How can you allow yourself to have an opinion on how it is now based on how it was 5 years ago, based on "probably didn't change much"?

The Kicker menu is part of the integration in KDE4. All apps are indexed so the Search function actually works and fast. The first tab is Favorites, so this is for what you use most and highly configurable. All other programs are under headings just like Xfce and most other DEs ie System, Settings, Multimedia, etc.

If you'd really like to do yourself a big favor and see what you're missing just go HERE and look at a truncated list of what the lowly little "Run" box can do under KDE4. I suspect you will be astounded.

You missed the point.
It doesn't matter the amount of horsepower (I have more than enough, thank you), but why sit there, at idle, with the your foot on the accelerator running up your rpms with KDE, when you can run your applications perfectly well with less wear and tear (Xfce) on your engine.
Kind of like someone driving one block to the grocery store because they are are too lazy to walk.
BTW, I once did about 120 mph on the highway when I was young enough and stupid enough to do it.

I simply hate the menu. And I will look into that, thanks. By the way it is not like I can't run it, my pc isn't the best but it is far from old. I just think it is a waste of resources, since I like to keep the system as lightweight as posible.

Outrage was too mild of a word for my initial experience with KDE4. So I built Trinity (essentially KDE3.15.X) and used it because KDE4 was really that bad. As it matured, I would occasionally drop in to see how KDE4 was coming along. By circa 4.9, it had become rock solid and, in the best sense, utterly un-astonishing.

I still fire up Trinity just to see what it was like. It feels so 20th Century compared to what the modern KDE4 has become. And I was one who never thought I'd make the switch. And, if for no other reason, Activities -- once fully grokked -- become an indispensable part of my workflow.

It took the KDE team a while but they really did get it right.

Activities appears (to me) to be a painful way to implement virtual desktops.

I'll be happy to be given an informed explanation as to why that's wrong. Honest.

That sort of happened with me with Gnome 2, when it died I thought I could never be able to replace it. Today, I look at it and it feels like something from 90 decade.

it is also "usable", gnome 3 is not .

but

i also used to think kde4 was not usable when i was used to using kde3

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GNOME 3 still sucks, used it the other day.

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It may be different down in Carrollton but up here in the rare air of Frisco, KDE4's Activities are all the rage.

Seriously, I bucked them at first since having four virtual desktops has been a way of life for me since KDE1. And I still keep things that way, with a long-ingrained pattern of terminals on the first three virtual desktops and Firefox on #4.

Because I do a look of work from home (Dallas being a tough commute from here in what seems like South Oklahoma), I compartmentalize all of my Dallas office chores as a separate activity. It allows me to easily switch from a work mode (as I just did a few minutes ago) to the fun and games of reading Usenet, browsing the web and things that are local.

For me personally, I have to keep a clear delineation of "place" and what amounts to a totally separate work environment allows me to keep that distinction clear. I also have another Activity set up for Multimedia -- with HDHR, VLC, Amarok and similar applications. When I'm ready to watch television, it's almost like walking into the TV room and leaving work behind.

It took me a while to get used to that model and I did it entirely on my own. It was only later that I came across advocacy pieces such as this:

https://www.linux.com/learn/tutorial...cient-workflow

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I'm really confused why people complain about resource allocation for KDE. I've never felt that KDE was slowing down my workflow or tasks. Even in the early days of KDE4, it didn't kill my system. Sure, it was buggy, different, and a little clunky, but that's all gone. My daily workload often consists of compiling software, transcoding video, editing graphics - all CPU and memory intensive tasks. And yet, I don't feel KDE limits the performance of my other applications. Yeah, I sacrifice small amounts of system resources for a feature-rich, good looking, and overall, wonderful to use DE. In my mind, it's worth the extra watt of electricity. I spend money on good hardware, might as well enjoy it.

Here's what my memory usage looks like after a clean boot and KDE 4.12.2 running (Thanks, Eric!). Of course, I'm running a few non-standard daemons too, but that's not important. My CPUs sit mostly idle, and I have PLENTY of headroom.

Your statement appears to be ambiguous, as it is unclear exactly what the word 'that' refers to. Do you mean:

1) I'll be happy to be given an informed explanation as to why (my opinion of KDE activities is) wrong.

or

2) I'll be happy to be given an informed explanation as to why (Activities appears to be a painful way to implement virtual desktops is) wrong.

I will be happy to receive an informed explanation as to the meaning of your statement.

I'm one of those who deselects KDE and XFCE during the installation process (I'm just not a fan of those types of desktop environments), but I understand why Slackware defaults to KDE as opposed to Fluxbox/FVWM. It's trivial to bypass if you don't want/need a more full featured DE.

One of the reasons of KDE4 roughness at first was actually not their fault : it had been more or less designed to run on a composited desktop and the KDE devs learned the hard way that at that time, the open source driver support for compositing was flaky at best.
Then there were for a long time problems with akonadi and nepomuk which used a lot of ressources and could slow down the desktop to a crawl.
But honestly, this is over. I run KDE 4.12.1 on all my desktop, including a 8 years old laptop with a single core Turion 1.6Ghz with 1.5GB of RAM, and the KDE just works without getting in the way or slowing down anything. Open source graphic drivers have come a long way, akonadi and nepomuk are much lighter, and everything seems to smooth to me even on my older system.
Of course, you may not like the looks and menu and everything, but that's a question of taste, and this may be entirely configured. Even the KDE menu can be changed, there are several replacement, including a legacy menu a la Windows 95.

One has to realize that KDE is not (only) a window manager, but a full-featured full-fledged desktop environment. There's a whole bunch of difference in that.
If one only needs a WM (hey, if you want it that KISS, why even that? :-)) then any DE will be/feel bloated, as it is more than you need. If you need a DE, you'll realize that KDE is one of the least bloated around, if not the least bloated.

There were a few quite big annoyances in KDE3.x; Give the sound daemon, which was very KDE-only; applicatinos had to have a good plugin for it or you'd have no sound... oh and more than one sound-producting application (playing music in the background, while playing a game or so) you'd have to choose which of the two would be able to produce sound... they wouldn't do that simultaneously.

Plus the rendering in KDE3 was in fact bloated compared to what it is now; much less CPU and memory intense now... while fully rendered on the graphics card.

I think KDE4 is pretty far in what a DE should be and do, and that actually IS more than what a WM should be and do.

Oh, and I'm so extremely happy that Slackware went KDE instead of that other DE... Gnome for me is a killer... that is: rm -rf ; reinstall the entire system from scratch if needs be... Gnome makes little puppies cry, and kittens besides!

Here, above, ladies and gentlemen, is the hangover misconception and exactly the point. This is simply no longer true.

Hopefully you who still think this who have now heard from people who still USE KDE IN IT'S PRESENT FORM can now revise your opinions and simply say that you prefer something else as a matter of taste. It doesn't make your choice any more valid to say "less wear and tear" or "waste of resources". In fact it just diminishes that point, displaying that opinion as dated and in fact, obsolete, making you seem ill informed. In addition, it increases the in-fighting within the Linux community that fractures it, and for no worthy reason. So it has larger consequences in addition to being just wrong.

Maybe think of it this way - Nobody expects you to explain why you prefer chocolate over strawberry, or to go on to explain "that a strawberry is a joke since it isn't even really a berry to begin with!" and that statement at least has the benefit of being actually true.

The title of Moisespedro's thread here is "Why KDE?" and asks how it conforms to the whole Slackware ethos. Many people mistakenly believe Slackware is old and unnecessarily difficult. They are obviously not the people that use it. Who knows better?