Attempting To Reframe "KDE Vs. GNOME" 455
jammag writes "Setting aside the now tired debate about whether KDE or GNOME is the 'better' Linux desktop, Bruce Byfield compares their disparate development approaches and asks, not which desktop is subjectively better, but which developmental approach is likely to be most successful in the next few years. 'In the short term, GNOME's gradualism seems sensible. But, in the long-term, it could very well mean continuing to be dragged down by support for legacy sub-systems. It means being reduced to an imitator rather than innovator.' In contrast, 'you could say that KDE has done what's necessary and ripped the bandage off the scab. In the short term, the result has been a lot of screaming, but, in the long term, it has done what was necessary to thrive.'"
2nd Paragraph. (Score:4, Insightful)
In the second paragraph, the blogger says:
s/journalists/bloggers/ and you've got this story.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It is not an either/or choice - you can use any desktop environment with any apps (which means you have components of other environments runnins).
I use XFCE, with Gnome several applets in the panels as well as XFCE ones. I use some Gnome apps (Gedit, Epiphany), some plain Gtk ones (Firefox, Deluge, various configuration GUIs, Thunar) and some KDE ones (Akregator, Amarok, Konqueror, Kwrite, Kmail).
I am thinking of switching from Kmail to Claws, and I am not altogether happy with any file manager and would l
Re:2nd Paragraph. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, I know the article is on development methods, but it still suffers from this. There is no reason why both are not fitted to survive: both approaches have produced good software so far.
Incidentally, the fact that Windows is the most widely used OS, suggests that backward compatibility matters.
Re:2nd Paragraph. (Score:5, Insightful)
>Incidentally, the fact that Windows is the most widely used OS, suggests that backward compatibility matters.
No, lock-in, monopoly and inertia what matters.
If you have those, you can force anything on your customers.
Re:2nd Paragraph. (Score:4, Insightful)
And what exactly do you think "lock-in" is, if not a dependency on backwards-compatibility?
Re:2nd Paragraph. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:2nd Paragraph. (Score:5, Insightful)
What? That makes absolutely no sense. Lock-in means that you bundle two normally separated products to exclusively function with eachother.
Actually lock-in is any method which prevents users from moving to competitors by making such a move difficult or painful. It doesn't have to involve "separated products". I think you're getting lock-in confused with antitrust abuse.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You have it somewhat backwards. Lock-in causes backwards compatibility, not the other way around.
The weird thing is that Microsoft is as much trapped by it's own monopoly as anybody else. They cannot be incompatible, people will just continue using the stuff they already bought, or perhaps they would lose to some competitor using Wine or something and thus being more compatible. The very thing that traps everybody else into being unable to compete with Microsoft also traps themselves into being unable to co
Re:2nd Paragraph. (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't underestimate backwards compatibility. In a business environment, it's going to be one of the top things on the list. A business (especially a large one) can't simply switch because something else comes along. The cost to change and the (temporary) loss of productivity are too great.
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Hummm. No not really.
You may want to use the term inertia but it really is backward compatibility that gave Windows it's advantage.
When Windows 3.11 started making big gains it was because you could run your dos applications in it. And you could run more than one. There was almost zero windows software that really mattered. Probably the first Windows only program that a large number of people was probably office and Netscape+Trumpet Winsock.
What is the major complaint with Vista really? It is that a lot of
Re:2nd Paragraph. (Score:4, Insightful)
Monopoly? There are plenty of OSes around, they may not work as good in general as Windows does, but that don't make monopoly the reason stick with Windows. The reason is it's the best for their purpose.
Is that so?
Is it the reason why we have to put some companies through lawsuits for them to give us back the money for the forced Windows OS on every PC, even though I don't need it?
So everyone that don't want the OS forced on the PC they buy at retail actually goes through this effort?
News to me.
Inertia? Yes, if it's not broken why fix it? Also what would be the better alternative for most people? You seriously suggest most people would feel more happy with say Ubuntu than Windows? I think some of them have even tried, and thought not ...
I must have dreamed all these days lost helping people with their Windows. I also dreamed when I told them all I was not fixing their Windows anymore, but I can put Linux on their PC for them.
Those that switched I think I put them through Mandrake, then Ubuntu. Those that didn't switch, ended up either not using their PC anymore, or buying another one (which still don't work right).
All of this was a dream.
Applications and what you can do with your computer matters much more than having a superior solution. Without applications it's useless.
Which is exactly why some people like me switched years ago to Linux.
