MX+KDE=heaven!

[Sparky]

Launching apps in KDE isn't any slower than XFCE for my hardware. I think an additional KDE official version would give a choice to the users and is very positive if it happens.

[rasat]

It could be possible if it comes with a minimal setup as well. Though I would not change my existing Gnome, I would dislike it to the same extent if there would only be an official full Gnome version. If two official iso... KDE-full and KDE-core would be great!!!

[JayM]

Launching apps in KDE isn't any slower than XFCE for my hardware. I think an additional KDE official version would give a choice to the users and is very positive if it happens.

I personally dislike KDE but I agree with you. It would be better if people had an official, fully-supportedl KDE version of MX Linux rather than unofficial respins. Linux is all about choice, after all, and KDE respins and installations seem to be very popular.

It's funny but I used the KDE version of PCLinuxOS for years, and when I decided to switch I went with the KDE version of Linux Mint Sylvia (18.3), and when I learned that Tara (Mint version 19) would be dropping KDE I almost went distro-hopping again. I eventually tried the Cinnamon version of Tara and liked it well enough. Between PCLinuxOS and Mint I did rather a lot of distro-testing (I wouldn't exactly call it hopping as I didn't actually install very many of them) and one of the deal-breakers for me was whether or not they had KDE versions. I began using MX 18.1 after I decided to put my Asus Zenbook up for sale and switch back to using my circa-2010 desktop PC, and after a learning curve I came to prefer Xfce. I've forgotten most of what I knew about KDE Plasma because now, every time I try to do things like setting Dolphin's defaults I have a devil of a time finding where those settings are. Take single vs. double-click to open files for example: this setting isn't actually in Dolphin, it's located somewhere else in the DE which makes no sense to me. It would be like if in MX this setting could only be found in MX Tweak rather than (also) in Thunar.

Tl:dr version: I used to be a KDE man for many years. Now it's Xfce for me but an official KDE version would be a good thing.

[andyprough]

Some of us know! But there are absolutely no plans to drop the XFCE version. KDE would be an addition to the MX line.

The tension builds... I love surprises

[Stevo]

Right now, it's meant to be a full featured KDE with the XFCE or MX standard apps replaced with KDE or QT equivalents if they aren't serious downgrades: Kate or Kwrite instead of Featherpad, for example, and K3b for ISO burning. But Firefox and LibreOffice will remain; those aren't going to be replaced by Konqueror and Calligra for the sake of ideology. There is much discussion going on as to what to add and remove.

As for a minimal edition, that could be made in half an hour by removing most of the apps and doing a respin.

[nathan2423]

I maintain about 10 machines for general use in my small business. I just recently moved 8 of them to Kubuntu because I rely on Dolphin. I particularly like its previews on the right "information panel" which is a more familiar setup for my former windows explorer users. I turn off all the special effects (even compositing) and I experience very acceptable speed. I don't care for the look of the menu system as much as Whisker, but editing the menu it is tremendously easier than with XFCE. Baloo doesn't slow me down and the options that it adds to dolphin for file searching, recent files, search by type, etc. are very worthwhile for me, as is krunner.

If indeed some news is in the works, I hope the developers will be able to adapt so as to give us the most up-to-date packages from kde possible. Maintaining all my machines is so much easier using the MX snapshot/liveusb tool. I've found that Systemback works in 20.04 kubuntu and has some of that functionality, but not like the MX tools.

I really look forward to coming back to MX!

[Stevo]

So far, it looks impossible to get a newer KDE into Buster without an upgrade of Qt 5, which would break many other Qt apps in the repo.

That's one way that KDE and GNOME differ from XFCE, Enlightenment, Cinnamon, etc.: it's much much simpler to backport the latter.

[KBD]

The default KDE/Plasma in Buster seemed pretty nice. Is there a big advantage for the work involved to bump up to a slightly newer version?

[richb]

Without getting into the detailed differences between the older KDE and the latest, one good reason is not to put out an official MX KDE release with a stale version of KDE.

[Stevo]

Though we can't update the KDE base, we can update certain KDE applications, such as Kdenlive, Marble-KDE, Digikam, and some others.