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The Definite Desktop Environment Comparison 633

Posted by CowboyNeal from the prancing-in-a-row dept.
Gentu writes "OSNews posted a very long and interesting comparison between the most popular desktop environments today: Windows XP Luna, Mac OS X Aqua, BeOS/Zeta and Unix's KDE and Gnome. Some of the points in the article can be thought to be 'subjective', but overall many good points are made and it seems that there is room for improvement for all DEs."
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The Definite Desktop Environment Comparison More

The Definite Desktop Environment Comparison

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  • Little Room?! (Score:5, Funny)

    by - FuckingNerds - ( 648891 ) on Monday March 17, 2003 @09:58PM (#5533726)
    Little room for improvments. HA! That's a laugh!
  • Is it just me, or did someone else find it kind of ironic that the first paragraph of a "definitive" survey talks about what wasn't covered?

    • Re:"Definitive"? (Score:2, Funny)

      by MrWa ( 144753 )
      It wasn't the "definitive" desktop review! Do people not even read the Slashdot summaries anymore? Articles I can understand (who can really be bothered to follow a link that doesn't work half the time - there should just be a "Reply to this" link on the front page...no one really wants to read more)

      This was a "definite" desktop review. As opposed to those reviews on other sites which may or may not be a review, possibly about desktops. Those sites are not quite sure. In this case, OSNews has done a t

    • It was far from Definitive. For the Unix side there should have been some light weight and middle wieght Window Managers such as:
      Blackbox or Fluxbox
      Window Maker
      Enlightenment

      Blackbox will do everything you need -- fast.
      I am using KDE though because I like the in my face eye candy.

      If a desktop is inseperable from the rest of the OS, there sould have been a catagory for baggage.
      XP destop bring the following baggage that can not be left behind:
      Spyware
      Product activation
      trojan EULA's for service packs

  • I love Aqua, but the dock annoys me (Score:3, Interesting)

    by numbski ( 515011 ) <numbski&hksilver,net> on Monday March 17, 2003 @10:01PM (#5533743) Homepage Journal
    If the dock were more customizable, the ability to have single-left-clickable appleting from the dock, and a few other minor gripes, I'd be happy. As it is, I hide the dock for as long as possible, unless I absolutely need it.

  • First post??? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by IcEMaN252 ( 579647 )
    I don't think you will ever have a DE that doesn't have some room for improvement. Its nice to see a comparison like this though.
  • The AC today announced his 5 second OS review:
    • OS #1 ...liked it
    • OS #2 ...loved it
    • OS #3 ...loathed it
    • OS #4 ...hated it
    • OS #5 ...liked it
    • OS #6 ...gave it a 75...nice to dance to, but I wouldn't by the album

  • Who needs (Score:2, Funny)

    by michiel.h ( 570138 )
    fancy schmancy windows, startmenus and clippies?

    DosShell is all I need.

  • The Subjective Desktop Comparison (Score:5, Interesting)

    by embedded_C ( 653649 ) on Monday March 17, 2003 @10:10PM (#5533797)
    Gimme a break; everyone has opinions. The article is littered with "I like" and "In my opinion"... It would have been a much more effective article IMHO if the author had first layed out some objective criteria that he was going to apply to the various desktops.

    Personally, the desktop theme is kind of hackneyed don't you think? We need some new innovations here.

    Where is my spacey 3-D environment a'la Hackers or Swordfish? :)

    • Re:The Subjective Desktop Comparison (Score:5, Informative)

      by gravelpup ( 305775 ) <rockdog@NoSPAM.gmail.com> on Monday March 17, 2003 @10:14PM (#5533825) Journal
      Where is my spacey 3-D environment a'la Hackers or Swordfish?

      It's here [thebrain.com].

    • It would have been a much more effective article IMHO if the author had first layed out some objective criteria that he was going to apply to the various desktops.

      It is impossible to lay out "objective" criteria without it being guided by the invisible hand of subjective criteria. If a Linux enthusiast goes to choose the best operating system, you can be damn sure that their "objective criteria" will be loaded with areas where Linux excels, just as one would expect the same from proponents of other criter

    • Re:The Subjective Desktop Comparison (Score:4, Insightful)

      by zurab ( 188064 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @02:23AM (#5534883)
      Gimme a break; everyone has opinions. The article is littered with "I like" and "In my opinion"... It would have been a much more effective article IMHO if the author had first layed out some objective criteria that he was going to apply to the various desktops.

      Couldn't agree more. I don't agree at all with the criteria the guy chose to evaluate these desktop environments. I have mostly different preferences when choosing or liking one over another.

      One of them is layout management. Windows, by default, has *none*. I can't extend, resize, etc. most windows that pop - properties, configuration, etc. I hate it. I can't stand that some developer programmed in the size of the window and then dropped in 500 entries into a 3 visible-line selection box. Like the author says about KDE, KOffice - I don't care whose fault it is - it's there and it's annoying. Most KDE apps, on the other hand, allow me to resize almost any window and at the same time correctly adjust layout.

      Second is ability to adjust settings to my liking. Other than "commercial-only" (read MS-only by default) themeability and menu item hiding, there's not much new that MS has added into this department since Win95. Everybody's desktop looks the same - I don't want that - I want to have a touch of my own on the environment I use. More so KDE, but also Gnome allows user to configure desktop in at least 1000 more ways than Windows - themes, icon themes, window behavior, mouse & keyboard action behavior, multiple backgrounds, very flexible shortcuts, etc., etc., etc.

      Multiple desktops. After having advantage of using multiple virtual desktops, using XP makes me a little claustrophobic. I like more space, I can organize better. Maybe I missed it but this wasn't even in the review.