A long time since I answered to this kind of troll though, but I was in the modd, good times...
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for the forced Windows OS on every PC, even though I don't need it?
Vendors who entered into exclusivity agreement with Microsoft did so of their own accord, they were not forced by anything other than market conditions.
I must have dreamed all these days lost helping people with their Windows.
I've helped people use all sorts of electronic devices. Many many people do not have any aptitude at all for such things regardless of how simple they are.
I also dreamed when I told them all I was not fixing their Windows anymore, but I can put Linux on their PC for them.
This is the biggest lie Linux supporters tell. If Linux needs no fixing, why does the USB controller on my T61 just stop working randomly with Ubuntu, but it never does with XP? How about my screen failing
Re:2nd Paragraph. (Score:4, Interesting)
That's too bad you had OS troubles on your T61. Maybe now you understand a little how some people felt when they upgraded to Vista and hardware support wasn't exactly 100%.
Crunch Bang (a Ubuntu derivative) was a lot easier to install on my Lenovo W500 than Vista, that's for sure.
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Incidentally, the fact that Windows is the most widely used OS, suggests that backward compatibility matters.
Which could also be said for the lame attempts to save Amiga.
Workbench 3.0 came 1991 or 1992, Commodore filed for bankruptcy 1994.
And here we are and people still try to release systems with the same old or make a compatible environment instead of something fresh and modern but with the same "feel."
Though, there are so much good software on the Amiga which one would want to run.
I guess the same could be said about Haiku, but I have no idea how much may be new and fresh in it, and BeOS was more modern than A
Both will stay relevant (Score:4, Insightful)
Gnome and kde are designed for different types of people, in gnome everything is typically simple and straight forward, but lacks the ability to be configured the exact way you like and is less powerfl.
KDE on the other hand, gives a lot more flexibility and power over the way you have things, but the trade off is complexity.
Both will continue to be relevant to their different markets for the foreseeable future. Even if development halted right now.(not that it would)
Re: (Score:2, Redundant)
Insightful, but completely unrelated to the topic.
The story is about development methods used. The summary itself says so!
Re:Both will stay relevant (Score:5, Funny)
Hey, I heard Slashdot is a write-only forum. So I thought I write something completely unrelated to the article, summary, title and comments I'm replying to.
I even tried to not relate it to the site and reality on/in which I am, but it's kinda hard.
Am I doing well in blending in?
Re:Both will stay relevant (Score:5, Funny)
Considering your completely off topic post is now at +3, it's hard to deny that your premise seems to be correct and you are in fact doing well.
Re:Both will stay relevant (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't your typical Simple Gnome vs Flexible KDE debate.
For lack of a better analogy, this is like comparing Apple's transition to OSX with Windows' NT-2K-XP-Vista transitions.
Windows has been mostly successful at maintaining backwards compatibility, but it is starting to resemble a millstone hung from the neck. It's holding them back and getting in the way.
Meanwhile, Apple broke backwards compatibility and now are not encumbered by obsolete paradigms.
Re:Both will stay relevant (Score:4, Funny)
Except for their pricing model.
Re:Both will stay relevant (Score:5, Insightful)
two words: virtual machine.
leopard doesn't have compatibility with "classic" mac OS anymore, neither did tiger for intel boxes, but previous versions on powerPC did. basicaly it would load an entire copy of macOS 9 on a virtual machine and run classic apps there.
microsoft bought virtual PC probably out of envy for the success of VMWare. i say this because nobody there seems to have the vision neccessary to put it to good use. just develop something new, fast, secure and _INCOMPATIBLE_. port virtual PC for it and release as a bundle: new windows, virtual PC and a complete copy of XP to run as "classic windows". give people option to also use VMWare or virtual box as virtualisation environment (to keep people from crying foul) and get done with it.
Re:Both will stay relevant (Score:5, Interesting)
From my personal experience I have always preferred KDE over Gnome but with my own laptop I have always allowed a choice for my wife and kids. For many years KDE was preferred although my youngest son liked Gnome.
When I installed Fedora 10 it came with KDE 4.0 and that was a shock. For my wife the change was too radical and I quickly switched her to Gnome. I knew KDE would improve over time however what forced me to change to Gnome was the fact that switching users was impossible at the time. For a while Gnome worked quite well but I wasn't that happy with it since it always felt "old school" but usuable, however KDE at the time was painful to use.
