An Interesting History of KDE.

[kc1di]

An interesting history of KDE.
https://itsfoss.com/kde-facts-trivia/

[MoonRise]

Thanks! Was interesting to read the original announcement.

I still believe of all the DEs, including M$ and MACfruit, that KDE far outpaces everyone. IMO.

[GreyGeek]

Nice! My first Linux install was RH 5.0 on May 1, 1998. Around the first of September of 1998 I saw a PC mag ad for SuSE 5.3 which displayed KDE 1.0 Beta as its main attraction. I replaced RH with SuSE 5.3 specifically because it offered KDE 1.0, and have used KDE every since.
https://en.opensuse.org/Archive:S.u.S.E._Linux_5.3

I stayed with SuSE from Sept of 1998 until Nov of 2006, when Novell's CEO Ronald Hovsepian "partnered" with M$'s Steve Ballmer to "license" MS IP that Ballmer claimed was in Linux. Hovesepian in effect agreed, saying "I confess, Linux did it!"
It was the beginning of the end for Novell, and set back SuSE for a while.

I never returned to SuSE but instead went looking for and testing other distros. It was when I tested a distro based on Debian and featuring the dpkg package manager that I realized how much better dpkg was than RPM, at the time. Tried Mandrake, KNOPPIX, LIberty, PCLinuxOS, Mandriva and finally Kubuntu, in Feb of 2009. To be closer to the leading (not bleeding) edge of Plasma Desktop releases I switched to Neon User Edition a year ago.

[kc1di]

Nice! My first Linux install was RH 5.0 on May 1, 1998. Around the first of September of 1998 I saw a PC mag ad for SuSE 5.3 which displayed KDE 1.0 Beta as its main attraction. I replaced RH with SuSE 5.3 specifically because it offered KDE 1.0, and have used KDE every since.
https://en.opensuse.org/Archive:S.u.S.E._Linux_5.3

My first linux install was Slackware (don't remember the version #) It came on 25 or so floppy discs. If I remember correctly (which may be doubtful) that was in 1996. and the DE was CDE. I too started using KDE with Suse 5.x around the same time as you. I haven't been as consistant with it as you but seem to always return to KDE eventually. Kubuntu 22.04 is a great KDE Distro

[GreyGeek]

My first linux install was Slackware (don't remember the version #) It came on 25 or so floppy discs. If I remember correctly (which may be doubtful) that was in 1996. and the DE was CDE. ....

You had more Linux chops than I did at the time. IIRC, it was 26 3.5" floppies (or 51 1.44Mb floppies) and I had a devil of a time getting 26 files to download without errors on a 48Kbps modem, which was around the fall of 1998 or the spring of 1999. I never successfully installed it.

[kc1di]

Yep, I didn't down load them I bought them already burned Think maybe I bought my Redhat disks a year or two later also. Open Suse was the first one I remember downloading and installing. Must have taken a few days

[GreyGeek]

IIRC, I downloaded an SuSE 5.3 ISO file, which was around 650Mb, and burned it to a CD, and then installed it from the CD. I haven't had a floppy drive connected to any of my laptops since before 2012 and about 6 years ago I replaced the CDROM on my old Acer V3-771G with an HD Caddy and made that port my 3rd HD.

[kc1di]

I can't remember the last time I had a Floppy drive in a machine but it was awhile ago. And none of my machines have a cd/dvd drive either. So stuck with USB. But my can download and burn a live .iso in just 30 Mins or less now a days. And install and setup takes less than an hour. Remember taking days some times to get the system right back in the 90's

I wouldn't want to go back to that. Kubuntu 22.04 is just right for this machine at the present and it has been working more or less flawlessly since installed.

[GreyGeek]

When my ISP was a Spectrum 40Mbps cable my DL speed for a 650Mb ISO was about 30 min too.
Three years ago fiber optic came to my neighborhood and I now have a 500Mbps pipe at the same price as Spectrum's 40Mpbs funnel, which also featured throttling. On the fiber optic a 650Mb ISO takes less than a minute. My DL speed is around 40-45Mbps, limited by my wifi speed.

[kc1di]

When my ISP was a Spectrum 40Mbps cable my DL speed for a 650Mb ISO was about 30 min too.
Three years ago fiber optic came to my neighborhood and I now have a 500Mbps pipe at the same price as Spectrum's 40Mpbs funnel, which also featured throttling. On the fiber optic a 650Mb ISO takes less than a minute. My DL speed is around 40-45Mbps, limited by my wifi speed.

