Has GNOME Become LAME?

auferstehung writes "Nicholas Petreley (should that be KNicholas KPetreley) of LinuxWorld and VarLinux.org has taken his gloves off in the latest article in his KDE vs Gnome series. An unabashed KDE supporter, Petreley uses some choice fighting words in re-acronymizing GNOME as the Language Agnostic Morphable Environment (LAME) Franken-GUI. Despite the sensationalistic flamage throughout the article, several of his GNOME criticisms (Gconf, file selector, features) echo those already voiced within the GNOME community itself. A happy GNOME user myself, please someone...tell me it isn't so."

Comments

The only once inside the GNOME-community

[GauteL]

.. that complains about GConf, is the ones that do not know what it means.

It is basically a configuration database that provides notification, and can use any backend, where the default is pure XML-formatted text files.

An LDAP-backend is also being worked on, something which should be a boon for network administrators.

The file-dialog is lame, and is being replaced.

This article is basically a troll. Use whatever you like. Some people like KDE, others like GNOME.

Re:The only once inside the GNOME-community

[GauteL]

"once inside"?

HA! The preview button is for cowards.

Re:The only once inside the GNOME-community

[mbogosian]

It is basically a configuration database that provides notification, and can use any backend, where the default is pure XML-formatted text files.

Can someone please tell me what the fsck is wrong with text configuration files (automatically created by the application or not)? And no, don't talk to me about XML...XML is not human readable and is fragile enough to be non-hand editable in a lot of cases. What ever happened to:

• .emacs
• .pinerc
• .plan
• .procmailrc
• .profile (.login, .bashrc, .zlogin or whatever)
• .ssh/...
• etc.

What was wrong with this paradigm?

Re:The only once inside the GNOME-community

[Yokaze]

First, XML is human-readable. It is not readable by Jon Doe, but you won't see him sticking his nose into these files anyway. Those people who can't edit an XML file will most certainly be even less inclined to edit a .emacs file.

XML can be so fragile, that they are non-hand editable, but so can be a non XML-file.

XML is a syntax, nothing more.

With that listing, you have essentially shown yourself, what's wrong with the paradigm.

Each and every application has it's own file, where it stores its configuration (which is not a problem) and it it's own syntax.

The problem with each application it's own file is, that they aren't sharing common settings.

The interesting part behind XML is, you don't have to invent your own syntax and implement your own parser. As a result other applications can quite easily access your data, too.

Re:The only once inside the GNOME-community

[FirstEdition]

There's nothing basically wrong with this (.x) text file kind of configuration, but XML is more flexible in several ways:

* it has inbuilt validation (of a sort) via DTD files
* it is a format which lends itself to generation by other machines, eg many databases have native XML interfaces

Re:The only once inside the GNOME-community

[Anonymous Coward]

The real problems accure in multiuser environments. If two persons what's to change different settings for one application in a text file, the other persions changes might be overwritten.

In a database-kind-of-system, it is easyer to handle data on entity level, than in a pure text file. ..and

If your application wants to get configurations done in three other applications, it don't needs to know how to read three different file formats to do that. /mudFlap

Re:The only once inside the GNOME-community

[smittyoneeach]

So, in summary, XML is about standardization, a Good Thing.
How satisfying is it when you can open something completely new, and discover your existing knowledge about how stuff works maps perfectly to the new application?

Re:The only once inside the GNOME-community

[Anonymous Coward]

Each and every application has it's own file, where it stores its configuration (which is not a problem) and it it's own syntax.

Yeah, having a Babel of file formats can be a bad thing, but XML is not the be-all and end-all of data formats. It's great if you need to store something with a complex heirarchy, but what I find annoying are the people who use XML just to be trendy,* and end up with config files that look like this:

<alice>
<bob>blah</bob>
<carol>blah</carol>
<david>blah</david>
</alice>
<ed>
<florence>blah</florence>
<george>blah</george>
<henry>blah</henry>
</ed>

Which takes up close to twice as much space as the corresponding ini-format data, with no difference in heirarchy:

[alice]
bob=blah
carol=blah
david=blah

[ed]
florence=blah
george=blah
henry=blah

*[Insert anti-SUV rant here.]

Re:The only once inside the GNOME-community

[multi io]

Each and every application has it's own file, where it stores its configuration (which is not a problem) and it it's own syntax.

.profile, .bashrc, and .emacs, to name a few, contain source code. You'd have a hard time inventing an XML dialect for them, and doing it wouldn't save work in any way. You'd end up with basically unreadable files ten times as big as today's. XML is just too low-level for that kind of stuff, and its verbosity keeps getting in the way. These days people start integrating Javascript sections into their XML dialects...

Re:The only once inside the GNOME-community

[jilles]

The people who created ant would probably disagree. Shell scripts have their use in some places. Mixing configuration and functionality however is a stupid idea. You create all sorts of dependencies and basically is the primary reason UNIX sysadmins are so expensive.

Re:The only once inside the GNOME-community

[Yokaze]

As if space for config files would matter...
Anyway:

<alice bob=blah carol=blah david=blah/>
<ed florence=blah george=blah henry=blah/>

XML is certainly not the be-all and end-all of data formats of data formats, and is certainly sub-optimal in several cases and aspects.
I find XML hyped, too. But I see it as a simple syntax.

But now think about what you are optimising for.

Space?
Compress your examples: XML=111b INI=94b (bzip2)
And what about code-size? Every progam it's own parser. Shudder.

