this post was submitted on 19 Nov 2025
1083 points (97.7% liked)
Technology
76949 readers
3928 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Honestly W11 window management by default is better than KDE right now.
This was true for W10, but not any more.
KDE window outline defaults (don't have a generic name for setting up the snap zones) take way more effort to set up than the windows version.
I don't think requiring powertoys for extra features matters that much because its supported by the same company. In my opinion, when having something not default truly sucks is when its third party and is finicky and fickle because it requires developers developing vs a moving target.
When its an internal team, they have much more knowledge about how that target will be moving.
Anyhow, that is to say, I think KDE is great, and completely competent, and I love the level of customizability by default, but it certainly has many flaws. Of course its biggest flaw is not its own fault, but that of the catch 22 situation needed to gain critical mass, and the average linux proselytizer doing everything in their power to ensure people don't want to try linux by somehow imagining themselves to be the every user, and constantly doing that annoying thing where they both say linux is powerful, and that the faults dont matter because the average user doesn't use any of said powerful features or they themselves, personally got used to the faults.
in 2 decades of using KDE from time to time, the biggest flaw (besides how they released KDE4 way too early and distros picked it up), is how it's never perfect. fix one bug, add another. add a new feature, break an old feature. always feels like there's just one little irk hiding somewhere.
Having to install powetoys on top of the OS makes it DOA for many on corporate environments. You get stuck on approval limbo or if someone else went through the pain, you discover it breaks every once in a while due to missing .net dependencies that you don't have the right to install. I've seen this for both development (w10 w/ extended support) and thin clients (w11).
Unfortunately our clients all use Windows development machines, so we are stuck on the same to be able to write the guides and documentation. Most of our scripts now rely on Got bash since we know that's available. MS environments are hostile to proper scripting and automation.
Oh yeah? Can you pin windows? Can you have windows always under the others or above them? Can you manage the buttons in the top ribbon? And dont even start with custom layout or the magnetic attach of windows in KDE.
I didn't download powertoys for fun. I needed a feature the windows did not have build in. After using KDE, even powertoys look basic to me.
Edit: Just remembered windows opacity, custom windows rules for almost everything and many more settings.
I think this is quite a bit exaggerated no? KDE lacks many of the tools Powertoys adds like the OCR, advanced clipboard, colour picker and more.
Also, yes, pinning windows on top exists.
I am comparing KDE with windows 11 in window managing. Powertoys has many tools but for window managing only the pin to top and fancy zones count. Pin windows only exist with Powertoys, not stock windows 11.
My comment was particular in what it was in response to.
I quoted the section of your comment that was relevant:
Yes in window managing they are (windows not the OS Windows).
Heh, could play that game all day.
The biggie, can you fork it, can you mend it, etc. Free Software ftw.