I'm Jealous Still on spectrum here Only choice in my town.

[GreyGeek]

I'm Jealous Still on spectrum here Only choice in my town.

That's the way it was here. There were a couple of ISP's that piggy-backed on Spectrum's (formerly RoadRunner) cable, but that was only to maintain the illusion of competition. Earthlink's bill was printed by Spectrum.

When Spectrum took over RoadRunner my connection was 15Mbps for $15/mo. It was that way for a couple years. Then Spectrum started their favorite trick: claiming your price was the result of a promotion, and "Your promotion price has ended". Their last use of that scam on me was when I was paying $40/mo for 40Mbps. It was in Jan of 2018. I got a letter from Spectrum telling me that since "my promotional price" was over my 40Mbps would be costing me $70/mo. The very next month they pulled the same trick again, apparently forgetting what they sent me the previous month. The Feb letter said my cost would be $120/mo for 40Mpbs. I called them and the guy I talked to said the best he could do was offer me 60Mbps for $70/mo. I accepted because Spectrum was the only real ISP in town and he was just a wage slave and was reading from a script.

However, Allophone was stringing fiber optic in the region and I told the Spectrum guy that the second it comes to my door I'm dropping Spectrum. It is said that Spectrum tried to manipulate city fathers into blocking easements needed for Allophone to lay FO cable. Allophone countered by offering free 1 Gbps connection to all city offices, libraries and public schools. Allophone reached my door in Aug of 2018. I signed for a 100Mbps connection for $75/mo, which also included a permanent IP address, AND, the connection was symmetrical. It was 100Mpbs both up and down. Spectrum countered by offering 100Mbps for $60/mo (no doubt a "promotional price") and Allophone countered by raising my speed to 200Mpbs at no change in cost. Spectrum countered again by offering 200Mbps at $60/mo, no doubt a promotional price as well. In addition, Spectrum was using compression to get that speed and not taking into account the decompression time on both ends. Copper is only so fast for physics reasons. Spectrum's connection was asymmetrical. What ever the download speed was, the upload speed was always 5 mbps. Then they offered a 300 mpbs connection for $70/mo and Allphone raised my speed to 500 mbps at no extra charge. Spectrum then went to bundling Internet, TV, phone and "streaming" for one price, concealing how much each service cost individually.

With fiber optic running at 500Mbps if the download speed is slow it is usually because the source server is throttling the download. Yesterday I had a 52 Mbps download speed on an 650Mb ISO. It took about 30 seconds via my wifi. However, speed is also a function of the distance between the source and your PC, and the number of hops needed to cover that distance. My wifi uses the 88x2bu driver, which doesn't deliver full performance. In the wifi details it shows a max speed of 867mbps, but I general don't get more than 200Mbps in speed tests on my wifi. When I plug in a cat 6 cable my Internet speed test shows 504.5Mbps both up and down. My max speed as shown in the cable modem settings is 530Mbps, which is more than fair. However, for 99% of my needs my ratty wifi is fast enough.

[kc1di]

Well, that worked out for you very well. Glade for you. the closet so far for Fiber optics company is a company call Fidium Or something like that they are in the next City east of us. But because most of the population is south and Northeast of there those are the directions they are now laying cables. So they have predicted we won't see it in our area until maybe 2024. In the meantime Spectrum is still playiing it's games. I was getting 50Mbs at $28.00 and last year the told us that they were discontinuing that program upping the speed to 100mbs and charging us $40.00/month. And now they want to up that next year to their promotional rate of 50.00. T-mobile is offering the same deal but there service is via their cellphone towers and those who have tried it here have constant outages. So Until they get FO in town guess I'm stuck paying higher prices for really no additional service.
Can only hope.

[GreyGeek]

It took Allophone 18 months from the time they first started laying cable until it reached my door. Ah, I forgot about Spectrum's "program" scam. $50 is only $50 away from Starlink's $100/mo for mbps. Here in Lincoln we are 15 miles inside the available area. The downside of Starlink is the initial $599 hardware fee. Since you may be only 18 months or so from getting FO the wait may be worth it. It was for me.

The only downside I have with Allophone is that their modem doesn't support a Hurricane IPv6 tunnel, and my queries about when they will began supporting native IPv6 is always answered with a "real soon now".... for the last 3 years. My Buffalo DD-WRT powered wifi allowed me to establish what was recognized as a "native" IPv6 connection that was just as fast as the IPv4 connection. Luckily, every site I visit has IPv4 addresses.