Believe it or not, the KDE desktop environment turned 19 years old on October 14, 2015. Yes, it has been 19 long years since Matthias Ettrich announced his new project, the Kool Desktop Environment (KDE).
Reading the initial announcement for KDE brings back nostalgic memories when many of us were trying to learn computers for the first time. I remember that back in 1996 I was still playing some games on one of those ZX Spectrum computers, as well as one of those PCs with 33/66 MHz bus running DOS.
At that moment in time I had no idea that Linux existed, but it looks like Matthias Ettrich was trying to change the world and make one of the most awesome graphical user interfaces ever created for Linux OSes. And so the KDE (K Desktop Environment or Kool Desktop Environment) was born on October 14, 1996.
"Unix popularity grows thanks to the free variants, mostly Linux. But still a consistent, nice looking free desktop-environment is missing. There are several nice either free or low-priced applications available so that Linux/X11 would almost fit everybody needs if we could offer a real GUI," wrote Matthias Ettrich back in October 14, 1996.
So, if you're a KDE user, wish a happy birthday to the awesome desktop environment used by hundreds of thousands of people worldwide and implemented in numerous Linux kernel-based operating system. The latest version of the KDE desktop environment is KDE Plasma 5.4.2. Happy Birthday, KDE!