      I can't believe XP got a high score on stability either. What is this? A monkey parade? Applications on XP crash on regular basis, including IE and MS Office, and sometimes XP just reboots itself, or dumps memory here without any warnings. Meanwhile, I haven't been able to crash KDE once. X - yes, but not KDE.

      Security. What about it? Where does that come into play? Does that even matter? For me it does, for that reviewer, it doesn't, apparently. Having a thought that a random VBScript inside the Outlook preview pane may control the whole OS is a little scary to me; but may not be to everyone. And, yes, it is desktop related. Because for Microsoft Windows (tm), desktop *is* a security boundary.

      I can come up with a lot of criteria such as these, organize them under my own topics and rate each DE, it will be all personal and subjective - who cares?

      Also, it seems like, in all reviews, he took XP as the standard and *the* way to do it, and then evaluated if anything was "better" or "worse". Besides of these evaluations being totally subjective, on a different level, this type of comparison doesn't give others an equal chance. Why? Because in such a case, all valuations are based on parameters, scales, and rating scheme that is determined by that one product. All others are trying to match, and, in rare cases, in some way beat that one product. This is very limiting.

      So, there! Poof! It's gone!!!
      • Second is ability to adjust settings to my liking. Other than "commercial-only" (read MS-only by default) themeability and menu item hiding, there's not much new that MS has added into this department since Win95. Everybody's desktop looks the same

        I guess you've never heard of WindowBlinds [windowblinds.net], a non-MS product.

        Also, it seems like, in all reviews, he took XP as the standard and *the* way to do it, and then evaluated if anything was "better" or "worse". Besides of these evaluations being totally subjective, on

  • While I agree (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Narchie Troll ( 581273 )
    with many of the article's conclusions, the author comes off as overly biased. For example, she criticizes GNOME for using GTK+ on the basis that it's in C and not object-oriented.
    Also, am I the only person who thinks that Z-snake or what's-it-called is sort of pointless? It's somewhat interesting to look at, but is that really important enough to merit a paragraph?
    I'm not surprised by her bald assertion that X11 is the least featureful of all the graphics systems. This doesn't surprise me, coming from a

  • boo-urns (Score:5, Funny)

    by Lu Xun ( 615093 ) on Monday March 17, 2003 @10:13PM (#5533809)
    I'm offended that my favorite DE of all time [google.com] wasn't included. How can this even pretend to be definitive?

  • Subjectivity? Flexibility? Definitive? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by lavalyn ( 649886 ) on Monday March 17, 2003 @10:14PM (#5533819) Homepage Journal
    Just how do you evaluate aesthetics in an objective way? By the variance in gradient pixel colours? By the radius of the curved corners? By the number of pixels used in creating mouse pointer shadows?

    Different people like different things. Even as the article says, "some like small fonts, some like bigger fonts, some like funky buttons, others like...." And therefore even the worst interfaces will have its proponents, and the most elegant interfaces its critics.

    Then the question comes to, to how much can you make a given desktop look the way you like it? Even there, there is no answer. Some people like the ultimate flexibility, while others think it makes things unnecessarily complex. Some people swear by KDE, others by Gnome, yet others by Aqua.

    That's what choice is. That's why we like Open Source(tm). Because we like the Freedom to choose what pretty widgets we look at.

    That's why there will never be a Definite Desktop Environment Comparison.

  • Does anyone else still use enlightenment? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by kid_icarus75 ( 579846 ) on Monday March 17, 2003 @10:16PM (#5533836)
    Something about those left click menus, icon boxes, and desktop pager just make me keep going back to it. Do you think that if it ever becomes a desktop shell (E17) that it will gain popularity and be a reasonable force?

  • How come... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Eric Jaakkola ( 629263 ) on Monday March 17, 2003 @10:17PM (#5533841)
    The popular desktops are always picking on me?

  • Mac GUI the most "in your face"? (Score:5, Funny)

    by mariox19 ( 632969 ) on Monday March 17, 2003 @10:18PM (#5533846)

    Sorry, but I just can't agree that OS X's GUI is more "in your face eye candy" than Windows' is. This criticism from people is something I will never understand. For me (and I'll admit to being a Mac person), the whole article showed a Windows bias.

    Granted, some people are just turned off by the genie effect and the pulsating of default buttons. But, for crying out loud, The XP GUI is the most garish set of colors. It looks like the artwork of the mentally ill.

    The old Windows GUI was a bit staid, but at least looked business-like. How this mad, psychedelic fantasy of color can continue to sit on the desktops of businesses everywhere is beyond me. It's unprofessional!

    • I think the parent was more serious than funny and I totally agree with him. WinXP looks like a toy when left in it's natural state. But not just any toy, a toy designed by a colour blind wanna be hippie. My eyes had never been so offended since the last time Margaret Thatcher was on television.
    • "How this mad, psychedelic fantasy of color can continue to sit on the desktops of businesses everywhere is beyond me."

      Most places that I've seen (including all the labs at my school, etc) got rid of the default XP theme long, long ago for exactly that reason. In fact, one of the first things I do after a fresh XP install (aside from cursing since it didn't recognize my vid card properly) is to tell Windows to use the look and feel of 9x.
      That single option is the only thing standing between my XP CD and a

    • As someone who is mentally ill... (Score:5, Funny)

      by Landaras ( 159892 ) <neilNO@SPAMwehneman.com> on Monday March 17, 2003 @11:51PM (#5534293) Homepage
      From your post...

      "The XP GUI is the most garish set of colors. It looks like the artwork of the mentally ill."

      As someone who is mentally ill, I find your statement insulting. Even without my medication I could do a much better job than the color scheme of XP.