When KDE 4.2 came out to it was much more stable and had the features I was happy with so I quickly switched back and have been happy with it since. To me the new KDE 4,2 while different to KDE 3.5 is IMHO much more interesting and fun to work with than Gnome, however my wife is yet to make the switch back since she is much more conservative. My youngest son is still quite happy with Gnome.
From the article the following quote is very relevent.
You can see the differences in the current states of the two desktops from the reviews. Reviews about KDE are not always positive, but they are about large issues and shifts in the desktop paradigm. Reading them, you cannot help but come away with the impression that KDE developers are headed in a definite direction, even if you disagree with some or all of the details.
At least we have the choice.
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You could try what my wife does. She does like "new and shiney" but does not nessasarily trust it on day to day work, so she has two user accounts, one for "normal" and the other "Experimental". And she trials out the new stuff, then asks me to help switch the "normal" one if she likes the new stuff.
She found she preferred KDE even though the change was quite drastic.
Re:Both will stay relevant (Score:4, Funny)
You're a hell of a guy. Next you'll be letting her go outside without a burqa.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
The choice of Gnome vs KDE for our house is more about support from the distro than differences in the desktops. Kbuntu is simply less stable and polished than Ubuntu.
I think the article should have talked about the recent open-sourcing of QT, which I think is critical in the KDE vs Gnome debate. Last time around, I steered application development towards GTK, rather than QT, and I had all the developers work in Gnome. This time around, because of the decision to LGPL QT, I'm steering the app to QT 4, an
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I realise that this is /., and you're discouraged from RTFA, but I think failing to read the first line of the summary is impressive even for here:
"Setting aside the now tired debate about whether KDE or GNOME is the 'better' Linux desktop, Bruce Byfield compares their disparate development approaches and asks, not which desktop is subjectively better, but which developmental approach is likely to be most successful in the next few years."
The point of the article is to discuss whether the design approach o
It's like trying to not think about elephants (Score:2)
If there's anything guaranteed to get people talking about X (no, not that X) it's to say "Setting aside X", "Leaving X out of consideration" "For purposes of simplication, ignore X".
It's like trying to not think about elephants.
Re: (Score:2)
both projects feed off each other
Care to elaborate?
Re:Both will stay relevant (Score:5, Interesting)
both projects feed off each other
Care to elaborate?
More likely they bounce off each other. A gnome developer who wants animated icons everywhere and per-component customisation of transparency can be told to piss off to KDE. Likewise a KDE developer who wants to enforce on one good way to do everything can be sent packing to gnome.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
No; there is much in Gnome that simply cannot be configured, even by experts. Unless you count ripping out complete subsystems and replacing them with non-Gnome components as "configuration", I guess.
And there is a lot more that technically can be configured, but only by editing undocumented gconf settings -- and since they're undocumented, they are subject to change at any time. So you might upgrade to a point release and suddenly your configuration is broken.
Sorry, but while Gnome has many virtues, conf
Gnome alienating users (Score:5, Funny)
In my opinion, despite Gnome's incremental approach, they are still highly successive in alienating their users.
Re:Gnome alienating users (Score:5, Insightful)
That, sadly, is true. I've been a big fan of Gnome since ~version 1.0, but have lost count of instances where the developers have arbitrarily decided that the way I like to get something done is no longer cool or trendy, so they break it.
Having said that, I do try occasionally to give KDE a fair go. But I have never managed to last more than a couple of weeks. I just find the interface unnecessarily cluttered, and it makes me cranky. Or crankier than normal, anyway.
At least neither of them are bad enough to drive me into the arms of Microsoft...
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After Gnome 1.4, i.e. ever since the 2.0 switch, they've done the most they could to piss me off.
Nowadays I flutter from Gnome to KDE to Enlightenment, depending on the machine, and each has its good and bad sides. But Gnome I like the least.
Anyway, back on topic... it's the evolution vs. revolution debate, for the most part, and even though I am a big fan of the evolutionary approach, it is sometimes too slow to be of much use. I prefer KDE's approach in this matter: there are new technologies, new needs,
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, in my case, the reverse is true. I started as a KDE fan (back in 1997 or 8), and the more and more I have seen and --- later -- experienced with GNOME, the more I liked GNOME. Every GNOME release seems -- for me -- to bring me closer to my personal optimum. As it is now, it is for me already fantastically simple and friendly, and the moments when I need to focus at all on the Desktop environment are really rare.
Instead of annyoing me with whatever they change from release to release, the GNOME devel
Incremental approach (Score:2)
I think it is not because of an incremental approach of GNOME, but rather because of their decremental approach.
