Linus Switches From KDE To Gnome 869
An anonymous reader writes "In a recent Computerworld interview, Linus revealed that he's switched to Gnome — this despite launching a heavily critical broadside against Gnome just a few years ago. His reason? He thinks KDE 4 is a 'disaster.' Although it's improved recently, he'll find many who agree with this prognosis, and KDE 4 can be painful to use." There's quite a bit of interesting stuff in this interview, besides, regarding the current state of Linux development.
It makes sense... (Score:4, Interesting)
And... (Score:2, Interesting)
The point is, no matter what Linus, Stallman, Gates, Jobs use...that shouldn't matter for anyone else.
Re:It makes sense... (Score:5, Interesting)
That might be what's wrong with KDE but I think it's important to note WHY Gnome might have done things better.
Gnome has a lot more backing from big names in computing and KDE doesn't. It's not just big money, it's a lot of experience in user interfaces. Companies like Sun, Novell, IBM have helped Gnome be better suited to users.
Sun's accessibility contributions were a big plus.
Re:A reasoned analysis? That's good. (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, it's really just more like KDE4 is turning out to be much more work than everyone expected. In less than a week, they'll be putting out 4.2 which will essentially be the first major bugfix/upgrade of KDE4. Version 4.0 was little more than a developer release, and the transition to 4.1 was aimed to include the minimum functionality necessary to actually allow it to replace 3.5. With 4.2, KDE4 should finally be (nearly) what it was intended to be, and further releases will probably focus on simply adding features.
In short, KDE4 is basically a year late.
Re:A reasoned analysis? That's good. (Score:5, Interesting)
I still go on a who cares... If you like KDE 4 and everyone else doesn't who really cares. If you don't like GNOME who really cares.
I can't speak for everyone but what is the point of caring what Linux, RMS, ESR, Bill Gates, President Obama... personal preferences are. The same goes with changing your mind, I switched from DOS/windows 3.1 to Linux back in 1994, Then I switched from Linux to Solaris in 2000, Solaris to Mac OS X in 2002. While I was primarly using Linux and Solaris I jumped around windows managers. FVWM, MWM, CDE, Enlightment, GNome, KDE, back and forth. You know what there are also some really smart people who Like Vista!
Every software sometimes they give you tradeoffs that you don't want. But for some other people they like those tradeoffs. KDE 4 may have moved in a direction that Linus doesn't like as well as a bunch of other people. However There are some people who do like what the tradeoffs were.
Re:It makes sense... (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes, that's because you can't configure GNOME, and it doesn't do what you need it to do, so you just give up and accept the brown-plated shit that is given to you.
Since we are comparing Gnome to KDE, I have to call a serious BS on that. Since reading your comment, I decided to log off my Gnome desktop and log in using KDE4.1.
First, half of my "notification" icons in the kicker on the bottom are half blue. Before too long, all the icons will be gone completely.
Next, I run a dual monitor setup. My task bar is on the monitor on the left. I tried to drag it like I could in KDE3.5... nothing. I tried to right click on it like I do in Gnome. I got a menu, but "Move" was not an option. Finally, I figured out that I have to click on "Panel Settings", which put another panel on top of the first one, but still no way to move the panel. Finally, I learn through trial and error that the panel can be dragged and dropped, but only when the settings panel is open, and you can only drag the "settings" panel, not the actual panel itself. Oh, and it took three or four tries before I got it right. First it spread all my panel "widgets" all over the screen for no apparent reason. then it just moved the settings panel. The third try just moved the taskbar.... Finally, the panel moved to the right monitor, where I wanted it to begin with. It is listed as the "default" monitor, btw.
Also, there is no way to resize a panel like I could in kde3 and can still do in Gnome. There is no way to stack taskbar items like I could in KDE3 (I had it set to three rows of applications).
So, please, tell me again how KDE4.x is more configurable than Gnome.