      Note: Before I'm attacked for joking about mental illness, check the site below my name. I've personally been through the hell of mental treason. Therefore, I'm allowed to use my condition to insult Microsoft. Thank you.

    • Re:Mac GUI the most "in your face"? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by pvera ( 250260 ) <pedro.vera@gmail.com> on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @12:08AM (#5534375) Homepage Journal
      The OS X iterface becomes totally invisible once you are used to it. You only notice it when you need it to do something for you. 99% of the time I don't even notice the brushed metal windows in Safari and iTunes! The XP interface constantly screams at you for attention.

      That said, I am happy with what Microsoft did with the XP interface. It is not perfect but it is headed in the right direction.

    • One Tab Beyond a Whore. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by twitter ( 104583 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @12:54AM (#5534558) Homepage Journal
      Quothe the "Definative Report":

      However, this all-blue default color on XP is kind of 60's psychedelic, it gets on my eyes soon enough.

      Dude, it's the BSoD. I know it seems profoundly clear under the influence but you will have your doubts later. Get some sleep.

      Seriously, this article was a Windoze love in. How can anyone who likes XP diss KDE and QT as "clunky"? Oh wait, he snears at all the interfaces but BeOS, which he does not use, and XP which he praises to the stars: Best interface, "most logical" and then he describes how prety he thinks it is. If that's not enough to make you sick try this:

      The best usability I get is from Windows XP. This is the only reason I keep WinXP still as my main operating system. ... I found that the best DE on integration (see: the DE that requires you LESS to open a terminal window) is Windows, hands down. Everything can be configured with a GUI and when there is not a preference panel for something, there is always the registry, even when you want to enable the most weird hacks on applications found or your system. ... Windows XP would be my second best regarding UI responsiveness. It is already very responsive, a huge (and I mean HUGE) improvement on multitasking/multithreading over the Win9x codebase, but it is not as good as in BeOS. The user can get a lot of freezing ... I found Windows XP and MacOSX to be the most stable environments ... Technology: Windows and X11 don't have many of these cool features, in fact X11 is the least powerful of all. [then give XP highest numerical rating!] ... For Windows, well, MFCs, .NET and Win32 are really powerful APIs which let you do the same thing in many different ways ... Final Rating: Windows XP 8.55 MacOSX 8.33 BeOS 8.22 KDE 6.72 Gnome 6.61

      Shallow useless gloss. All the virtues of all other systems are cited as faults and all of XPs faults are smothed over or even listed as virtues in the most disgusting and self contradictory manner possible. What distro did he use to get all of those awful KDE and Gnome crashes? Why is it that my experiences don't match his? Hmmmm. If he likes BeOS so advanced, why does it not score highest? Why include it at all? "I include the BeOS in this comparison not because I consider it an OS with a bright future ..." Oh, I know, because not many people are familiar with it or will bother to try it so he thinks he can troll at will. Has this dope ever worked with another OS as his "main system"? Has he ever gotten away from the default settings in KDE or Gnome or done anything to match those leet windoze registry hacks he brags about? Poop, X can be tortured into anything [xpde.com] but something makes me think he would have praised M$'s offerings regardless of what they were. What a whore.

  • stability (Score:2, Insightful)

    by bcrowell ( 177657 )
    [stability --] Rating: Windows XP 9.5, MacOSX 9, KDE 7, BeOS 7.5, Gnome 8.
    Sorry, but this is just plain wrong. My two main environments right now are MacOS X and KDE. I have never ever ever had KDE crash on me. MacOS X crashes a lot.

    He criticizes Konqueror's stability. I agree. Konqeuror has crashed on me many many times, and it seems very buggy (at least the version I've used). This not the fault of KDE. Who cares? You can mix and match Mozilla/Konq/Galeon with KDE/Gnome/whatever. If you don't like a

    • Re:stability (Score:2, Informative)

      by embedded_C ( 653649 )
      As I was so kindly corrected, "He" is a "She". And from her website ....

      I own a dual Intel Celeron 2x533 Mhz system with a 3Dfx Voodoo5, Creative SBlive! and 256 MB SDRAM, powered by the best Operating System out there, the BeOS (among 6-7 more OSes also installed, including QNX RtP, Windows XP PRO, Gentoo, Mandrake, Lycoris, Xandros, & Red Hat Linux, Syllable and MacOS 8.1 under emulation).

      http://www.eugenia.co.uk/ [eugenia.co.uk]

    • You can mix and match Mozilla/Konq/Galeon with KDE/Gnome/whatever.

      On this note: I just found out how to make KDE call out to other browsers. Normally, something like KNewsApplet will call Konq to open web pages. But on the file type association page, you can tell KDE to prefer Mozilla for text/html.

    • Re:stability (Score:5, Informative)

      by Trogre ( 513942 ) on Monday March 17, 2003 @10:50PM (#5533998) Homepage
      Uhh, the konqueror isn't just a web browser, it's also the KDE file manager.

      What file manager do you use?

      To have a great DE but a buggy file manager effectively renders the DE useless if you use the DE for any kind of file manipulation.

      You say that KDE has never crashed on you but Konqueror has? What's the difference? Were you browsing the web, or a list of files at the time?

      • Re:stability (Score:3, Interesting)

        by zurab ( 188064 )
        You say that KDE has never crashed on you but Konqueror has? What's the difference? Were you browsing the web, or a list of files at the time?

        The difference is that only one process crashes, others keep on going. There is no effective parent-child relationship to browsing a directory tree and browsing the web when you use Konqueror; Konqueror doesn't even run on its own when KDE desktop is running. Windows is a different story, it runs explorer all the time.

