Want to try the original KDE desktop from 1996? I did, and it took me back – here's how

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ZDNET’s key takeaways

• A Linux developer has decided to fork the OG KDE desktop.
• Currently in beta, MiDesktop is still rough around the edges.
• You can try MiDesktop on Debian Trixie or Ubuntu Noble Numbat.

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Ah, KDE 1. I remember it well. I was there, back in the beta days of the original KDE desktop, and it was exciting. All of a sudden, Linux wasn’t under the thrall of CDE and Fvwm95. We had something modern on the horizon, and it looked to be special.

I still remember the first time I tried KDE 1. I felt as if I’d been beamed into the future of Linux, and what I saw would usher in a new era for the open-source desktop. KDE 1 was light-years ahead of what the Linux desktop had been, and there was nothing that could top it.

Those were days, for certain. I won’t call them “the good old days” because I try to live in the now as much as possible. What I will say is that there was definitely an air of palpable excitement in the Linux community.

The development of KDE 1 began in 1996. Thirty years later, there’s now a project that aims to bring that old-school desktop back to life. The project in question is called MiDesktop. If you’re a fan of old-school Linux charm, you’re gonna love this.

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MiDesktop is a fork of KDE 1, using the Osiris toolkit, which is a fork of Qt 2. Forks, forks, my kingdom for a fork.

What is special about MiDesktop is that it doesn’t pretend to be anything other than what it is. This is essentially KDE 1. It’s not a modern take on KDE 1 (as that would be KDE Plasma). There are no extra bells and whistles to satisfy those of us who love our aesthetics with a dash of transparency, window effects, and lots of options.

This, my friends, is straight-up KDE 1. Of course, my curiosity was piqued, so I spun up a new Debian Trixie virtual machine and set out to install the current beta of MiDesktop. How did it go? Read on, my friends.

How to install

First, let’s talk installation. Currently, you can only try MiDesktop on either Debian Trixie or Ubuntu Noble Numbat. I opted to go with Debian because Ubuntu Noble Numbat cannot be installed via VirtualBox, due to an incompatible kernel.

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The installation process is fairly simple but is done completely via the command line. Here are the required commands for Debian Trixie:

Install the Osiris Toolkit

echo ‘deb https://debpkg.libranext.com/pub/debian trixie main’ > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/libranext-pub.list
wget https://debpkg.libranext.com/pub/debian/pool/main/libranext-debpkg-keyring_2025_all.deb
dpkg -i libranext-debpkg-keyring_2025_all.deb
apt update

Install the Libranext Pub-Package repository

echo ‘deb https://debpkg.libranext.com/pub/debian trixie main’ > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/libranext-pub.list
wget https://debpkg.libranext.com/pub/debian/pool/main/libranext-debpkg-keyring_2025_all.deb
dpkg -i libranext-debpkg-keyring_2025_all.deb
apt update

Add the development preview repository

echo ‘deb https://debpkg.libranext.com/pub/debian-preview trixie main’ > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/libranext-preview.list
apt update
apt install midesktopbase midesktoplibs midesktopwallpapers midesktopbase-doc midesktoplibs-doc midesktopbase-i18n

Install MiDesktop

sudo apt install midesktopbase midesktoplibs midesktopwallpapers midesktopbase-doc midesktoplibs-doc midesktopbase-i18n

After all of that, a reboot is necessary. Once you’re presented with the login screen, select MiDesktop from the Desktop Session drop-down, in the bottom left corner, and log in. You’ll then be presented with MiDesktop.

What is MiDesktop like?

It’s very much like KDE 1. The second I logged in, I was taken back to a different period in the Linux timeline.

Funny how memory can trick us. I remember KDE 1 being revolutionary and vastly simplifying the Linux desktop. Now that I’ve been using KDE Plasma for such a long time, I see KDE 1 very differently. Granted, this is very much beta software, but it does remind me how far the Linux desktop has come.

It is my guess, however, that the developer will elevate this to a somewhat more user-friendly state. Although there will be some in the Linux community who will welcome KDE 1 back, I would say the majority will look at this as little more than nostalgia.

However, I’ve been wrong before.

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Click the desktop menu, and you’ll find something missing — applications. Because it’s been so long since I used KDE 1, I don’t remember if there was an Applications entry in the desktop menu or not. MiDesktop certainly does not have one. In fact, the only user applications available were a browser, a file manager, a login manager, console, and a file manager.

To get around that, I installed LibreOffice from the command line and then started it with the command:

libreoffice

The app ran fine.

Of course, I could open the menu editor and manually add LibreOffice — in theory. Because this is still in beta, I couldn’t get the menu editor to open.

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Anyway, I absolutely respect the developer for this project and am certain there will be a fraction of the Linux community that will welcome MiDesktop with open arms. 

As for me, I’ll stick with the more modern fare.