Re:A reasoned analysis? That's good. (Score:5, Interesting)
In short, KDE4 is basically a year late.
And it is for that reason that I have such frustration with it...
It used to be, I could in good conscience make jokes about Windows, about how when Microsoft makes a "beta" release, it's what the rest of the world would call an Alpha, the release is really Beta quality, and SP1 is release candidate 1. By SP2, the product might be ready.
I could laugh about how Microsoft, and occasionally other proprietary shops, would follow that model, as opposed to the open source model, where the versioning seems to go, alpha is unstable (so beware), beta is good enough to use, release candidates are pretty solid, and release versions you can bet your business on.
But KDE4 was an alpha release. 4.1 was a beta release. Surrounding projects have done no better -- Amarok currently will not transcode automatically from flac to aac for ipods; it insists on mp3. This is a bug; it used to work. The stable Amarok won't fix the bug, because it's being depricated in favor of the kde4 version of Amarok, which doesn't yet support transcoding. WTF?
Kubuntu has done spectacularly bad as well. My mouse didn't work. Why? Because they included an update to the Bluez stack, to support a change to the kernel, but the KDE4 Bluetooth support hadn't been updated to support that new Bluez stack. Their solution? Drop bluetooth support in Kubuntu Intrepid. WTF?
It has been pretty much my own private Daily WTF as I continue to use KDE4. It's not yet so bad I'm going back to GNOME, but by this time next year, I suspect I'll be using something like Fluxbox again.
Re:It makes sense... (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, I am aware of and use gconf. And it helps some, but there's still some bone-headed design decision. My favorite, of course, is how they made it so that cursor blinking is a global setting. It doesn't matter if you use gconf or not, either your cursor blinks everywhere, including the terminal, or it blinks nowhere. That is, neither setting is acceptable.
Yeah. I like how I used to be able to sync my Palm based phone using KPilot. It wasn't great, but it kept my calendar and contact lists synced up with Kalendar and Kontact, which were great applications. Now, for no known reason, KPilot is no longer part of KDE since KDE4 and no other way to sync my Palm device with Kalendar and Kontact. In other words, I could do MORE in KDE 3.5 than I can do in KDE4.x! What a load of crap. Should I be able to do MORE with KDE4?
Sorry, but design decisions, I can get over and work around. If a Friggin Blinky Cursor is your biggest problem, then I'd say you got it pretty good. I lost functionality when I moved to KDE4! There are things that I simply can no longer do. I am stuck using G-Pilot and Evolution, both are Gnome apps. So again, design is simply a matter of making a desktop pretty. Functionality means that I can get stuff done. I can NOT do the things I need to do in KDE without Gnome.
Sorry, I loved KDE 3.x, but KDE4 sux and is completely unusable!
Now that is interesting (Score:2, Interesting)
For something that is so stable I am surprised that he reformats that often. I have no real insight here I just find it odd.
Sera
Re:A reasoned analysis? That's good. (Score:1, Interesting)
Now imagine if MS would ship pdf viewer with their system, adobe would shred them to pieces with anti-monopoly laws. Just look at problems IE shipping with windows generates (well, but without IE how will I download firefox?)
KDE 3.5 works great, Ubuntu dropped the ball (Score:4, Interesting)
KDE 4 is not a year late, it's just being pushed out by the distros before it is ready instead of working with KDE 3.5.
KDE 3.5 still works great. KDE 4 is not yet in alpha stage, which is fine for those that like the bleeding edge. The side effect is that it is still really is slow, awkward, buggy and incomplete.
So, I'm not sure why Torvalds feels compelled to highlight this. The fault is not necessarily for KDE 4 using a long time to take form. The real mistake, perhaps an intentional one, is for distros like Ubuntu to roll out a clearly unready desktop. One really could question the intent there.