Things like replacing GDM with a rewrite that still does not match the original GDM feature-wise (it even could not do XDMCP for a long time and it cannot do auto-login for single-user systems even now), replacing Sawfish with Metacity, replacing Galeon with Epiphany, which - even with epiphany-extensions package - still cannot match Galeon (despite the fact the development of Galeon has been dorm
Re: (Score:2)
I stand corrected on the autologin issue, thanks.
Another thing the new GDM cannot do is to specify the arguments of the X server command line (e.g. for running two X servers in a multiseat setup).
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All thats happened is Microsoft have improved their propaganda, woops i mean to say PR.
Its not software (GNOME vs KDE) thats holding back the adoption of Free software, its educating the brainwashed masses.
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Re:Meanwhile, MS Has Recovered From Vista... (Score:4, Insightful)
the troll has 1 relevant thing to say here:
instead of getting your shit together.
Now, I don't care so much about gnome v kde, but I do wish there was more consistency for all Linux GUIs. If everyone had a common standard to work to (eg the Windows Style Guidelines [amazon.com]) then the Linux desktop would become a better place to work. MS did wonders for themselves with this, and until recently kept with it - unfortunately, now they've replaced the menu bar with a round button thing, no-one can find the print option anymore - which only goes to show how important and powerful the guidelines were.
Linux has the opportunity to be great (we all know that, even the MS trolls), but isn't necessarily following up on its potential. Gnome v KDE is probably the biggest factor stopping this from happening.
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Nope! fish:// caches. It does fetch the directory every now and then, though hitting F5 will do it explicitly.
You can of course test this - if you have it installed, you can run Konqueror from inside GNOME perfectly well. Looks weird but the functionality is there.
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...if you have it installed, you can run Konqueror from inside GNOME perfectly well.
This is why most of the "KDE vs. GNOME" arguments are fuckin' pointless. You can run KDE apps under a Gnome environment and vice versa. There's no lock-in here. (I guess that you'll have some ~200MB of libs sitting around that you don't use all that often, so this functionality doesn't come without a price. OTOH, disks are cheap ATM.)
Re: (Score:2)
(OK - I started using KDE just when that horrible 4.0 version came out).
4.0 should never have been packaged. 4.2 is nice. _If_ you ever get a hankering to try out KDE again, know that 4.0 was *never* supposed to hit an end-user's computer. It was a tech preview for developers. :)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I really feel for the poor KDE developers with the slating that 4.0 got. It came out with the statement that it wasn't ready for end user use, but was for developers to get an early start on. When you downloaded it, the page said it wasn't stable and to use 3.5. The Kubunutu distribution (and others) stayed with KDE3.5. If you wanted to get the KDE4 version of Kubunutu you had to go to a separate page where it said this build was less stable and more intended for developers and people who wanted to experime
Well, I think (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Well, I think (Score:5, Funny)
You could say it is an Open Sores project. So to speak...
Re: (Score:2)
Just, you know, don't ever use KDE's built-in effects library or whatever, Compiz all the way. KDE is great for them desktop widgets, which are far far better than having icons all
Both have evolved too in leaps and bounds (Score:5, Informative)
From the article you get the impression that KDE use radical changes whereas Gnome strive in little steps...
How in accurate. Both evolve in little steps and both occasionally make radical changes.
Gnome had a major remake for 2.0 which reduced the older clotted layout.
KDE had a major remake for 4.0 which vectorized most of the gui.
Otherwise, changes are small. For both.
.
Re: (Score:2)
I tend to agree. Feels like the author is just writing to meet his quota. Whether KDE or GNOME comes out ahead in the coming years, I doubt it would have anything to do with what is said in this article.
Re:Both have evolved too in leaps and bounds (Score:4, Informative)
KDE has already done it with KDE 2.0 (which IIRC was before GNOME 2.0) which was a complete overhaul from what KDE 1.x was. Doing this in the 20th century was easy, but with the current user base and dependencies, it takes a lot of guts to shelf away backwards compatibility. I was first frustrated with what they did, but the more I look at it, this seems the better choice for them in the long run.
The question is wrong (Score:2)
KDE 4.2 (Score:5, Insightful)
Since 4.2, KDE4 has become quite usable. I already prefer it over KDE 3.5.
