GNOME vs. KDE: the Latest Round

jammag writes "The debate about whether KDE or GNOME is the better Linux desktop is longstanding. Yet as Linux pundit Bruce Byfield discusses, it has entered a fresh chapter now that both desktop environments have versions that are radically different from their incarnations just a few years back. Moreover, 'the differences in KDE 4.6 and GNOME 3 (the latest releases) are greater than they have ever been,' he writes. Casting aside his usual diplomacy, Byfield acknowledges that he's heard rave reviews about GNOME 3, but disagrees: 'I suspect that the majority of users are more likely to be satisfied with KDE 4.6 than GNOME 3.'"

And your point is????

[cptdondo]

The whole idea of linux is choice. I run xfce4; once in a fit of stupidy I suggested my wife log in using KDE as it was closer to Windows and not as sparse as XFCE. Bad idea.... Turns out some people (4 for 4 in my family) prefer the sparseness of XFCE to any complicated desktop. I know this will bring forth an avalanche of "What about Ratpoison, Windowmaker, etc, etc, etc?"

Exactly. Run what you like and let the pundits amuse themselves.

Re:Why only these two?

[spauldo]

What others?

There's a billion window managers, but very few desktop environments in the sense that GNOME and KDE are.

A few of them:

• CDE - what XFCE used to try to look like before they got some sense. It's based on Motif and there's never been a free version of it. Even the commercial Unix companies have mostly abandoned it.
• Enlightenment (as a desktop environment, not just the WM) - it's still being worked on. Raster's got some good ideas - I hope to live to see them.
• GnuSTEP - a project to make a free version of the NextSTEP environment. It's slow going because these days, nobody remembers what NextSTEP looked like or why it was cool.
• Openlook - yeah, it's gone, gone, gone. It was kinda cool for the early 90's though. Sun dumped it for CDE (and then dumped CDE for GNOME)

I'm probably missing one or two, but that's pretty much it. Running some window manager with a few KDE or GNOME programs doesn't give you the full experience of the desktop environment. That's fine for some, like me and you, but a lot of people really want the integration and whatnot.

The argument is important not so much to the Linux world, where most distros give you the flexibility to run either, but to the commercial Unix world and companies who use commercial Unix software or inhouse software. For example, Sun went with GNOME starting with Solaris 10 (I think). That was a big blow for KDE at the time, because anyone writing commercial apps for Solaris pretty much had to switch to GNOME. Sure, you could run KDE on Solaris, but try convincing your customers to switch desktop environment just for your little program.

Re:Gnome 3 vs KDE 4 vs reality

[jadrian]

You can install Gnome & KDE apps side-by-side and they just work.

This is not the case, you probably missed the slashdot story on the drama between GNOME and Canonical [slashdot.org]. In particular see Aaron Seigo's rant [blogspot.com] on how GNOME ignored "status notifiers", a cross desktop specification submitted to Freedesktop.org and with an existing implementation by Canonical.

Re:KDE rubbish UI design

[KugelKurt]

Use Dolphin or KWord: massive toolbars and small content area.

Good news:
Dolphin in the upcoming version will change that: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9ujy04d0LMc/TY-FyUfXOuI/AAAAAAAAAeA/e6QxAfTjTXM/s1600/dolphin-default-4-6.png [blogspot.com]

KWord is dead, btw. Its maintainer supposedly was a dickhead so the KOffice crew left him altogether and created Calligra Suite with a new word processor forked from KWord. It'll take a while for the first Calligra release but some GUI aspects may change especially considering that the Calligra crew is also targeting mobile devices with small screens (something the old KWord maintainer fiercely fought against because he wanted to "concentrate on desktops with big screens").