Today marks the 19th birthday of the Kool Desktop Enviroment (KDE) which added a more stylish visual interface to various Linux distributions. Back in 1996, the creator, Matthias Ettrich said:
“Unix popularity grows thanks to the free variants, mostly Linux. But still a consistent, nice looking free desktop-environment is missing. There are several nice either free or low-priced applications available so that Linux/X11 would almost fit everybody needs if we could offer a real GUI.”
I have fond memories tinkering with KDE 3 and actually preferred it to Gnome at the time. However, most of my time is spent on Windows machines and Ubuntu’s Unity GUI. Thankfully, the KDE project is still ongoing and continues to receive updates. Although, Ettrich’s vision probably hasn’t culminated in the way he hoped as KDE’s usage is very niche. Even Linux itself has struggled to compete with the likes Windows and OS X. However, the advent of SteamOS could entice people to move especially if the Vulkan API brings significant gains compared to DirectX 11.
Linux has always been a viable alternative, but it’s incredibly difficult to make people change from what they are familiar with. Whatever the case, KDE has been an integral part of my technological upbringing so happy birthday!
Thank you Softpedia for providing us with this information.