        Another point is that yes - Konqueror has crash
    • It depends on how the DE was put together. Some of the Linux vendors is doing the minimal possible on the KDE side and others minnimizing GNOME. The real problem with KDE is that one major distro really wishes to kill KDE and does as much as possible to destablize it. I notice that she was running blue curve on GNOME. Hummmm which distro?

  • Mac OS X is the best.... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by smd4985 ( 203677 ) on Monday March 17, 2003 @10:23PM (#5533872) Homepage
    Let's see:
    1) A very usable, nice-looking GUI
    2) All the functionality of Unix/Linux

    I know there is a 'emulate XP' effort for Linux, but there should really be one to emulate OS X. It gets rid of the two main failings of OS X:

    1) Not open
    2) Pricey

    • Pricey? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by bill_mcgonigle ( 4333 )
      OK, so it costs $97 for a copy of Jaguar from Amazon. You won't get any arguments from me that 10.0 and 10.1 were beta releases, but it's here for real now.

      So, what should it cost? Seriously, I hear people complain but I don't hear the alternatives, except rants about dumping their hardware unit (most of the company).

      Back when a IIci cost $6K, upgrades for life were taken for granted. But people spoke, they wanted cheaper hardware, so out went the pre-purchased upgrades.

      So, what would you charge for i

  • Rating Categories? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Castaa ( 458419 )
    No consideration is given to the cost of any of the OS's? What percent does one pay for the OS vs. the hardware now? That ratio goes up every year with Windows. What's it is now for Windows XP Professional box? 30%?

    Flexibility for Linux (KDE/Gnome) a 7? What is more flexible than an open source operating system?

    • Re:Rating Categories? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by fmita ( 517041 )
      If you read the article, Eugenia (the author), states that although KDE is extremely customizable, the menus and such are convaluted and make customizing rather difficult.
      to quote the article: "However, this flexibility comes at a cost. The Kontrol Center of KDE is just bloated, plain and simple...I give KDE an 8 (and not a 9 or 10) because of these problems created by this flexibility, not because the flexibility is not there (it is)."

  • Hmm. Not helpful (Score:5, Insightful)

    by WatertonMan ( 550706 ) on Monday March 17, 2003 @10:26PM (#5533881)
    I think the XP vs. OSX comparison site posted here a few days ago was more helpful. This article is very, very superficial. It doesn't really focus on *how* you do things with the OSs. Instead it focuses in on more subjective elements, such as appearances. (i.e. do you like Luna or Aqua)

    Some things were a bit unfair, such as the slowness of OSX. Yeah, the desktop hardware sucks right now. But I'm not sure you should judge the environment on the fact that Macintoshes are on average about half as fast as Intel machines. That'll change in September with the 970 machines.

    Also in usability, a lot depends upon what you are used to. Since most people are used to Windows that is unsurprisingly what most people value. Don't get me wrong. There is something to be said for that. But it then emphasizes status quo at the expense of innovation.

    I think all OSes and environments have pluses and minuses. I prefer OSX but find many things that drive me batty. (Open/Save dialogs, the poor multithreading in the Finder, Column view) On the other hand I prefer the Apple approach of making things intuitive and simple rather than Microsoft's approach of hand holding and wizards.

    I think both have their pluses and minuses. Certainly the fact that Windows runs on cheaper and faster hardware recommends it right now. However as an overall environment OSX has matured very nicely. I actually went and paid the price premium for a Mac for my home. (Using XP for my development at work) It is sad that most comparisons are as superficial and unhelpful as this one was.

  • Run that by me again? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Have Blue ( 616 ) on Monday March 17, 2003 @10:26PM (#5533882) Homepage
    What Mac OS X lacks though is good keyboard navigation.

    Another thing I recently realized deeply is that Macs are way more keyboard-oriented than the rest platforms,
    Says it all, really...

  • Mac OS X does not have vector icons (Score:4, Informative)

    by green pizza ( 159161 ) on Monday March 17, 2003 @10:30PM (#5533899) Homepage
    The article claims that Mac OS X has vector (resolution independant) icons. This is incorrect. Mac OS X uses 128 x 128 pixel icons, which are scaled to the requested size.

    The only desktop environment i can think of with vector based icons is SGI's "Indigo Magic" or "IRIX Interactive Desktop".

  • Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday March 17, 2003 @10:31PM (#5533905)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Talk about subjective ... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by shayborg ( 650364 ) on Monday March 17, 2003 @10:31PM (#5533910)
    MacOS X has probably the most in-your-face eye candy of all the DEs compared here.

    Aqua is more in-your-face than Luna? I just don't get that. In all honesty, I find the OS X interface to be far less glaring than XP's. The default Luna and Aqua themes are both focused on blue, but Aqua's blue is more muted and is far less noticeable during regular usage of the OS. Right now, on this OS X screen (and not counting application icons in the Dock), the only blue things are the Apple logo in the top left, the scroll bar, and the widgets for dropdown menus. On the XP machine beside me, the title bar of the Mozilla window is blue, the scrollbars are blue, the taskbar is blue, and the outline of the windows are blue. That's an order of magnitude more bright blue pixels on the screen ... And don't get me started on shockingly bright colors. Both the start menu and the close button could stand to be a little more muted in Windows, while on OS X the only really bright non-blue parts are the window close-minimize-maximize widgets, which are shaded and not quite as bright. Everything else is a shade of white, which again is much less in-your-face. In other words, the Aqua theme focuses on white and light blue, while Luna just splashes a bright blue all over the screen. How exactly is Luna less pervasive than Aqua?

    Let the flames commence. :-)

    -- shayborg

  • if you are used to Windows... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by g4dget ( 579145 ) on Monday March 17, 2003 @10:35PM (#5533927)
    The best usability I get is from Windows XP. This is the only reason I keep WinXP still as my main operating system. The user environment does what I expect it to do at any time. 95% of the applications carry out user-interactivity actions exactly like another Windows app would do it.

