KDE

Is that the GNOME-ification of KDE?

False dilemma fallacy

In my experience kde is very stable. A "lot" of "instability" comes from third party features. I didn't click on the link, btw.

No. I think the customizability KDE offers can be maintained and increased while improving stability.

It's probably worth noting that Plasma's customization support is useful not only to people looking for a special look & feel, but also as a proving ground for new things (and new approaches to old things) that can eventually make their way into mainline Plasma. Making things harder to customize would mean fewer people experimenting, refining ideas, and solving problems. With that in mind, I think that removing customization in hopes of simplifying test cases would be a mistake.

However, it's my understanding that some of Plasma's customization hooks allow third-party theme components to run arbitrary code, without even a warning, sandbox, or reasonable way for the user to inspect it beforehand. (This was in the news a couple months back, IIRC.) That was more or less okay 20-25 years ago, when malware on Free operating systems was almost unheard of, but it's dangerous and irresponsible in today's world, where extensions/plugins have become common attack vectors. I wouldn't mind a little loss of customization to shut down that vulnerability, at least until safer extension APIs can be built.

As someone who only uses default kde settings: no!

This is the type of change I wouldn't notice until a default created UX friction, and not being able to fix that change would drive me away from the DE. Having the option to hack at something means i can use it for much longer without concern.

No.

But also its not one or the other.

No

I was fine with LXDE.... until it got abandoned for LXQt... which is alright, but it's more "kit car hackjobby" in its presentation than LXDE.

Here is my take:

1. Stability - I'd say very important, especially for a DE that is used by a lot of people as a daily driver.
2. Customization - IMO this isn't a simple yes/no question. It shouldn't be about the number of settings exposed to users but rather the number of "useful states" a user can achieve.

Let me give you an example with the multiline Icons-and-Text Task Manager. Of the main DEs I've tested, KDE is by far the most customizable and provides many related options, resulting in lots of different combinations (states). However, with none of those states I can achieve what I think would be much better (see my recent post here). My proposition is of a completely new alternative layout. I don't think that can be efficiently achieved by simply adding a bunch of "partial" settings (such as, for example, a checkbox for keeping the rows at fixed height), because going that way would result in:

• Many more potential combinations (different possible states). And an increased % of those would be unnatural (not very useful & confusing) to the end user.
• Increased complexity of the code that tries to handle all the possible combinations (hence, more potential for bugs).

So for the multiline task manager, I don't need most of the current settings, so I could say I don't need a lot of customization. But what I'd love to have is something that is currently not available, and that in itself could be interpreted as "a need for (another) customization".

Finding the "right" amount and type of customization is the key, but that's very hard. Largely because making changes gets increasingly harder at the later stages. And also, what is "right" is subjective, of course.

I don't have a stable experience with Plasma.

I also find a lot of the defaults frustrating.

One example is no easy option to replicate Windows / Gnome window management shortcuts. I want to be able to super + down to always minimize.

That said I would love for a focus on stability.

no. KDE is stable enkugh for me as is. Fuck gnome for creatşng the notşon that less customizability = stability