If Ubuntu, and others, were serious about helping rather than harming, they'd set up a nice KDE 3.5 as a default for options like Kubuntu or KDE-Fedora. Remember, years ago, Red Hat had tricked out both leading desktop environments with common themes, bells and whistles. I'd like to see a return to those brief moments of common sense.
A side effect of the unreadiness of KDE4, hiding of KDE 3.5 and the turds that M$-Novell is dropping in the GNOME punch bowl, is that users are discovering Xfce [apt], Fluxbox [apt], FVWM-crystal [apt] and many others. (Ubuntu URLS there) Speaking of running window managers without a desktop environment, Compiz can be run like that, too.
Re:KDE 4 is a disaster (Score:4, Interesting)
The latest build of amaroK (2.0.1) is a heck of a lot better than the previous KDE 4.x amaroK builds. It still doesn't support syncing with MP3 players or mass storage devices but now the play list is searchable. I can live with it - if I need to sync with a player I can use the KDE3 version, but for just listening the KDE4 version is usable.
Now to be fair to the KDE team, much of it was a total rewrite and they have made it clear that KDE4 and early KDE4.1 will be missing a lot of legacy features, and that those missing features will be ported in as time goes on.
I hated KDE 4.0 - it was missing the folder view for the desktop. Ever since the Amiga and the original Mac I've expected the desktop to be a folder, and when I ran Win3x I ran Norton Desktop, which gave me a desktop folder metaphor.
I find the current KDE4 to be about as good as KDE up through 3.1 - usable, but not ideal, which made the availability of Gnome really nice. KDE 3.5 made me a diehard KDE user. I use KDE4.1 + compiz-fusion for my desktop environment, and have KDE 3.5 installed so I have access to all the apps with the kio slaves for work. I've come to hate gnome, with all of the dumbing down of the environment that has gone on for 5+ years -- ESPECIALLY the file open/save dialogs.
Also KDE isn't just for power users; I've sat novices in front of both gnome and KDE 3.5 and they invariably find their way around KDE 3.5 a lot easier. They can sit down and just use it without having to ask many questions.
Many accuse KDE of trying to be Windows, but my experience is that it has provided the best of Mac OS X and the best of Windows, a lot of additional functionality power users need (such as the kio slaves in konqueror, PLUS tabbed file management), AND provided the ability to extensively customize settings without having to recompile. On top of that, gnome uses a registry-style database for what settings you CAN tweak, and forces you to use gconf, whereas if there is a setting here or there that KDE does not provide a GUI for, you can tweak a config file and not have to recompile anything.
Linus has changed desktops before, and when KDE 4.x becomes more feature-rich expect to read remarks that he's changed back to KDE 4.x. IMHO, this is non-news. Something newsworthy from Linus would be that he's retiring from Linux kernel development, or he's decided FreeBSD is the way to go, or he's released the 3.0 version of the kernel.
KDE4 is not a disaster by any means; the current situation is the lack of understanding that the KDE team is releasing limited but stable features, and that KDE4.x is not considered feature-complete by anyone at this time.
If you're missing KDE 3.5.x functionality and need it, perhaps you need to choose KDE 3.5.x, or at least do what I am doing and run KDE 3.5.x and KDE4.x side-by-side.
There are a lot of things missing from kwin that I really like and miss, but I am using it understanding that the environment isn't complete by any stretch of the imagination.
Re:A reasoned analysis? That's good. (Score:4, Interesting)
The mantra seems to be that it will all come together in KDE 5.
Presumably by the same people who wait for Perl 6 and Hurd.
In Real Life(tm), we have to go with what's out now. And, quite frankly, KDE in its current version just doesn't cut it. Bugs and inconsistencies, bloat, too many kitchen sink apps, and version-dependency hells. Sure, Gnome isn't a lot better, but at present it is better.
Personally, I would like to see a new WM/GUI that doesn't load 240 interdependent libraries, but still provide all the features -- when wanted and asked for, but not a millisecond before. The whole integrated approach bugs me quite a bit.