    Yes, if you use any environment for long enough, it will become natural. But that doesn't give it high usability. Daily annoyances are the speech bubbles that keep popping up without rhyme or reason from the icon bars, the ever changing ways in which icons rearrange and present themselves in Explorer, the inconsistent and confusing presentation of the file system (sometimes the Desktop is at the root, sometimes "My Computer" is, sometimes it's the "C:\" drive), to an absolutely hare-brained arrangement of the control panel and administrative tools (just you try to locate the disk partitioning tools on XP home edition).

    And if that is not enough, there are so many options and backwards compatibility settings and versions of programs that Windows doesn't even achieve the one thing he lauds it for: consistency. Programs follow conventions and looks from Windows 95 to XP, and the zillions of options mean that one XP desktop may behave completely differently from the next.

    Among this set of choices, Macintosh OS X clearly is the usability winner, if not for any other reason, simply because Apple essentially started from scratch and removed a lot of useless junk.

    • Re:if you are used to Windows... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Dunkalis ( 566394 ) <.crichards. .at. .gmx.net.> on Monday March 17, 2003 @11:42PM (#5534252)
      Someone finally agrees with me! Microsoft's OSes are confusing as hell, with My Computer trying to hide away the drive letters, and then forcing you to go through it to reach the drive of choice. It is the most frustrating part of Windows. Luckily, using \ will take you to the root of the C:\ drive, which makes life easier, though still frustrating when you need to access another device. And that control panel...Why is it so hard to access the Device Manager in XP? Its the only part of the control panel I use regularly.

      And the criticism of KDE and GNOME was horribly misplaced. Konqueror is as stable as a rock, and I use it for daily browsing! KDE applications are far more consistent than Windows and Mac applications, and also far more usable. And the complaints about X not being integrated in the kernel...X is not bad, and while its not the best, its much better than the Windows NT GUI server. I don't think it reaches the niceness of OpenGL accelerated Aqua, but its getting there. As for screen size, XP is unusable at low resolutions, and so is Mac OS.

      And the programming paradigm section was wrong. I don't care how much you hate C, review the toolkit, not the language. I personally don't like GTK for programming, bowever, saying that GTKmm is a hack is wrong. It works, albeit not as nicely as Qt, which is God's gift to C++ progammers. MFC is the exact opposite. It always bugs me, though, that people complain that an API doesn't work the way they want it to. If you're using MFC, you should use it the way it was meant to be used, and so forth and so on.

      Oh, and I've never touched BeOS, so I don't know how it is.

      • Re:if you are used to Windows... (Score:4, Informative)

        by MeanMF ( 631837 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @02:14AM (#5534865) Homepage
        Why is it so hard to access the Device Manager in XP? Its the only part of the control panel I use regularly.

        Create a shortcut to devmgmt.msc and you're all set...

  • *gasp* (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Not that I'm in love with microsoft, but I'm getting a certain "OMG, she picked windows!" *stunned silence* vibe from this thread.

    -Exit

  • Usability (Score:5, Interesting)

    by _fuzz_ ( 111591 ) <meNO@SPAMdavedunkin.com> on Monday March 17, 2003 @10:37PM (#5533934) Homepage
    From the article:
    The best usability I get is from Windows XP... The user environment does what I expect it to do at any time. 95% of the applications carry out user-interactivity actions exactly like another Windows app would do it... It is just the 'standard', we like it or not.

    Ok, this bugs me. The author is basing usability on what he's used to, not necessarily what is most usable. I can't dispute the fact that Windows apps tend to be consistent -- consistency is one of the most important components of usability). But if something is consistently crappy, it's still crappy. Just because someone is trained on one interface and is used to it doesn't make it highly usable from an objective point of view.

    It reminds me of a story about a lady who always cut the ends off of the ham before she baked it. One day her kid asked her why she did it. She answered, "because that's the way my mother always did it." She got curious about it though, so she called her mother. Her mother said that she cut off the ends of the ham because that's the way she used to do it. So the lady called her mother's mother, who told her that she cut off the ends of the ham because it wouldn't fit in the pan otherwise.

    All that to say that just because you're used to something doesn't mean it is the best way to do it.

    • Re:Usability (Score:2, Insightful)

      by SiMac ( 409541 )
      And everyone who's ever tried to use it knows Windows' drag and drop support is sooooo consistent between applications!

  • Starting with Windows XP's Luna interface is not the most pretty one. But it is the most logically designed one. Its widgets are well defined, while special care have been taken to the way things work in a way most people expect

    This is the key, to me. Its not about eye-candy -- at least, not purely. When you get right down to it, if it doesn't work the way people expect, usability suffers... and usability is the sum total of the name of the game.

    Contrast comments on KDE such as "extremely loose on detail

  • underlying technology (Score:5, Informative)

    by g4dget ( 579145 ) on Monday March 17, 2003 @10:45PM (#5533966)
    Therefore the technology used behind these DEs is an important factor on this comparison. In fact, this factor can be what allows a DE to do, or what locks a DE to not be able to do because the back-end functionality is not there or because architecture or legacy problems might prevent the creation of new cool stuff (and that's bad for the future potential of any DE). [...] MacOSX takes the lead here regarding the technology used. Double buffering everywhere, non-flickered UI, vector icons, good font rendering engine, "real" transparency support, PDF-based, QuartzExtreme for 3D assistance on the 2D space of the desktop and my personal favorite "smooth window dragging" (for lack of a better naming of a VSYNC'ed desktop).

