Hi Ludovic, hi,

Ludovic Bellière via Dng - 11.07.24, 14:09:30 CEST:
> I've been using KDE for over a year now, and it is running quite well.
> Thought, I'm not playing with kmail. All the "integrated stuff" seems
> to reside in the akonadi project[1] which I barely use. I mean, it's
> just weird and I don't understand it. I had to create a database, and
> they wanted me to install mySQL. So I told akonadi that sqlite would do
> fine, and it is indeed fine. But I digress.

Thanks for confirmation. Yes, put Akonadi into SQLite3 and avoid putting
much data into it. I'd say even using their calender and address book
applications would not be an issue at all, cause almost no data, but with
tons of mails, like several hundred thousands or even more than a million
of mails, POP3 access and in part also IMAP access you can run into issues
as I wrote before.

I know cause I do still do this, bearing with all the Akonadi shortcomings
it brings to me. My KMail setup is beyond crazy. Easily two millions of
mails spread across several hundred folders with easily about 100 local
filtering rules. I love how when I subscribe to a new mailing list on the
first mailing list mail appearing I can just click context menu and tell it
to create rule for it using the List-*: mail headers. KMail understand
them. Part of the reason I never migrated away is the beyond awesome size
of my KMail setup. But I have seen more than enough reports of people
using way less big setups and still running into issues.

I have been at a KDEPIM sprint during a KDE Randa Meeting in Switzerland.
Some of the developers considered my setup as a crazy test case for their
software. I am known by them as the one with one of the most crazy setups
in existence. It still kinda works on my on powerful NVME storage based
laptops. And except for those crazy POP3 related mails it basically works
for me these days. I do not even clean up folders exceeding 100000 mails
anymore cause with my PostgreSQL and these crazily fast laptops these days
it basically works okay, even with Akonadi. So also Akonadi has become
better but it still unfortunately has a lot of issues.

> As of now, KDE itself is less of a ressource hog than firefox. It is
> somewhat modular, as in you can chose not to run various 'K' services
> and the basic DE will be just fine. KDE became helpful, providing tools
> that does work with you.

I agree wholeheartedly.

> KDE implement defaults you'd expect from a desktop environment, beyond
> handling windows I mean. It's been out of my way, while fielding
> powerful tools. I didn't have to configure konsole, I didn't have to
> tinker with dolphin. I really appreciate that I simply installed the
> DE, and then went on my day without any Gnomish BS. It's as if the
> people who designed KDE actively use it and, like me, prefer
> practicality over fine arts.

That is their "simple by default powerful when needed" approach. And my
assessment is that they live to it.

One can use a Plasma desktop as it. Or customize it like crazy like I do.
My main and my work laptop have 100% of screen estate for applications. On
the left side of the laptop main display their is a customized variant of
their control panel auto hiding. On the top side of both screens there is
an auto hiding bar for quick activity switching and activity management.
On the lower border of both screens there is window overview composite
effect. I can work very effectively with that setup.

Windows do not automatically go into front on activation by click. So I
can work with overlapping windows like I am used to back in the Amiga
times. They go into front on double clicking or when clicking into the
window title bar. Add to that some of the tiling window manager niceties
they added in recently and it becomes a very pleasant experience for me.

And then you have applications like the very nice Kate and more simple
KWrite editors which almost instantly real time searches through chat logs
of more than 60 MiB in size. Also I can edit text based tables with the
block based editing mode. I love how I can save out a session in Kate and
it restores *exactly* to where I left it. I.e. cursor positioned in
exactly the same file at the same positive, the window layout being exactly
the same and so on. Of course you can use Kate without a Plasma desktop
and due to the modular KDE Frameworks it would only pull in what is needed
for it.

And I am not using GNOME for very similar reasons as you do not use it. A
co-worker of mine prefers GNOME. Its perfect for him. And so very well be
it! It does not work for me, cause I shall be the one deciding how the
desktop behaves instead having it being dictated on me.

And with Plasma I can have that. I can make Plasma mine! And that is one
of the most important reasons I am still with a KDE based desktop after
about two decades of using it.

Best,
--
Martin