Re:KDE 4 is a downgrade (Score:3, Interesting)
In other news... (Score:0, Interesting)
...Bill Gates switches from Kleenex to Puffs Plus.
Who the fuck cares.
Re:It makes sense... (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, that's because you can't configure GNOME, and it doesn't do what you need it to do, so you just give up and accept the brown-plated shit that is given to you.
I understand your position. KDE is better for power users, for people who like to fiddle with options. But for the regular public, using convoluted user intefaces with tons of configuration menus and toolbar buttons is overwhelming.
I consider myself a power user and I find KDE 3.5 a good desktop environment (except for that fucked-up kitchensink that is Konqueror), but I wouldn't recommend it to my non geek friends. And also, for power users, even the most complete user interfaces get in your way, so for advanced stuff we just use the command line. I betcha Linus does that too.
KDE 4 is another thing. They learned some things (like separating the fie manager from the web broswer), but they are using the same GUI guidelines from older KDE versions (with seem to be inspired from Netscape Communicator). They had the opportunity to make their programs more intuitive. maybe hiding advanced options using a plugin framework... but no, they had to take the eyecandy from OS X and Vista and make it impossible to use thanks for it's overconfigurability (I know that's not a word).
KDE4 is a trainwreck (Score:1, Interesting)
I agree with Torvalds wholeheartedly, and I'm very disturbed by the path KDE 4 has taken. I've used KDE since 1.0, and version 4 has me really worried. Not for the bugs, but for the strategic decisions. Replacing Konqueror with Dolphin was a VERY, VERY big mistake. And the desktop and taskbar are confusing and ugly.
KDE 3.5 was a jewel. Now that my favorite distro (opensuse) has dropped support for KDE 3.5, I'm...lost.
I know you can replace Konq as the default file manager, but I simply *don't believe* you guys that tell me that Konq has not been relegated to a web browser only. (Haha - it's WORST capability in 3.5).
I am not from "the other camp". I have preached KDE and Qt since their first releases, but I can't do it for this version of KDE. It's terrible.
On Linux you have choices. (Score:4, Interesting)
Thank God Linux gives you choices about this kind of thing. One of the reasons I would never even consider switching from back Linux to a proprietary OS is that on Windows or MacOS, you don't get any choice about which desktop or window manager to run. Bought a Mac but don't like the Finder? Tough luck.
Personally I dislike having a screen littered with little icons representing files, and I also seem to have much higher expectations about performance than a lot of people. That's why I use fluxbox. Linus can choose kde and then switch to gnome if kde has what he feels is a bad release. I don't have to agree with Linus, Linus doesn't have to agree with me, and likewise for everyone else.
Sometimes OSS is about zero cost, sometimes it's about freedom, but sometimes it's just about being able to change something because only you know what's right for you. It's exactly like the famous story about Stallman's indignance about the closed-source laser printer at MIT [wikipedia.org]. He knew what was right for him as a user. He knew that the printer was on a different floor of the building, so he needed a good way to find out the printer's state without having to go and look at it. Xerox couldn't anticipate his situation, and he didn't want them to; he simply wanted to be able to modify what his university had bought from them so that it would be appropriate for them as users.
Me too! (Score:4, Interesting)
Upgrading Ubuntu to Intrepid Ibex, I just tried KDE 4.1 (from using KDE 3.x for the past few years years) and found it to be REALLY slow with the fancy effects, and wasting of a lot of screen real estate with the new styles. It definately was getting in my way of trying to get stuff done.
You can't arrange files the way you like, the desktop is practically off limits except for KDE toys, the new K menu (being bulkier and over-animated) sucks, themes are gone (no way to "fix it"), etc.
Gnome may not be my choice but like KDE it Just works, maybe not as well as KDE 3 but it certainly is far better then the Fischer Price like KDE 4 interface.
