Rubbish. I have always held your Slackware tutorials and notes in high regard, but this is utter rubbish. XFCE is every bit as much a full desktop as KDE is, in the same way that a small bucket of water is no less full than a large bucket of water. Just because you have your own idea of what a desktop should be it doesn't mean we all subscribe to it. It's instructive that many of you crying out in defence of KDE have no qualms about belittling XFCE. As DragonWisard says, it's doubtful many of you KDE apologists would "rush to the defense of Fluxbox or XFCE if either of those were facing the chopping block."

Please give up the insults. There are many Slackware users on this forum using XFCE as a perfectly functional and *complete* desktop. Don't try to strong-arm us into thinking otherwise.

6 members found this post helpful.

Yeah I don't wholely agree with that comment either. Other desktops are just as comprehensive. Also KDE does not make slackware. I use KDE but honestly I find more way more value in the distribution as a whole -- I'd rather give up KDE then compromise what Slackware does/is.

I guess I'm giving full support to slackware, i.e. PV, to do what makes sense for the distro -- not just what MAY be popular with some users. I am still amazed by the large number of XFCE users.

If KDE were gone I would roll right into next desktop environment available. SOMETIMES software loses its way and its time to start with a clean slate.

I hope that the KDE Devs come to their senses and keep the KDE build process simple enough to keep it included in Slackware.

I am not a die hard KDE user by any means, in fact I would say I am desktop agnostic but their are applications that I would miss from KDE. For example my wife loves solitaire so already having Kpat installed fills that requirement even if her main DE is Xfce.

This trend of increasing complexity and hard interdependences is worrisome. I dislike the direction GNOME is taking, and the recent push by the RH dev on systemd to make systemd a GNOME dep is really frustrating. I hope KDE, LXDE, and Xfce don't go down the path of GNOME.

I could live without KDE if Slackware includes enough applications to make up for those missing KDE applications. To be honest, I haven't gotten used to the newer KDE applications, and some of those are still missing or undergoing changes. I like XFCE pretty well, but I also like Amarok the KDE system monitor and the KDE mixer.

I've been hoping KDE 4 would be finished enough for me to invest serious time learning about all the new concepts. If there is to be a KDE 4.7 then I have to wonder how much is going to change again. It may actually benefit Slackware to focus on less experimental window managers and applications.

KDE will never be finished. In fact, no software, or OS, or DE, or WM is ever finished. The developers just say - ok, its time for a vacation! This (whatever software) will work for a few days as is.

Conceptually, nothing much has changed since the first release in the 4.x series. And KDE 4.7 will do what the previous architectural updates before it (4.6 , 4,5 , ...) also did: give these concepts an ever more mature implementation. You are not required to learn new tricks with every 4.x release - I felt right at home with the 4.1 series and have experienced how much better (not different) the desktop environment gets with each increment.

Eric

@window manager options

After using KDE Plasma netbook and Gnome3, I've concluded that Gnome3 has more potential for that type of interface so maybe a change would be nice. Since that is the road they are both going, it seems people will have to adapt or switch to xfce or trinity anyway. I dont see KDE supporting two types of gui's for any length of time.

A revival of Official gnome on Slackware will (probably) never happen. So it looks like its going to continue to be KDE in whatever form it comes in... Sans Nokia or any reasonable functionality... Along with 3 versions of GTK installed.

I sincerely hope that KDE remains a part of Slackware, and I'm glad to hear that discussion is now underway in regards on how to better package KDE from 4.7 and forward. I hope the agreed upon method is suitable for the Slackware developers/maintainers.

I don't really understand the "I don't use it, I don't care" sentiment expressed in some posts. I don't use Fluxbox, but I very much care for its inclusion in Slackware, simply because a lot of Slackware users do use and depend on Fluxbox. The same goes for XFCE and any other DE/WM that comes prepackaged with Slackware. These are big pieces of software, that takes up a lot of mental space for their respective users. Our community is small enough that we should be able to understand that the potential loss of a DE/WM might equal the loss of some Slackware users, and that's not a good thing. Fewer users means fewer _potential_ paying customers. We don't want to erode Pat's income from Slackware.

1 members found this post helpful.

Some good points there as usual Woodsman.
Although I use XFCE and mostly use GTK apps from slackbuilds.org, I would be disappointed if KDE were dropped from Slackware, for many of the reasons that you mentioned.

For me personally, dropping KDE would actually make Sllackware better because the time and effort that goes into providing KDE (which I don't use) could be spent improving the bits I do use. The whole point of threads like this is for people to express what it would mean to them and let Pat draw the big picture conclusion. "I don't use it so you can do what you want with it" is perfectly valid feedback.

1 members found this post helpful.

Even more appreciation for Pat and the Slackware Crew for having to deal with things which are not directly under their control and at the same time still remaining... Slackware.

Ironically, it's only last week that I started flirting with KDE. I have been avoiding it for years. I must admit it's become very responsive and stable. I'd be a pity if it had to be dropped.

I tend to flip between either a simple setup with evilwm and sometimes using Xfce instead (currently I am using Xfce) but do make use of a couple of the KDE apps. I also run KDE at work for testing Opera and our integration. However, those apps would be replaceable if needed and if there was no KDE at all for Slackware, I could always run a LiveCD of another distro under a VM, just for testing. So as I user this wouldn't be any kind of end game for me.

However, I do think it is important that Slackware have at least one of the 'big two' Desktop Environments (KDE or Gnome) provided by default, because many users wouldn't even consider Slackware otherwise. The way I see it is that without KDE, I worry that in the long term Slackware can't live just on its installed base. You will always lose a few users here and there and hence you need new blood to replace them. Slackware is after all, a commercial entity and someone has to keep buying the DVDs/CDs, merchandise, making donations etc. Hence as Woodsman says a decision to drop KDE would affect all Slackware users, because if PatV can't afford to live on it then Slackware itself could be at risk.

Based on the comments from the Slackware team, my gut feel is that something will be worked out. I really hope so. If not then I hope that some kind of "KDE SlackBuilds" project to do KDE externally will appear rapidly after any such announcement (In fact perhaps KDE could just be part of Slackbuilds.org, with an sbopkg build queue provided for convenience?).

With someone respected like Alien Bob taking the lead (though without him having to do all the work), such a project has a high chance of success. I also think it would be important that it is actively promoted by PatV in much the same way SlackBuilds.org is prominently mentioned in release notes (of course if it is actually part of SlackBuilds.org directly, then that recommendation will come for free).

1 members found this post helpful.

Personally I have yet to find features of KDE that I need and can't find on XFCE and that's why I seem to be changing my DE from KDE to XFCE and back from week to week. But I know that many of us use it all the time and they have found some use for KDE that they can't easily replace and indeed it's great DE. A bit heavy only for my taste, that's why I sometimes change to XFCE.

It would be a really pity if it had to disappear from Slackware, even if there would come new KDE Slackbuild project. It's always better if it's officially supported, so let's hope that the developers of KDE will find a good way to handle the situation so that it wouldn't become too much headache for our few great developers.

I use only Xfce, even on my relatively modern PC. I do not use KDE4, because I refuse to use a DE, which makes my old laptop (1.8 GHz) unusable (slow).

@solarfields: Xfce is a DE in my book. Sure it is light but it is still a DE.

If you don't consider Xfce to be a DE then I would like to know how you define a Desktop Environment.