Could Debian Lenny be a Refuge for KDE 3 Lovers?

I used to follow DistroWatch.com pretty closely, and although I use that site as a “launching pad” for all things Linux, I hadn’t been reading the Weekly Newsletter “The Distrowatch Weekly” like I used to. I was reading through some of the archived issues, and came across this issue where Distrowatch maintainer Ladislav Bodnar wrote a very interesting Editorial about KDE 3 and 4 and the current state of Distributions shipping KDE.

If you care about KDE, and especially, if like me, you care specifically about KDE 3, please go read his article. It’s full of good, balanced information. I think I will be taking his adivce and trying a KDE (3) install of Debian Lenny. As he said:

Finally, if you care about the personal (and no doubt controversial) opinion of your DistroWatch maintainer who has been evaluating many distributions over the last couple of months, then here is his advice: install Debian “Lenny”. Although you won’t be running the bleeding-edge Qt 4/KDE 4 combination, you’ll be pleased to know that you can still enjoy a feature-full, lightning-fast and rock-solid KDE 3.5.9, which will be supported well into 2011. By which time, KDE 4 might be just as good as KDE 3.5 is today.

I think he is spot on there. Not EVERYONE who uses Linux on their desktops are yearning for the absolute latest and gratest, and newest bits of code available every second. Although Lenny isn’t labeled “Stable” yet, and is still technically “Testing” I feel confident, this close to release, and knowing the stringent quality control that Debian puts releases through before labeling them “Stable” that I can install Lenny with no worries

Thanks Ladisav for throwing some “proverbial” water in my face and forcing me to wake up. I don’t HAVE to switch to GNOME, and I don’t HAVE to run KDE 4. Debian gives me a nice (to quote Ubuntu) LTS, or Long Term Support option to continue running KDE 3 until KDE 4.x.x is ready for me.

As I’ve said before, KDE 4 does need users, but I still reccomend it only in a Virtual Machine, or on a Second machine to your production box at this time.