Re:A reasoned analysis? That's good. (Score:2, Interesting)
Microsoft shipping a PDF viewer wouldn't be that problematic. Adobe gives away their PDF viewer, so they couldn't claim any lost profits or price fixing due to Microsoft. On the other hand, any PDF reader that Microsoft ships wouldn't support all of Adobe's fancy features unless Microsoft licensed them from Adobe, so there would still be reason for some people to get Adobe's software. The only significant damage to Adobe would be that their name wouldn't show up on as many computers.
However, it's really unlikely that Microsoft would ship a PDF reader, as it would pretty much have to comply with an existing open ISO standard that Microsoft has little influence over. Microsoft would rather try (hopelessly) to supplant PDF with a proprietary format that they control. Bundling a PDF reader with Windows would be a tacit admission that even Microsoft is subject to the pressures of the market, and that's something they can't swallow right now.
Re:What, no love for other window managers? (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes. [colinux.org]
Re:A reasoned analysis? That's good. (Score:1, Interesting)
as far as hand-held's go, i got several hours of work done last night at steak and shake using just a Nokia n800. oh yeah, it also has duke nukem 3d on, but that didn't stop my work flow.
Re:A reasoned analysis? That's good. (Score:4, Interesting)
Agreed. Fortunately openSUSE still includes KDE3.5.x and I'll stick with that until KDE4 improves or KDE3 support is dropped entirely.
I've read that Linus historically uses quite n00b friendly distros. He's never even run Debian due to its (perceived or otherwise) installation complexity. He's stated that he just wants to work on the kernel and not fiddle with the distro. See this interview [oreilly.com].
According to the Computerworld article, Linus upgraded Fedora $version and it bumped him to KDE4 without offering a choice. I think it all boils down to Linus' desire for the distribution to Just Work(tm). I'd imagine he simply doesn't have time to fight the distribution itself to shoehorn it into something resembling a usable environment.
Cheers
Re:On Linux you have choices. (Score:3, Interesting)
Personally I dislike having a screen littered with little icons representing files, and I also seem to have much higher expectations about performance than a lot of people. That's why I use fluxbox.
Agreed. But then I use fluxbox, too, so no surprise there.
What is surprising, and why I read these Gnome/KDE flamewars is the degree to which both sides screw up, leaving the community as a whole in disarray. On the one hand, you have Gnome, a perfectly usable desktop that could fit nicely into any corporate or home environment, but refuses to consider the user may their own preferences, or allow them to make them. On the other, you have KDE with all its features, configurability and enough bling to make a pimp blush, but has trouble working.
Lots of alternative "choices" of course. The problem is the majority of people insist on an all-singing all-dancing desktop environment, so few of those choices (except XFCE, perhaps) are viable, leaving us with the great Gnome/KDE debate.
Re:A reasoned analysis? That's good. (Score:2, Interesting)
Mac OS X has been using PDF as one of the core technologies for drawing graphics to the screen for something like 20 years, it's integrated deep into the system and always has been.
It's a bit late now to say "you can't do that!"
Re:A reasoned analysis? That's good. (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, you can use many shells on top of KDE. You're quite confused about terminology, and seem to mean "file manager" when you say shell. KDE is not a file manager either. Wikipedia should help straighten out the definitions for you.
Let's see....
Wikipedia on Explorer:
The default Windows shell is called Explorer
So I was right that Explorer is a shell.
Wikipedia on Finder:
As such the Finder acts like the shell on other operating systems, but using a graphical user interface, and is described in its 'About' window as The Macintosh Desktop Experience.
Finder isn't quite a shell but is the closest equivalent on Mac OS X
Wikipedia on Desktop Environment:
However a program, or set of programs which simulate a desktop environment may sometimes themselves be referred to as a desktop environment, with a desktop environment being considered either a window manager, or a suite of programs which includes a window manager. There is some disagreement on precisely what constitutes a desktop environment, and how one distinguishes one from a window manager.
So KDE is a Window manager or a suite of programs which includes a window manager?
