A primer: In Microsoft Windows and Apple Mac OS X you only know of one desktop environment – that being the one provided to you by the OS. Yes you can change around the colors, move things and so on, but the fact of the matter is that you’re only given one choice for window management, theirs.

A GNU/Linux distribution isn’t limited to just one choice when it comes to its GUI environment. While it’s true for the GUI you use the X Window System, you have choice of which environment you want to use. The two most popular are GNOME and KDE, but there are others such as Fluxbox and Enlightenment.

If you’ve ever used Ubuntu, you’ve used GNOME as that is the default environment that comes bundled with the OS.

The KDE variant of Ubuntu is called Kubuntu (with the K for KDE).

KDE is now at version 4.1.1, so I decided to download a copy of Kubuntu with KDE 4 and try it out. To note: If you want Kubuntu with KDE you need to specifically download the “8.04 remix” version. This is listed plainly so it’s easy to spot.

My experience with Kubuntu with KDE 4

KDE 4 looks better than GNOME does. This is immediately noticeable with the fonts because they look darn-near perfect. The fonts are less “blocky”, more “curvy” and easier to read which is the most important part. Granted, you can modify GNOME in Ubuntu to “soften” the fonts up to achieve the same look, but the fact of the matter is that you don’t have to do that in Kubuntu. It looks good from the start.

Here’s an example of what I mean (click image for full size):

Right off the bat, KDE just looks friendlier. Bigger fonts, easier readability.

When I access the K menu I can search for stuff easily and things are plainly marked.

From the top-right of the screen I can click “Add Widgets” to add things to the desktop.

I added a few widgets to the desktop.

I was able to get around KDE a whole lot faster than I did with GNOME. It’s still Ubuntu but just with a different environment. In fact it was easy enough to where I was able to take the screen shots and post this article using nothing but Kubuntu, the built-in screen capture app KSnapshot, Gwenview to do some minor image editing (just cropping) and the Konqueror web browser to post into the blog system here.

Should you use Ubuntu or Kubuntu?

Whether to use GNOME or KDE (or other environment) is strictly a matter of preference. There are some that say apps under Linux just work better when using KDE. In addition there are many Linux apps specifically designed for KDE (usually any app that starts with K, like Konqueror or Kopete for example).

Consider that KDE has a strong enough following to have an Ubuntu distro specifically for that environment – that says loudly people like it enough to where they prefer to use it over anything else.

Also consider you can mod out KDE in some pretty awesome ways. You want eye candy? You got it – and it’s functional.

If you tried Ubuntu but its look didn’t really do much for you, try Kubuntu. You might like it.