    It's a myth that Mac OS X has any advantage here over either X11 or Windows. X11 has support for all those features, including VSYNC (which has been in there since the mid-1980's). X11, in fact, has support for pretty much exactly the Mac OS X graphics model through DisplayPostscript.

    The reason why these features are not used much in Gnome and KDE (or XP, for that matter) are partly historical and partly technical. Technically, it is not clear whether they are even desirable at this point. In particular, while the Mac does a few things like dragging windows around really well, on most normal graphics tasks, it is quite slow and consumes a lot of resources.

    Basically, this guy's review is essentially a reiteration of common pre-conceptions: "XP is usable", "OS X is technically superior", and "Gnome/KDE is just third rate". Well, that's not news. It's also wrong.

    • Re:underlying technology (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      X11, in fact, has support for pretty much exactly the Mac OS X graphics model through DisplayPostscript.

      Uh, what?

      Display Postscript is proprietary and costs money to license from Adobe. Tell me how to get it running on my RH8 box please.

      Of course it won't matter anyway, because no other RH8 box will have DPS and as a developer I can't assume it exists.

      Apple didn't even bother licensing Postscript, that's why they use PDF everywhere which doesn't require a license. Apple's implementation is not fro

      • Display Postscript is proprietary and costs money to license from Adobe. Tell me how to get it running on my RH8 box please.

        What does that have to do with anything I wrote? DisplayPostscript has been available for X11 commercially since before Linux even existed, back when Apple was barely past black-and-white Macs.

        XFree86 4 used to ship with a DPS extension (based on a donated IBM DPS implementation, I believe), but that isn't being developed anymore because X11 now has better mechanisms for doing the

      • Like most "X sucks" posts, this one boils down to lack of true transparency.

        Ignoring the fact that for real world usefulness and platform stability (by which i'm talking about standards, not MTBF) an open network transparent protocol is far superior, X will soon be getting these features anyway.

        The reason it takes so long? Doing it well is hard. Double-buffering everything consumes vast amounts of resources. The reason X11/GDI have such complex geometric calculation APIs is to cut down the amount of d

  • Hands down... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Kyn ( 539206 ) on Monday March 17, 2003 @10:45PM (#5533967) Homepage Journal
    Hands down this was a pretty lame article. No screenshots, potshots (at Windows) or Jello shots. Overall, I give it a 3.6. Yes, my ranking is arbitrary. I apologize.

  • KDE prejudice (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 17, 2003 @10:49PM (#5533991)
    I've used both extensively, and KDE wipes the floor with XP. You say I'm lying? Let's do a feature comparison then, shall we?

    1. Which DE comes with tabbed browsing and popup window suppression in its web browser?

    KDE

    2. Which DE has a file manager that lets you right click on a directory and open up a terminal right in that directory?

    KDE

    3. Which DE has multiple desktop abilities out of the box?

    KDE

    4. Which DE comes with an office suite?

    KDE

    5. Which DE comes with a download manager?

    KDE (3.1 comes with kget which integrates with konqueror)

    6. Which DE comes with source code and its own professional IDE -- all for free?

    KDE

    7. Which DE pisses you off with product activation?

    XP

    'nuff said

    Oh, and don't use Keramik, it sucks, use something like the new .NET style.

    Screenshot of my desktop:

    http://www.insanebaboon.netfirms.com/desktop2.ht ml
  • Next sentences should be 'This paper is what I like and what I don't like. There is no nothing scientific about my ratings in any way'.

  • KDE 3.1 (Score:5, Interesting)

    by miketang16 ( 585602 ) on Monday March 17, 2003 @11:01PM (#5534051) Journal
    OK, I'm not here to advertise for KDE, and I am in no way affiliated with KDE. With that said, I love KDE 3.1

    KDE 3 was nice, but it still lacked some things. With 3.1, I feel like I'm in a clean, visually appealing, fast(yes fast in X) desktop environment. Some people say that the visual appearance of a desktop environment is not important, but considering that I have to look at it for at least 1/2 of my day, I'd prefer it looked inviting. I'd like to hear what other people have to say about this or Gnome.

  • KDE usability (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Drasil ( 580067 )

    I think subjective says it all for this article. I can't comment on the other DEs, as I have been using KDE more or less exclusivly for the past 3 to 4 years and I've not used gnome after my initial trial of it when I ditched windows, BUT....

    After getting used to KDE I find that windows (98/2000) is unusable. The author seemed to be intimidated by the level of functionality of KDE. I strongly disagree with the criticism of konqueror, I find it to be the best file manager, file viewer, browser and more tha

  • As for KDE, well, Konqueror is just not stable.

    Bullshit. Plain simple.
  • wow man he totally layed the smack down on KDE and Gnome.

    Ok...I can't say for sure about Gnome, but I take issue with
    some of his KDE Problems
    Specifically I take issues when he be dissing Konq

    Konqueror (the main KDE application) leaves a really sour taste.

    I have got to Say Konq is by far the best file manager I have ever used.
    It is Extemely easy to use, and Configure, it is also has way more functionality then any other File Manager I have ever used.
    quit simply it is DA SHIT!

    Compaiting Konq to any other File Manager is like Comparing Google to HotBot. ....
    but he had some good points about the rest of KDE
    -The default K Menu Is confusing
    -Window Redraw are slow
    -the eye candy on the default theme needs to be toned down.

    but what can you say....he found windows easier to use ....windows is his default environment....now the real question is.

    Is his Default DE Windows because its easier to use?
    or
    Does he Find Windows easier to Use because its his default DE?

    I know why I have KDE running....do you know why you run your Desktop Environment?

  • Clearly this is the point of this article.