:(
I'm confused now
Re:It makes sense... (Score:3, Interesting)
How about something like the ability to remove the "Create Folder/Create Launcher/Create Document" options out of the right-click menu.
I don't know what brain dead school of GUI design the idea came from that folders would be created with such regularity that a shortcut for them needed to be placed not only in the right-click menu, but in an unmovable position at the TOP of the right-click menu, but damn, what an annoying as hell "feature". I must have created dozens of folders by accidentally hitting that option instead of what I wanted which was to open a terminal (usually on other non-GNOME systems I worked with, I would have the terminal as the top option in the menu).
I jumped to KDE a while back to get configurability (it was before nautilus-actions existed), but as I understand it that right-click menu still can't be fully reconfigured.
There were other things at the time, such as not being able to resize a window without redrawing the contents, but I think gconf has an option for that buried somewhere.
Another one had to do with focus stealing prevention. KDE has options for that, but afaik GNOME doesn't. That would be stuff like if an app opens a window or a window takes focus on a desktop that isn't shown, GNOME would switch you over to that desktop, or worse the window would appear on the current desktop. At the time it was a circuit simulator that would update its results every 30 seconds or so (yeah imagine getting pulled to a different desktop every 30secs, not fun...)
I know that some things have changed in GNOME since I bailed, but if you think a blinking caret is the only option missing you are wrong.
Why switch? Impatience? I dont' think so... (Score:3, Interesting)
People wonder why move away from KDE to Gnome. We all KNOW that KDE4 is a radical step... and it simply needs maturing. So why not just look at KDE4 and stay at KDE 3.5 until things are truly ready??
Simple.
Imagine if Linus gave the world a new Linux kernel. It's a radical step. It mostly works except it has no dynamic device management, most drivers aren't ported yet and networking isn't quite there. Imagine if he said that all work on the prior kernel had stopped, and only the new kernel would have the security and features needed for the future.
I imaging a lot of people wouldn't trust Linux kernel development anymore... and thus we have the state of KDE. The KDE folks could not have trumpeted KDE 4's arrival more loudly. They were(are) PROUD of it and believe it is OBVIOUS that it is so much better than KDE 3.5. So why complain? You folks who believe that KDE 3 is better than KDE 4 are just plain WRONG. Why? Because the KDE developers SAY SO. Who are you do disagree?
(you gotta admit... it makes you want to switch to Gnome... doesn't it??)
KDE4 Lacks A Desktop (Score:5, Interesting)
Some might disagree but we have desktop metaphors on computers for a reason. When I use my computer I put things on the desktop, move them around, arrange them to my liking and habit. Without a true desktop metaphor I can't do that. KDE4 doesn't give me a true desktop metaphor.
KDE4 is implemented messy. They spent so much time on their start menu that they lost all sight of the desktop. The start menu needs revising even after all their work.
Putting my desktop in a tiny Window is just crazy. I have a large screen monitor for a reason.
Having such a conflict with compiz and the native compositing manager in KDE4 harms acceptance. Nothing like having my desktop slowed down because KDE won't give way to Compiz when it is installed (and I mean give way all the way).
Without a regular desktop metaphor KDE4 will continue to fail.
Re:Yaaaay! (Score:3, Interesting)
He said the gnome guys are thinking about a major reworking so he may end up switching back to KDE sooner than later. But that all really has to do with how fast they implement and what they implement.
Re:A reasoned analysis? That's good. (Score:3, Interesting)
Gnome and KDE should deal just with presentation (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:It makes sense... (Score:1, Interesting)
Sun's accessibility contributions were a big plus.
Dude... You have no idea how hard I've been laughing for the last 10 minutes or so since reading that.
Oh... Did I mention that I work for Sun? As in, the Sun Microsystems who came up with that paragon of usability known as CDE?