The real edge of KDE over Gnome has always been the tech, though. kioslaves vs. gnomevfs is one example, KParts another. Add Qt 4.5 to this, and it becomes obvious that KDE is vastly superior under the hood. But, this is not what users are interested in. I do think that KDE4 learned a lesson or two from Gnome about this. I just hope they don't start removing all options because they think the "user may be confused" (just like with the infamous printing dialog Linus Torvalds was so frustrated about).
Re:KDE 4.2 (Score:5, Interesting)
I have to say, 4.1 wasn't -that- bad. 4.0 was horrid, though.
4.2 is indeed more stable and prettier, though. And finally firefox looks right again... A lot of the radio buttons and checkboxes wouldn't show up right on 4.1.
At 4.0, I seriously considered a switch to Gnome. I even installed it to try it for a while. But 4.2 has totally relieved that feeling.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You're fine to install apps from either in the other. I try to avoid it because I'm obsessively purist about minimising memory and hard drive usage, but I can't argue the case on rational grounds. The way it works is this: Both KDE and Gnome have a whole slew of libraries that apps written for them depend on. If you have Gnome installed then you already have all the Gnome libraries and if you already have KDE then you have all the KDE libraries installed (slight simplification but never mind). Now if you i
What? (Score:4, Funny)
ripped the bandage off the scab
Eh.. that is usually a bad thing to do.
masochism or sadism? (Score:2)
ripped the bandage off the scab
Eh.. that is usually a bad thing to do.
Unless you're a masochist, and promptly pour some Tobasco on the open sore.
Or you could be the victim of a sadist - KDE 4.0 actually made me scream.
Losing interest (Score:5, Interesting)
I just tried out the Ubuntu and Kubuntu 9.04 betas earlier today, and I think my interest in both GNOME and KDE is just about worn out.
Both are really quite bloated. I've been on Debian and KDE 3 for years, but I think I'll be switching to a stand-alone window manager like fluxbox, or maybe Xfce, the next time I have to upgrade.
GNOME on Ubuntu felt as sluggish and amateurish as ever. No amount of new themes and rehashed icons can improve GNOME. As a KDE user I was looking forward to KDE 4.2 but christ, it's so damn cluttered. I think they've actually added more clutter since 3.5, not taken it away. Every damn UI element flickers and flashes with a mouseover effect as you move around; some kind of indexing service is hitting the disk in the background; there's a plethora of desktop views or applets or whatever they're called, none of which I'm interested in; there's a new K menu that looks like it was a reject from Windows XP, and which takes several clicks to hunt around for what you're looking for; the default widget theme has super thick borders, even the pull down menus have thick borders around the menu items. The whole thing is just over-cooked. I couldn't make sense of it, frankly.
Sure, I could turn off or tweak most of that junk. But I think what I saw today is what happens when you try to copy Windows and Mac too closely. You end up copying the bad as well as the good. You inherit the same limitations and the same performance standards. It's a poor form of competition, and I despair at how much programmer effort must have gone into creating all this bloated mimicry.
Having said that, I only just scratched the surface. I know how good Qt 4 is, and I'm sure developing apps with the KDE4 framework is much nicer than KDE3. It's just that the result on the desktop (both of them) is a bit of a let down.
Decent defaults are the key (Score:3, Interesting)
That is not the point. Read his post - he said "I could turn off or tweak most of that junk".
If the OSS GUI people keep picking crappy defaults and require 90% of the people to customize/tweak stuff to achieve "decent usability", then that means their desktops are unsuitable for public use - it means they FAIL! Sure one may feel Windows requires lots of tweaking etc to be decent, but it has the market advantage of being "defacto/preinstalled"
Re: (Score:2)
OK...I got your point(s). Now I believe you will agree with me, that defining what a "decent default" is may take lots of effort around here. There are too many skill sets and tastes when it comes to Linux and its desktop environments.
It possible to create theme and menu packages that reflect various "decent defaults" to users. This is especially so in KDE. The users can run a script that would ask questions and later create a package that satisfies them. Think of it as similar to what takes place when one
Can't we all just get along? (Score:2)
Honestly I think people put far to much discussion into the G vs K thing. It's not like it's hard to drop both on there now. Why don't they just merge and go with the Simple vs Advanced option and be d
Re: (Score:2)
I prefer my desktop to work. I'm not interested in shiny icons, or whatnot.
This is "Free Open Source Software" you can always do what you want. The "shiny icons or whatnot" are there because for some people, they are a joy to look at and work with in the first place. Of course, if they were a thorn in the butt, they would not exist. Someone loves them. That's why they are there.