  • desktop environment pros and cons (Score:4, Insightful)

    by myc ( 105406 ) on Monday March 17, 2003 @11:20PM (#5534145)
    --windows xp/2000 pros:

    its a happy medium; it's GUI is not quite as dumbed down as a Mac (pre-OSX) that you'd *need* the mouse to do everything, but for grandma its plenty simple (so long as grandma doesn't have admin privs and messes with c:\windows). Keyboard shortcuts are fairly consistent across the board, default widgets are fairly well thought out (with one exxception, see macOS commments below). Fairly zippy wrt to speed/responsiveness. Reasonably stable. Bboatloads of apps available.

    --win xp/2000 cons:

    not Free. Not highly configurable GUI (at least, not without 3rd party apps [stardock.com]). lots of dumbass developers who don't use default OS widgets and create confusion in the app's UI (see: Windows Media Player 9).

    --MacOs pros:

    Since my experience has been mostly in a biology lab where we have tons of legacy apps that run only on MacOS classic, this is where most of my Mac experience lies. Not that many pros, really :P I really *really* like the MacOS widget that resizes windows exactly as big as they need to be, no more no less. I wish windows and/or linux had this functionality...highly consistent interface from app to app.

    --MacOS cons:

    ridiculously unstable, no protected memory, no preemptive multitasking. next to impossible keyboard navigation of filesystem, making mouse a necessity. System extensions are IMO worse than dll hell in windows, I support Mac and Windows computers in the lab and windows machines are by far easier to handle. I could go on and on bitching about MacOS classic....dunno about OSX, will try it some day when DNA Strider and OpenLab are ported to OSX and our lab upgrades our mac hardware :P

    --GNNU/Linux systems pros (both GNOME and LINUX):

    Free as in speech and beer. Highly configurable. boatloads of apps. more or less free community support.

    --cons:

    support is only free if your time is worthless. many things that you install yourself (i.e. did not come packaged with distro) almost never work out of the box and require mucking around with (also see first point). Inconsistent interface from app to app (emacs vs vi, anyone?) From my perspective, no hardware support for scientific hardware (e.g. high speed CCD cameras, digital frame grabbers, automatic confocal microscopes, high resolution image analysis, etc etc.....in other words, its a great system if you are a hacker but if you want to get REAL work done you'll spend too much time trying to get it to work. People would rather put up with a crappy OS and get things done.

    Personally, from an end user's point of view I wouldn't mind if Linux developers developed only for RedHat Linux and RedHat decided to stick with either GNOME or KDe and stuck with it. At least then there would be no confusion and things would be consistent. I also wouldn't mind if they packaged their distro by picking one tool for one type of job and ditch all the redundant apps. While cutting down on choice, at least nonhacker people could get things to actually *work* and not have to muck around too much...

    • Re:desktop environment pros and cons (Score:5, Insightful)

      by molarmass192 ( 608071 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @12:43AM (#5534524) Homepage Journal
      Your posts about Linux are pretty far off-base:

      1) When is the last time you called MS support and got USEFUL information? The "support is only free if your time is worthless" argument is completely moot. You want support? Get a support contract with RedHat.

      2) Things you install yourself (not from the distro) almost never work out of the box. No kidding, well not ALL non-MS Windows apps ALWAYS work right out of the box either. See where I'm going here? If you want a guarantee it will work, stick with the apps certified with the distro.

      3) Inconsistent interface (emacs vs. vi)? Come on, compare apples to oranges why don't you. I could just as easily say MS-Word and Corel WordPerfect have inconsistent interfaces. They're not from the same authors and toolkits, they're bound to have differences. Besides, there's not interface guidelines for either emacs or vi. Pick a suite of applications and compare within, like the KDE suite or the GNOME suite.

      4) No hardware support for scientific hardware:

      CCD Camera [dimensional.com]
      Digital Frame Grabbers [anu.edu.au]
      Confocal Microscopy- got me there, guess they must stock these at your local BestBuy because mine sure doesn't
      High Res Image Analysis [iseeimaging.com]

      Fact is, you probably didn't know about all this before you posted but now you do. I'm not saying everything works hunky-dory under Linux but don't post untruths. If you don't like Linux, fine, then don't use it, nobody's forcing you in the way MS forces it's products on the masses.

  • combo boxes and tab ranks (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jpellino ( 202698 ) on Monday March 17, 2003 @11:25PM (#5534164)
    what's up with them in windows?

    combo boxes STILL suck.

    the rows of tabs that flip and change position are the single most unnerving UI element ever conceived. you click one element and the entire geography of the context you're in flips. what was stable a millisecond ago is now reorded.

    it's like a battle axe poised against the very wiring of your short term memory.

  • Definitive? I don't think so. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Daimaou ( 97573 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @12:10AM (#5534387)
    Anyone who has visited OSNews more than twice knows that Eugenia has an unhealthy infatuation with Windows XP (it used to be with BeOS, but perhaps she has finally come to grips with the fact that BeOS is dead).

    I usually skip over any "definitive" or "unbiased" OS reviews from Eugenia since the outcome is always: Linux sucks; OS X is okay but still sucks; XP has some minor flaws, but they pale in comparison to how absolutely dreamy XP is.

    Anyway, I found the article ill-informed and very biased and a far cry from definitive (more like diminutive). It must have been a slow news day at OSNews.

  • Really doesn't matter to me... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by toupsie ( 88295 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @12:17AM (#5534424) Homepage
    Look, we can all bitch and moan about the state of the GUI on all the popular desktop windowing systems -- Xfree86, Windows 95/98/2000/Srv/XP, Quartz, etc -- but they all do the same thing with basically the same methods but different variations of bewitching accuracy in ease of use. I work with all on a daily basis. The reason I can stand all of them is due to 3rd party developers and open source standards creeping in the mainstream. They can all be made to behave in a roughly common manner.

