"The truth is, I had been tempted to make the switch
for fifteen months, ever since I saw the finished KDE 4.0 in
January 2008. One or two aspects of KDE 4, such as the separate
mode for customization and the de-coupling of the desktop from the
file manager had immediately intrigued me. I was less thrilled
about other changes, such as the Kickoff menu, but even these
suggested a philosophy of advancing the desktop without breaking
with tradition -- an attitude that struck me as exactly right.
"But 4.0 was not ready for every day use, and, while I was
willing to do the occasional experiment, I did not want to
repeatedly do my own compiling on a desktop that was obviously
undergoing rapid development. Once or twice might have been fine,
but ultimately I'm no code jockey and as lazy as the next user. So,
I waited until Debian, my main workstation's distribution, finally
added a reliable version of KDE 4.2 to its repositories. A day or
two after that, I made the switch.
"Moving from GNOME
"Since I have heard over-simplified rumors on the Internet that
I have turned against GNOME, I want to stress that the switch
reflects no complaints about GNOME, let alone that I've rejected
it. I still have GNOME installed on my system, alone with several
other desktops and window managers, and I still use one or two
GNOME apps like file-roller and gFTP in preference to any
alternatives. Most of the time, too, booting into GNOME is the best
way to try out an application designed for it."