I was a KDE fan until 4.0. I've since switched to Gnome. I find it serves my purposes.
Good for you man. Just continue using GNOME.
Unmentioned benefit of KDE 4 - Xorg+drivers (Score:5, Interesting)
One of the major effects KDE 4 has had on the free desktop has been to light a fire under the metaphorical asses of Xorg and driver development. There has been tons of work going on in Xorg since the split, but until KDE 4 came along and proved that stuff like Composite could have a real effect on user experience (Compiz came first, yes, but that was more or less just bling until apps started using composite), there was not as much pressure and expectation from free desktop users.
Turn on desktop effects on any system using KDE 4 and if you have Xorg with good drivers, the difference in experience is startling.
The rate at which Xorg and some of the drivers are getting better is exciting, as is Qt and KDE itself, and this is in part due to the expectations that KDE 4 has set in the minds of free desktop users. Kudos to the Xorg and FOSS driver devs for stepping up. The next couple of years are going to be fun.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Turn on desktop effects on any system using KDE 4 and if you have Xorg with good drivers, the difference in experience is startling.
Yeah, I especially was startled by the part where my textures randomly get corrupted. Really innovative.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, I especially was startled by the part where my textures randomly get corrupted. Really innovative.
That is innovative. Would you have thought to randomly corrupt the users' textures for them?
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Indeed. I really liked the part where the KDE devs seem to exclusively use nVidia cards with closed-source drivers. :3
better equals faster (Score:5, Insightful)
To give an example, Gnome's file browser takes 5 seconds on my home PC (Athlon, 2GHz, 3GB) to list a 161 entry directory. A virtualised W2K instance on the same box takes less than 1 second to list the same directory - even though it's running in a VM and has to go through SAMBA on the host to access the directory. When doing this, I took precautions to ensure no entries were cached on either instance.
Whether that's due to a mis-configuration on my part (tho' the Ubuntu installation is simply "out of the box", no tweaks) or because the browser is badly written and poorly designed, I don't know.
What I do know is that this effect is not limited to the file broswer and is a severe demotivator for using Linux - or recommending it to others.
Lose the bloat, remove 50% of the features, optimise the code, THEN talk about which desktop is best.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Is Gnome providing more stastics, previews, etc? That would make a huge difference in the time it takes to show a directory.
Also, have you tried KDE instead, to see how it stacks up?
Re: (Score:2)
Is Gnome providing more stastics, previews, etc?
previews and thumbnails are turned off - I was wrong when I said "out of the box" installation, as I turned these features off right after installation as it was far too slow. It does list the number of files in sub-directories, which is not configurable through the preferences dialog (or if it is, I've missed it).
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Try disabling Assistive Technologies and reboot. Seems to be enabled by default for some Ubuntu versions. It will defintely kill the Nautilus experience, as one guy put it.
See this page [launchpad.net].
Warning - Honest opinion below (Score:4, Interesting)
As someone who has been using KDE 2001 (around KDE 2), I have to say that I think the latest version of KDE is fucking shit. It's a MAJOR step backward from KDE 3. I feel like the developers have taken everything that was good about KDE, thrown it in the bin, and made every effort to drive me to another DE altogether.
Things that have so far fucked me off:
I upgraded to KDE 4.2 a while back after everyone raved about it, but ended up reverting back down to KDE 3.5. I'm still not sure what the KDE team are attempting to achieve, but I would rather have seen a KDE 3.6 with all the fancy effects than what we have now.
I'm going to look very carefully at KDE 4.3 when that comes out, but I have little hope that it will reach the 3.5 standard, if I'm totally honest. Rant over. Sorry, had to get this off my chest. Am I the only one that feels this way? I'm sure when 4.2 came out Slashdot commentators were proclaiming it to be THE KDE 4 we'd been waiting for. Not me.
Re: (Score:2)
Well it is a hobby for the open source authors, not a job. So you can't really blame them for goofing around and doing the things they get satisfaction from, rather than taking a professional approach of requirements, design, debugging, support, documentation and optimisations.
Re:Warning - Honest opinion below (Score:5, Informative)
Appearance Settings > Desktop Activity Type > "Folder View" (4.2 or later) Very hackish... so hackish there's even an option to do so.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Also, the way the desktop is done is via a
Limitations of GTK+ ? (Score:2)
FTA:
"About the same time, GNOME developers started complaining about the limitations of the GTK+ toolkit with which the desktop is built, and looking for ways around those limitations."