    With XML and other future standards of data storage and organization, the OS is devolving into a commodity had by desire instead of function. The imagination of the altruistic programer and the true hacker for profit (rightly so) have enhanced all major 'GUI Environments'. People that have convinced you that default isn't good enough and taking advantage of open source commonalty in that sales pitch.

    We will all have preferences in style, function and initial capability. As long as the information that preference in system can generate is cross compatible, the form and feedback can be left up to human desire instead of program requirements. In the end, the only reason we are stabbing our fingers around is to get some sort of understandable response back from a cold, inanimate object. If you can design an input system that limits that interaction and produces the same or more work, I'll be using it. That's why my #1 interface to a computer is the CLI.

    As I always say, "Strive for Utopia, but deal with today".

  • User testing (Score:4, Insightful)

    by randolph ( 2352 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @03:58AM (#5535147)
    I would have preferred to see testing across a group of users, and perhaps some actual measurements as well. If design is to be more than satisfying one's own prejudices it must rely on user testing. Notably, emacs, Unix, and MacOS classic are all results of design efforts that involved extensive user testing, with MacOS the most formal of the three.

    The author did pick up on a MacOS characteristic that I have not seen widely discussed and is likely to influence most user experience: the slowness of immediate feedback. Good on her. On the other hand, I am struck that the author does not recognize the visual precedent of the default XP theme, which appears to be plastic children's toys.

    As to achieving a productive and pleasant GUI user experience on Linux... Knowlegeable people who would never in a million years attempt design of an operating system internal without careful thought and study seem to be convinced that they can dream up a GUI without either. If one is convinced there is no commonality in UI experience--that it is all a matter of taste--then why not the designer's taste? In practice, though, there are commonalities in user experience. I believe it is important, here, to pay attention to the ancient distinction between architecture and building; if it's architecture worth living in, it is built with attention to the people who live in it, not just the designer and builders.

  • Sick of Eugenia (Score:5, Insightful)

    by realnowhereman ( 263389 ) <andyparkins@nOsPam.gmail.com> on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @07:08AM (#5535494)
    Some quotes:
    • What we are comparing here is the overall user experience
    • I decided to include in this test only operating systems that I can reboot at any time
    • the way things work in a way most people expect


    The translation
    • What we are comparing here is my overall user experience
    • I decided to include in this test only operating systems that I can reboot at any time, thus rejecting any scientific methodology or averaging effects which may significant when determining membership of a particularly fuzzy data set
    • the way things work in a way I expect as a long time user of $MYFAVOURITE desktop environment


    I'm not going to go on, all of Eugenia articles are like this. Stating opinions as if they were facts does not make them facts. "The buttons are overwhelming" is not the same as "the temparature of the solution was 26 degrees". None of this is helpful - I (as a random member of the computing community) do not care what Eugenia's preferences for colour, widget style and theme are. I care whether these environments can be made to work the way I want them to. I (as the adminstrator for other desktops) care whether these environments have the ability to make my users happier; if their particular preferences can be accommodated.

    This brings me to what these sorts of reviews should focus on... absolutes only. e.g.

    features of WinXP: themeable, log multiple users on simultaneously, clean fonts, ability to choose classic style or luna

    features of KDE: virtual desktops, themeable, transparent menus, adjustable levels of eye candy, full featured keyboard shortcut editors

    etc.

    Writing those lists just now I noticed how hard it is to keep my own opinions out of it, but it can be done and a journalist should certainly be doing that. If a personal opinion were required, it would be preferable that a third party was used as the source of opinions as we are more likely to hear a balanced view than the rantings of one particular user.

    In such a subjective area - more care must be taken to remain objective. It is not sufficient to simply write at the top of the article "I realise this is subjective but...."; I'm sure what she meant, as a professional journalist, was "I realise this is subjective so I have taken the following steps to minimize any influence my own opinions may have on this review"

    This is a difficult task, articles such as these must by definition include some element of opinion; comments like "The menus were slow to respond" are acceptable even though "slow" is a subjective term; but one I would be willing to allow under the assumption that an experienced computer used could assign fuzzy terms like "slow" and "fast" with the same skill that we can all use terms like "hot" and "cold". This is not an excuse to decend into the completely unquantifiable "I want my UI pixel perfect".

    All these environments will gain equally from a more balanced review process and as such we will all gain.

    </rant>

  • Enough complaining about XP's default theme (Score:3, Informative)

    by blincoln ( 592401 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @07:12AM (#5535507) Homepage Journal
    If you don't like it, change it [lightstar1.com]. No commercial software is required.

    I'm running a sci-fi-esque shiny black theme [themexp.org] right now, and it works perfectly. It even replaced the huge Start menu button with one that's much more manageable.

  • A simple benchmark (Score:3, Interesting)

    by smartin ( 942 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @08:57AM (#5535668)
    Any desktop enviroment that does not let you push (lower) a window down on the window stack is fundamentally crippled.

  • Where GNU shines in UI design. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by erik_fredricks ( 446470 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2003 @09:05AM (#5535679)
    Take a look at WindowMaker [windowmaker.org] for the best, cleanest UI ever made. It leaves only the slightest memory footprint, locks up about once every nine months or so (requiring only the X server-not the OS-to be restarted), and plays nice with all apps, no matter what environment they were designed for.

    Though I understand the need for something like a taskbar, the way Apple and MS have implemented it is completey wrong. It's too space-consuming, ugly, and especially in Windows, barely functional. WindowMaker's dock handles this in a much cleaner and intuitive fashion, and I can't overstate how much easier multiple desktops make life-an idea neither Apple or MS have caught on to yet.

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