SAME here, from a *longtime* Linux user (Score:4, Interesting)
I came to Linux from SunOS in '93, switched from FVWM2 to KDE during the betas for KDE 1.0 in 1998 and used KDE all the way until last year, 2008.
I suffered as a reviewer through the truly horrible GNOME 1.0 release and the flames that resulted from my negative review and tried GNOME over and over again through the years, always strongly preferring KDE.
Then last year I finally upgraded from Fedora 5 to Fedora 9 and with it came KDE 4. I found it to be nearly unusable but used it nonetheless, still biased against GNOME for various reasons (including nonconfigurability). 4.1 came out and it was just as unusable.
The thing that finally made me switch are the molasses-slow file previews in Dolphin/Konqueror. In combination with everything else (compatibility, slowness, problems with the nvidia drivers, instability, lack of functionality in comparison to KDE 3.x) it just pushed me over the edge. In 1991 I would never have dreamed of using a "file manager" of any kind on my SunOS+X11 desktops, but this is 2009, not 1991, and when even the file manager is too slow to use (a 5-second preview of a folder in GNOME vs a 1-hour preview of a folder in KDE) then there's just no hope.
So I switched to GNOME last year, stuck with GNOME when upgrading to Fedora 10 this year. I've continued to "check in" on KDE, but despite repeated rounds of updated packages through yum, none of the problems that drove me away appear to have been solved. :-(
Re:A reasoned analysis? That's good. (Score:3, Interesting)
*Maybe* it has something to do with the fact that to install KDE 3.5 you have to click "other" when the openSUSE installation asks you what desktop you want, but I'm not so sure.
KDE 3.5 is not yet a completely dead end, newer KDE 4 / QT4 apps integrate well enough (like KTorrent and VirtualBox) and it just goes on where the old openSUSE installation left of, because you don't really "switch" your desktop. Plus, at least on openSUSE, the distribution still supports it very, very well.
I'm equally disappointed with KDE 4 as the next KDE user (I didn't even have any high hopes to begin with, but I did expect KDE 4.1 to be usable), but that didn't make me turn to Gnome. I love KDE, and I love it because of KDE 3.5. Why not keep using that?
Re:A reasoned analysis? That's good. (Score:3, Interesting)
Microsoft shipping a browser wouldn't be that problematic. Opera gives away their browser, so they couldn't...
Microsoft shipping a media player wouldn't be that problematic. [Everyone except Nero] gives away their media player, so they couldn't...
Microsoft shipping a text editor wouldn't be that problematic. [Almost no one] gives away their text editor, so they couldn't.
Three examples with different parties and wildly different legal situations. They've -been- sued for IE, they've -lost- a suit for IE, they've -lost- a suit for Windows Media Player and no one contests the fact that a useful OS requires basic components like a calculator and a notepad.
Yet every single one of those things is a free, optionally used component of their OS package. Sure, removing notepad or Windows Media Player is a lot easier than IE, but if you really want to remove more than just the outward IE application, good luck running more than a few basic programs that never make any calls to it.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:A reasoned analysis? That's good. (Score:4, Interesting)
For example: I have no complaints about Okular vs KPDF, other than that there's no KDE3 version of Okular.
Wow, am I the only one? I find that 25-50% of the files I load in Okular print incorrectly in some way. And that doesn't count the fact that I have to explicitly switch printing from A4 to US Letter *every* *single* *time* I re-open Okular. The bug reports all explain that this is due to a QT4 limitation. Great. Why is *anyone* shipping this to a US market as a standard piece of software? IMO this is a fatal bug for your standard document viewer.
I've been using KDE for a while and am a pretty advanced user, but I'm still scratching my head as to why Kubuntu has gone with KDE4.1 as its only option on 8.10. Yeah, sure, 8.04 is still supported, but ... my experience is that at least half the apps have bugs that aren't even subtle, they just flat out don't work in some fundamental way. And this includes Plasma, the fucking DESKTOP. I'm still using it because if I've worked out how to limp around its limitations and there's enough glimmer of hope that maybe it'll be nice some day, but if 4.2 doesn't just shine rainbows out its ass, I'm looking for something new.
