but it don't, as I had to insert all my psk for wifi, password for kmails and so on.
Need to try an export-import from kde4 to kde5 but in my expectation it should have done it by himself.
Fonts.... fonts in current have always been a pain IHMO, but this time, OMG, konsole is using some weird font that make her almost usable ( double checked on kde4 and kde5 settings for console, they use the same setting with a really huge difference ).
Kmail and pim, wich basically is the real motivation for me to stay on kde is another huge problem.
The black "HTML " bas in the message panel, that you can't remove, it's ugly. The akonadi directory growed from 800Mb to 3 or 4Gb and after several akonadi fsck or vacuum I finally ended with "only" 1,5Gb.
Ksnapshot is gone, and has been replaced by spectacole. I haven't been able to configure it not to save automagically the snapshot, nor to only open the window and let me show the behavior. I usually run ( by hot-keys ) ksnapshot, and then I decided what to do. Using hotkeys spectacle save a snapshot and don't stay open.

The plasma and kwin and all other stuffs, I must admit are really smooth, and I must say that I'm very sorry I would not continue using it (kde5) probably, for the motivation I wrote above.

I do use konsole, kmail and pim integration, and quite a lot of screenshot so ....


What are your consideration, instead ?

Did someone agree with me ?


Thanks in advance

Pigi

Yeah


More or less I agree with you.

The kludgy fix for the very ugly HTML Status Bar in Kmail is to set all four entries to the same colour as your background via Settings, Configure Kmail, Appearance, Colours. Make sure "Use custom colours" is selected.

If you are low on space , then just don't install it when it hits Slackware. Now that I know that KDE-PIM and Akonadi is not mandatory - I am legit considering switching to Plasma if I like it.

JeeBiz yes, PIM and Akonadi is not mandatory, but it's the only "integrated suite" I've found to have calendar, mail and contacts somewhat togheter.
I must say that also if I need to rebuild akonadi db almost twice a month, it's the only mail client that I found confortable.
I do have quite a bunch of identities due to my job, and several server for sending mail, depending on the customer I'm working for, and have tried almost any client ( except evolution that is too much gnome based for me ).
No one of this let me have this configuration, and no one has this tight integration with calendar and todo as kmail.

Thus I've decided to give a try to kde5 wishing that kmail and akonadi problem were fixed.
They probably are and I can consider switching to it but it's sad to see that also in linux world we are switching to a "big is better"

Seems to be the way of things. I always omit KDE when I do Slackware installations; it's just too much. I don't really understand the fascination everyone seems to have for it, it just seems horribly bloated and overwrought to me (although Plasma 5 is really very light on resources, for a full-featured DE). The boot times on my older hardware make me want to scream, especially when something like Windowmaker comes up instantly.

So what is it about KDE? Is the Linux world truly just trying to recreate a Windows-like experience with free software, or what?

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Setting the font in konsole is readily customized to your personal preference.
Open konsole, click "Settings", "Edit Current Profile","Appearance".
You can then set the color scheme and font to suit your needs.
Green on Black, and IBM Plex Mono 16pt are what I like recently, but there are many other font choices to suit your setup and comfort zone.
The default settings of software are often quite different from what I want.
I do Very Much like the new IBM Plex fonts, no matter what I think of IBM.

I have Win10 on my computer because I need it for some tasks, but after that task is done, I am back to Slackware64-current and KDE5. I use fluxbox sometimes.


Whether we like the idea or not, upgraded software works good on upgraded hardware, and I really loved my Z-80 and QX10, but they gave up on me long ago.

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Yes, I know that, but my message was on how KDE handle the same font in 4 and 5.
Here a snapshot, the first two are from kde4 and the last fron5. The font is the same, the behavior not

Attached Thumbnails

       

I've been using kde5 on -current for a while now, using AlienBob's excellent packages.

I gave up on kmail some time ago and switched to Thunderbird. I'm retired now, so no longer have to worry about calendar / email etc integration. I do find some of the kde5 packages excellent, though. In particular, I do a fair bit of video editing, and Kdenlive is extremely good. OK, the picture quality when doing advanced effects may not be quite as good as DaVinci Resolve (which I run on a Mac), but it is far less fussy about hardware, and for most stuff is more than adequate.

Regarding size, yes I hear what is being said, but honestly, high capacity disk drives are so cheap these days that I don't really see this as an issue. Even my small laptop has a terabyte drive!

I think Eric has done a wonderful job in packaging it all for Slackware, and hope to see KDE5 fully integrated into Slackware in the not-too-distant future. Were I in Patrick's shoes, I would simply provide a core Plasma5 base and let Eric (and anyone else who wishes to do so) provide the more exotic packages - like kdenlive. That should help keep the size down for those who find this a problem.

But what do I know?

--
Pete

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I have seen such conflation of KDE and Windows ever since 1998 and I really don't see the similarity beyond the fact that every WM/DE I've ever seen (and I was never a Windows guy starting with OS/2 and switching from PM to Enlightenment as a "desktop manager" by 2000) has similarities. The only differences I see, other than disk space and resource usage, are in features the number of which are rather directly related to the other two. This conflation went through the roof when KDE 4 first came out and for a somewhat valid reason, even if misunderstood by so many. I'm sure you and everyone is aware of how horrifying even the waited for version that finally was released for Slackware, was. It was measurably and agonizingly slow and clunky. I switched then to Xfce but kept an eye on KDE development and somewhere around 4.6 I went back to KDE when it got smooth and responsive again.