Theres one very simple way around them - get off your lazy backside and go and learn Xlib and extension programming. What do these whingers, sorry "GNOME developers" think is lying underneath all these toolkits FFS?
ripped the apps too (Score:3, Interesting)
Slackware moved KDE4 from testing into -current only a few weeks ago. So I was expecting that it is considered ready for general use. I was disappointed to find out, that the major applications such as KDevelop, Quanta and K3B are missing. And they will not come out soon either. KDE 4.2.2 will be released in a few days and still it will not contain KDevelop/Quanta/K3B. There are no dates given beyond KDE 4.2.2. KDE 4.0 was released in January 2008 (with alfa and beta releases published months before that). A year later the major apps are not ported. The change is too drastic if the major applications can't catch up in reasonable timeframe.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
KDE has gotten too abrasive (Score:2)
There are two observations I would like to make regarding "development" of these two major DE for Linux:
1. Duplication is a shortcut to madness.
I regret the NIH mentality that still seems to be everywhere. There are many good choices of applications for both DEs, but instead of working to make a nice application component more robust and flexible and to work to integrate that with the other DE. People insist in this NIE mentality and write a copy of it.
While choice is good, it is not a good thing to have
They're both too much like Windows... (Score:2)
Attacking Microsoft on its own ground is rarely a good strategy, otherwise we'd all be using fvwm95.
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Yes, because we all know you have to throw out the baby with the bathwater every 5 years to "innovate". Uh huh.
Not every five years, just whenever it becomes easier to redesign and rebuild rather than tack on.
Re:being reduced to an imitator rather than innova (Score:5, Insightful)
Strange. I seem to recall the GNOME project being started because of KDE using the Qt toolkit, and then trying to catch up with KIOSlaves, DCOP, KParts and other superior technologies in the KDE camp.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, because we all know you have to throw out the baby with the bathwater every 5 years to "innovate". Uh huh.
Say what you want, but five years ago it wasn't reasonable to design the modern composite desktop. Five years is still a long time in computing and it shows. Think of it a little bit like construction work - you can remodel an existing building but if you really have to change the fundamentals you build new. That means you get all the fun of working out the kinks in the plumbing and wiring and whatnot all over again, and for a while that sucks. Then you realize it's actually quite great to live in a modern
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Reason I don't like Gnome, is because GTK simply isn't good. I mean, it can't even show a window inside a window to get MDI or floating toolbars. There are almost no complex programs with a good GUI in Linux (programs like photoshop, paint shop pro, 3ds max, ms office 2007, ...), because GTK doesn't support doing floating and dockable toolbars or multiple open files in a good way. Blender is one of the few programs with a complex well done interface in Linux, but they did the entire GUI in OpenGL I think, n
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Blender is one of the few programs with a complex well done interface in Linux...
I think that is debatable.
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Blender is one of the few programs with a complex well done interface in Linux...
I think that is debatable.
It is debatable. IMO, Blender's UI is good in the same way that VIM's UI is good. Complex, hard to learn, but powerful and correct. :)
Re:gnome better than kde (Score:5, Interesting)
Have you considered that it could be a conscious decision, because MDIs and dockable toolbars are ugly and annoying? OSX doesn't use either of those UI paradigms, and developers don't cry out for them. As a user, I find OSX's floating, contextual inspector palettes to be much nicer than the mess of toolbars and dockable crap in visual studio. I'm getting a Linux box this week, and if Gnome doesn't have MDIs, I think that's one more thing to push me in that direction. (I think I'm going to choose Fedora as my distro.)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, indeed I have considered that it is that decision. That is exactly the philosophy I don't like that I mentioned. That is the problem: the lacking features of GTK aren't due to lack of developers and time, but due to these decisions.
I'm not convinced of the advantage of these decisions. Also you say OSX doesn't use it, but OSX is conceptually a totally different type of dektop. In Linux, how something like Gimp looks, sucks.
Also, whether or not MDI is useful might differ from person to person, but I'm s
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In Linux, how something like Gimp looks, sucks.
Why? Be specific.
(I ask 'cause I'm a programmer who has been shoehorned into a UI designer role. Also, I like how The Gimp's UI functions, so understanding the opposing viewpoint helps me to become a better UI designer. [maybe])
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The floating toolbars in osx have a load of problems, including constantly being hidden in the background somewhere when you need them because they do not stay on top. The reason osx never has used mdi simply was it is not really possible in osx in its metaphor of having the toolbar on top, every osx application sort of is mdi but the mdi is the desktop. I am not sure if this is the correct approach, my guess is either approach has its fair share of problems!
