KDE used to look ugly comparing to Gnome. Now it's fine but still worse.
KDE offers plenty of shiny things that I don't like and need - graphical effects, application menu, widgets.
Most of the time I have a terminal and browser full screen and all I need is cmd key that triggers search and allows me to enter the name of the application I want to run and hit enter. Gnome is much cleaner, simpler and logical to use.
> cmd key that triggers search and allows me to enter the name of the application I want to run and hit enter.
Yes, I do this in KDE all the time.
Many people use their computer for a use case that's not "single application taking up the entire screen.", and KDE works better for them than GNOME. I'm not sure what's hard to understand about that. There's no objectively correct way to use a computer, it's a preference thing.
KDE is extremely customizable. A recent update added a floating taskbar (on a new install - upgraded installs keep the old behavior), like everyone else has. However, you can change it easily, and I even discovered some more customizability I didn't know existed. I can have an icon-only taskbar like Windows, or I can have the full title.
Everything in KDE is like that. You can follow the trends, or stick to the tried and true, or come up with your own style.
>No task bar. Had to Google for the command to install one.
>Oh, am I supposed to use that full screen task switcher thing? No, all my windows contain text, and I can't tell their thumbnails apart.
It looks like they installed Ubuntu with vanilla GNOME (considering the "few years ago" part perhaps even the now discontinued GNOME flavor) rather using Ubuntu's interface. And their issue seems to lie in GNOME itself (no taskbar, activities overview-oriented interface) rather something Ubuntu is doing.
No task bar. Had to Google for the command to install one. It's worthless. Icons change order. I have 5 instances of the same program open, and I can't tell which is which because they change order in the task bar. Can't even enumerate them since their order changes while I'm switching through them! This is the most basic function of a window manager and it doesn't work.
Oh, am I supposed to use that full screen task switcher thing? No, all my windows contain text, and I can't tell their thumbnails apart.
Yet, so many people prefer it. What the hell am I missing?