And yeah, I know it's free, etc, etc, but it's disappointing to see such a huge step back in a distro that (for me) started off on the right track towards "just work"ing. Of course, I was transitioning from Gentoo so maybe my outlook was distorted... ;-)
Re:A reasoned analysis? That's good. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:A reasoned analysis? That's good. (Score:3, Interesting)
Windows and OS X are operating systems, so they're a little different. They include many more API layers -- generally low-level ones (such as volume management, drivers, etc). On Unix (for KDE and GNOME), these are provided by unix kernels like Linux and BSD. On windows and OS X, kernels and low-level APIs also exist, but they are hidden, and tend to be more integrated, so it's more difficult to say "this belongs to the DE, and this doesn't". Still quite possible though. In OS X, you can look at Darwin to see what's available below the DE level. In windows, you can look to Core. However, the distinction isn't that clear between operating system and desktop environment here, because GNOME and KDE both provide a level of operating system abstraction, so that their programs can run on, say, Linux, or BSD.
In KDE and GNOME, if you take away all the apps, even the shell, you still have an entire layer of consistent software which provides a unified experience for developers, and the apps those developers create. Both of these desktops provide features like a common file access layer (local files, remote files, logins to remote servers, etc.), web downloads, consistent GUI widgets, ways to handle events, sounds, etc. The idea is that modern apps need to both look and feel similar, if the user is to work productively and efficiently with them, together. Note that feel is just as important, if not more so than the look -- it's not about window management, so much as having OK buttons in the same part of the screen when you get a dialog box, having the same way to access files on a server whether you're editing an html file in a text editor, uploading an image in a paint program, downloading security logs in a file manager, etc. This is also true (but to a lesser extent, mainly due to resources/project scope) in other desktop environments, like Enlightenment, GNUstep, XFCE, etc. When you get simpler window managers like Blackbox, they tend not to be called desktop environments, unless they grow up and get many more features later.
So this unified, consistent interface is not what a winder manager does, nor a shell, nor a graphical shell. A window manager very simply lets you manage windows, by moving them around the screen, and manages the display of those windows (primarily which one is on top of which others). This is one single aspect of the WIMP (windows, icons, mouse, pointer) metaphor, which is in turn a only one aspect of a modern DE (the others being the APIs and consistency etc. mentioned above).
A traditional textual shell lets you interface with an operating system enough to run programs and control how they should run. That's pretty much it. Even closing the program again is basically outside the scope of a shell. Anything else is done by the programs, not the shell. Occasionally, this definition is blurred a little to provide efficiency gains -- for example, commands like "if" have been built into some shells. In others, even that basic command is external though.
A graphical shell... that's a foggy concept. I don't even believe "shell" should be applied to a modern desktop environment -- it's a bit like drivign dumper trucks, moving to sports cars, and then demanding to know which part of the sportscar is the dumper ;) However, carrying the concept of a shell over to DE's as clearly as possible, it's certainly much less than the entire desktop environment. If I had to define a graphical shell in a modern desktop, I'd probably define it as the dock in OS X, or the start menu in windows, plus the DE's APIs for launching tasks. The graphical shell would be the part of the desktop that's absolutely fundamental to running another program once you're in the desktop.
Now, there *is* overlap here with usage of a file manager, in that you might have to drag icons to the dock so the dock knows to put an icon there, ready for you to click in future. However, for the most part, the file manager is a seperate application, simply making use of the DE to pr
Re:A reasoned analysis? That's good. (Score:1, Interesting)
I agree with both parts of that sentence actually - I would like to know a little more about your thoughts on this digression...
El Presidente flamed me once for a comment I made about usability. That action stung but other flames, comments and observations have made me doubt whether there might not be a better candidate for KDE leadership, his technical ability notwithstanding.