Re:gnome better than kde (Score:4, Funny)
Reason I don't like Gnome, is because GTK simply isn't good. I mean, it can't even show a window inside a window to get MDI
Sup dawg, I heard you liked windows so I... nevermind.
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x.org comes to mind, do away with the client/server paradigm,among many other things...
Because taking away one of X's greatest features is going to make it better how?
This misconception comes up all the time. Applications need to communicate somehow, you might as well use Unix Domain Sockets. Once you have a protocol that runs over unix sockets, you can just as easily send it over TCP sockets. Network transparency comes essentially for free as a side effect of designing the local IPC efficiently.
Do you h
Re:gnome better than kde (Score:5, Insightful)
No one gives a shit about network transparency. It is a totally meaningless buzzword engineers like to tout but doesn't mean anything in the real world. X is mostly network transparent, X clients aren't. You have to be very careful to avoid unnecessary round-trips which introduces latency and makes your application dog slow. The Windows shell is decidedly not network transparent, but RemoteDesktop and VNC still works with it.
To understand why people are complaining about X, try resizing a window quickly. Do the same operation on windows. It doesn't matter what computer you are using, on X you get flicker. Try opening a bunch of apps on one workspace, then move away and to that workspace. Notice how each window is redrawn one by one, first the frame and then the window contents. That is also an effect of X's client-server architecture. If you use some other OS than Linux so you have something to compare with, it is easy to understand why people complain on X.
Re:gnome better than kde (Score:5, Informative)
The first thing which was really annoying is, that the "Dolphin" file manager eats about 200mb of ram almost instantly.
Hi. Many things have changed since KDE 4.1. Over here (running KDE 4.2.1), Dolphin has a virtual size of ~71MB and a resident working set of ~20MB. You might want to look into upgrading.
$ ps -eo vsize,rss,comm | grep dolphin | grep -v grep
71652 20868 dolphin
$ dolphin --version
Qt: 4.5.0
KDE: 4.2.1 (KDE 4.2.1)
Dolphin: 1.2.1
Ah. Something that I just thought of... is your version of KDE an optimized build? (I'm not sure that this would make *very* much difference at all, but...) Over in my full debug version of KDE SVN trunk, Dolphin has a virtual size of ~128MB and a resident size of ~28MB.
$ ps -eo vsize,rss,comm | grep dolphin | grep -v grep
128268 28532 dolphin
$ dolphin --version
Qt: 4.5.0
KDE: 4.2.68 (KDE 4.2.68 (KDE 4.3 >= 20090327))
Dolphin: 1.2.80
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You can do this just fine on Debian/Ubuntu. Choose a decent distro if you want decent installation options.
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For now, if I want to use Kopete on my xfce desktop, I will have to spend 200+ MiBs of HDD, something that I don't want to do at all just for an IM programs.
The 1990s called and want their arguments back. Even the smallest Vertex SSD is 30GB. Detailed dependencies are hell, for example I'm pretty sure a great share of those 200MiB is icons. This applications uses new/open/edit/delete, that applications uses new user/edit user/remove user/search and so on. And for most people it won't make any differnce at all because they got plenty KDE apps using most any icon. It's a lot of work, and for what? Not much at all.
Re:XFCE 4 and GNUStep (Score:5, Interesting)
We must have been using a different GNUStep.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I get the feeling he meant Qt or something.
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what's wrong with qt on mac ?
Re:Written by a KDE user. (Score:5, Informative)
He even calls D-bus "inspired by DCOP" but ignores the fact that D-bus is not part of gnome, but gnome has instead switched to a universal standard that is not desktop-specific, and was already used by non-gnome applications on the system, including low-level components such as udev and hal. I'd wish KDE would do the same, no one needs a 2nd seperate message bus system on his machine.
...which is why, probably, KDE4 uses DBus. But don't let the facts get in the way of a good rant.
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One of the reasons vista was a disaster was due to the amount of old software that it broke. However, most of this software was third party, closed source with no upgrade route.
On linux, most (all?) of the software that users use comes packaged with the distro of their choice,
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XP also had problems with some older software, but most of the ones I tried would run in one of the compatibility modes.
I don't think this uses a full blown emulator/virtual machine, but these technologies have advanced a lot since XP came out. So you could clean up the new version while running olders software under a VM if needed. Wouldn't that approach give the best of both worlds?