Maybe a big part of the issue is I only rarely ever reboot but I don't see penalties in performance either in mere feel of daily use or with benchmarks which I do a lot since I'm an avid gamer. Regarding boot times though that is almost entirely a function of the kernel. When I started using Linux I could fit a kernel on a floppy, 1.4MB. Yesterday I compiled and installed 5.5.8 and it would take almost seven (7) floppies just to house that kernel, 9.2MB. Thankfully it takes nowhere near 7 times as long to boot and my benchmarked performance is up by almost 10% even from just 5.0.20.

FWIW I still have a 32 bit 14.1 install with a variety of kernels, the oldest being 2.6.39 @ 2.8MB which has Trinity (basically KDE 3.5 updated) and Trinity does load faster and feel pretty snappy but it is not as high performance as 14.2 w/ 5.5.8 and KDE 4.14 and I actually get slightly better performance than either of them in -Current w/ 5.5.2 and Ktown Plasma5. By this weekend I'll install either 5.5.8 or if it's out by then 5.5.10.

We tend to use what we've grown comfortable with and that's perfectly valid but there really is no value, let alone need, to justify that choice by finding fault with others especially if the faults listed are simply vacuous. KDE isn't Windows. It does take up more hdd space than most DEs but considering the massive increase in hdd space and the equally massive reduction in price, that's really a non-issue. Resource usage is way down and can easily match or even beat say default Xfce all while doing a lot more (at the very least as an option) and do it both snappily and smoothly. If some features don't help you in your workflow, omit them or turn term off. If that extra work doesn't come with any benefits for you, that's different.

If all the extra features of Plasma are useless to you (assuming you've actually tried some) then choose what is most efficient for you but I think you don't help anyone, including yourself, by what amounts to FUD employing the hated buzzword "Windows". If you actually feel really strongly about it post some objective, or shoot! even subjective use case, Cost/Benefit analysis.

Incidentally I didn't single you out as some prime offender. Your POV is rather common among those who, for whatever reason, don't prefer KDE. Yours is just the most recent iteration of what I view as a tired and invalid complaint about something you apparently don't prefer and likely don't use.

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KDE like Windows? If only. At least with Windows 2000 --> Windows 8.1 you could distinguish between taskbar buttons. You didn't get any surprises when you moved the mouse to the top left corner of the screen. Window frames were a sensible width, allowing you to position the mouse easily when you wanted to resize windows. The scrollbar didn't appear and disappear as you moved the mouse over it. Yes, we're probably all technically-competent users here, so those issues will be minor, but not to first-time KDE users who don't have the greatest aptitude for computers, never mind your grandparents who have to strain their failing eyes to distinguish between taskbar buttons.

KDE and Gnome (and, by extension, Gtk3) might end up great if developers listen to users, and don't impose their own ideas on what should be more or less a standard UI and UX across all platforms. Windows 95 brought personal computing into the mainstream precisely because it was immediately intelligible and ergonomic. Five minutes was enough to get used to the desktop, and after that it was all about apps anyway. Once you opened Office or Photoshop you forgot about Windows, and that's the way it should be. But too many developers contributing to the various Linux desktops have neither the intelligence nor the humility to understand this premise. (The honourable Xfce excepted.) They try to squeeze every hare-brained idea into the desktop, and it ends up just getting in your way. Which is the last thing the desktop should do. Too many distractions jostling for your attention, and you end up fixated on the desktop and not on the work it is meant to assist you in doing.

Edit: Besides Xfce, icewm and jwm, I've used i3 and awesome. The latter have their advantages, but a couple of disadvantages too. A tiling setup is no good if you want to narrow a PDF reader to 50% of a widescreen monitor and float the reader in the middle of the screen, with no distractions to either side. Same with reading manuals in a browser : you want the browser no more than 50% of your screen width and floating in the centre. Otherwise the eyes have to work too hard across the full width of the screen, or you tile the browser 50% left or right and all of a sudden your eyes are strained to one half or the other of the screen, not to the centre as they should be when you are trying to do sustained reading on-screen.

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Gerard, you do realize that in two clicks and a drag the entire taskbar can be resized, including icons, right? Anymore I don't disable much KDE specific stuff and it is very rare that it gets in my way, though I am seriously considering turning off window snap. I just keep my desktop completely clean excepting Conky and a clock and my taskbar autohides.

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The original settings of software seldom suit me. When I build a new machine or set up a new system on an old one, there are always some stock and default settings and not very often do those do what I want. So right away i go around adjusting the clock and the taskbar, deleting out most of the noto fonts and the fonts for middle eastern languages and turning off as much transparency of windows as I am permitted to, turn off that flippin' bouncy cursor, and the screen corners and the screen blanker, and several other cutesy things the programmer wanted me to see that he did. The next upgrade of kde puts some of it back . The nice thing is that we can change all of that stuff. I suppose I could kill all of the window transparency too if I were sufficiently motivated.

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