Comment by easytiger
4 years ago
I recall heavily using gnome 2?/KDE 2? (indeed I had to test things on them for work) Circa 2005 and indeed when Sun heavily invested in gnome to make the "java desktop" on Solaris to add accessibility etc so they could win institutional contracts. Was perfectly on the way to being great.
Then the great childish "let's rewrite everything from scratch" for both Linux DEs happened. It was a decade? before KDE was remotely viable again.
The gnome/gtk Devs focusing on zero configuration options possibly the most rubbish redesign I've ever seen.
KDE/Plasma only became viable to me in the last 24 months. Felt like a POC
I felt kind of lost when Gnome 3 landed, but I discovered MATE, which forked off of Gnome 2. Gnome 2, IMHO, was the peak Unix desktop experience, and I felt so relieved to discover it does live on.
Gnome 3 confused (and continues to confuse) me to no end every time I tried it (which admittedly was not all that often. KDE 2 was cool, but I did not like KDE 3, although I do not remember why. I stopped paying much attention to KDE at that point. Xfce is nice, but not as nice as Gnome2/Mate.