Sorry, I know. Bad joke. Here’s one more:

So a konfluence of three things has brought me to this point.

See, if you didn’t know, there are a lot of apps that start with a ‘k’ in Linux distributions running the KDE desktop environment. Well, technically the K Desktop Environment.

Look, just read this bit on Wikipedia, okay?

All done? Good. Let’s kontinue…

(Ok, that was the last time. Srsly.)

So a confluence of three things has brought me to this point.

1. Helpful commenters on this blog have repeatedly suggested KDE apps to me — that is, apps that make use of the Qt libraries built in to KDE. One of these apps, Kdenlive, is indeed very good. And not only that, but it looks very good as well — thanks (I think) in part to this Qt stuff.

2. Qt is now owned and operated by Nokia. I’ve used Nokia smartphones since 2007, and I’m pretty stoked about the company’s first MeeGo handset due later this year. I’m thinking there might be some complementary Qt apps for both MeeGo devices and KDE desktops.

3. This Ubootnu user is feeling the need to stretch his wings a bit. Nothing too crazy, just some baby steps out into the wider world of Linuxdom.

To that last point, instead of taking the easy route and installing the KDE version of Linux Mint (or even Ubuntu) I’d like to go with a more “pure” KDE experience.

From reading things here and there I gather that OpenSUSE is currently the best showcase for KDE — but I want to be sure, so:

I. Is OpenSUSE my best bet for a distro running the latest and greatest KDE?

I know Mandriva is fairly popular as well, but unless I’m mistaken there’s no live CD available for me to test.

Question two:

II. The K-apps — Kmail, Kontact, Kalendar… How good are they?

My email sits on IMAP servers so migration is no big deal. Likewise my address book are hosted remotely on Memotoo.com, which supposedly works with KDE’s PIM apps.

Is it true that Koffice really won’t export to Microsoft Office-readable files? I’ve also heard that installing Skype on OpenSUSE is a bit of a pain, which leads me to my final question:

III. Are there any other “gotchas” with KDE that I should know about?

I’ve played around with the 4.5 live CD and was prety darn impressed, but there are obviously limits to what I can do with it in that environment.

If you can answer any or all of the above questions I’d be much obliged.

Just no distro or KDE-bashing, k?