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Comment by Sammi

1 day ago

The average Linux user is not your grandma and lets not overstate how easy it is to mess up your KDE config. Most of the config ui in KDE is delightful compared to other desktop environments, and most non-technical users would shy away from even trying to fiddle with technical stuff. And those that do fiddle and mess up are likely to have a technical person at hand to help them, because someone had to install Linux for them in the first place.

KDE is a much more sensible default for the highly technical person who is likely to install Linux themselves. There are other great options if you want something more locked down and noob proof. KDE really is the most relevant choice for default for most distros atm.

4 comments

Sammi

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noisy_boy  21 hours ago

Playing devil's advocate, KDE settings are clear but there might be a possibility for a "Advanced Mode" button (with a first-time click warning) on the top-right of the "Quick Settings" screen that opens up when we launch the Settings. That can hide the "risky" stuff (e.g. "Window Management" etc). There might be value in adding a "Lock Panels" options to handle accidental modifications/removal etc.

  • cosmic_cheese  21 hours ago

    I agree with the “Advanced Mode” button. That’d solve a great deal of the issues that KDE Settings suffers.

    On the other hand I think it could use a fair deal of work on the clarity front. There are a number of settings that are confusing or ambiguous even for some technical users.

    • estebank  17 hours ago

      The problem with advanced modes is that it is easy for a chaos monkey to get into them, and at scale that will happen all the time.

      A mitigation for advanced modes is to have a big bright red "get me the hell out of this to a normal state" button. Making it easy for a human to get back to the normal steady-state reduces the risk of an advanced mode and gently encourages exploration and experimentation, if it is always trivial to get back to what you're used to. This means that configuration changes can't ever be fully destructive though, which requires quite a bit of design and engineering.