Ease of programming?
Ever programmed a validating parser?
As for me, I don't want parse a single line of text anymore. Thinking of all the possible deranged things a user or another program can feed into ones program makes me want to hide and curl.
Remember, your program has to even tell the user what went wrong.

Ease of use?
Well, certainly is the XML-syntax less readable then the INI-format. But as I said before, John Doe is not going to see them.
Try an XML-editor, feed it the DTD or Schema, and it will check your modifications.

Interoperatiblity?
See XML-editor.

>It's great if you need to store something with a complex heirarchy

I'm not very into XML, but I thought that is one of the deficiencies of XML. I don't know how to store anything, but a tree structures.
I wouldn't use it for anything too complex.

Re:The only once inside the GNOME-community

[squiggleslash]

XML is human-readable.

For different values of human readable.

My objection is that frequently it's used to replace keyword/value pairs with... er, values in tags, and is readability-impaired - not because a human being can't decypher what something says, but because you have to decypher that something first.

If you don't understand what I mean, consider the following example:

Old, obsolete, non-standard format:

FullScreen=true

Exciting, new, XML format:

<FullScreen>true</FullScreen>

You don't have to be a rocket scientist to realise that not only is the first form actually reads almost as a sentence ("FullScreen is true"), where as the second is a "Ok, I've got something surrounded by FullScreen tags, the something is 'true'". Imagine this not for one setting, but for hundreds.

Worse than that, it's about as hard to parse the XML version in practice even using an XML library as it would be to write a program in C to parse the first form from first principles. Seriously. Thinking about it for two minutes, and then write the C program. The latter is piddlingly easy. Then compare it to something that makes calls to a generic XML parser. And if the argument is "Well, d'uh, but you wouldn't make calls to a generic XML library, you'd use a library that calls the XML library that does that", then you're kind of making the point for me, as the same can be true too of the first form, it's just the first form is so simple that very rarely does anyone bother learning how to use an entirely new config setting library to parse it.

XML strikes me as one of those technologies that's been overused and stretched beyond what it's good at. It's very good at passing certain types of structured data between applications from different sources. However, despite the claims of its advocates, it's neither generic enough to be a universal file format (for one thing, it's plain text. Bye bye images, sound, and video), nor is it simple enough to replace all lower level file formats. It certainly shouldn't be used to replace keyword/value pair type configuration files for specific applications as there's no need, in that case, for portability or complex data structures, and the overheads of using it under those circumstances, from the pain it causes people who want to edit those files to the hit on performance and bloat is really quite unnecessary.

Use the right tool for the job!

Re:The only once inside the GNOME-community

[BlackHawk-666]

Just a couple of quick comments here:

XML can encode graphics and video in exactly the same way as every mail client in the world manages to...base-64 encoding. It will expand the size of the file, but compression should help reduce that down again.

Your example is so trivial that it wouldn't even be worth having a config for such software. You could pass that in as a command line parameter.

Using an XML library makes parsing this stuff trivial. Try SAX or DOM out and see how quick and reliable it can make getting at this data.

The overheads for parsing configs that you speak of would not even turn up in a code profile unless you were *constantly* re-reading these values. In which case, you would be better off putting these values into variables.

XML is human readable - if you can program you shouldn't have an issue with the format. It can be stored in source control, diff'ed, printed, and edited with any text editor.

XML is overhyped, that's true, but that doesn't mean that it's no good at storing configuration information.The hiarachial storage alone makes up for any verbosity that it may have IMHO.

Re:The only once inside the GNOME-community

[squiggleslash]

Ok, a few points.

You can indeed convert an image to base64. That doesn't mean that it's a good idea.

My example was of an extract of a much larger configuration file, as I made clear. And one of the whole points of a config file is so that you do not need to pass the same parameters to a program every time you run it. Most configuration information is trivial, and that's my #1 objection to a configuration system that absolutely requires the use of XML on pain of death. One of the DVD players I use gratuitously uses XML for a configuration file that would be ten lines long and easily understood and read if it was a keyword/value pair thing.

I addressed the issue of using an XML library. Please reread my comments.

I addressed the issue of readability. Please reread my comments.

I'm glad we agree with it being overhyped. Be aware that I don't reject it for every configuration task, I merely believe that in the majority of cases it's unsuited. In 90% of the cases I've seen config data for, I have seen no need to use anything but a keyword=value pair system. That system is readable (not "human interpretable", actually readable), and I believe that programmers who unnecessarily use complex file formats for files that will only ever used by one application are making fundamental errors.

We certainly shouldn't be using it for simple attributes, or for storing pictures, sound, and video. Any configuration framework that forces the use of XML for everything is, in my opinion, badly flawed, a triumph of hyped ideology over commonsense.

Re:The only once inside the GNOME-community

[nr]

That if you have a large company or school with 1000 Linux/UNIX desktops and want to apply a specific desktop configuration rule or restriction on all different 1000 workstations?

Uh, then you ofcouse need a distributed configuration management system with a distributed configuraion database -> Gconf

Re:The only once inside the GNOME-community

[Sandstorm]

My objection is that frequently it's used to replace keyword/value pairs with... er, values in tags, and is readability-impaired - not because a human being can't decypher what something says, but because you have to decypher that something first.

If you don't understand what I mean, consider the following example:

Old, obsolete, non-standard format:

FullScreen=true

Exciting, new, XML format:

<FullScreen>true</FullScreen>

How about something like this?

<Settings FullScreen="true" />

A snippet from an actual config file would probably look something like this:

<ScreenSettings
FullScreen="true"
Width="800"
Height="600"
/>

I think that would be both human readable and valid XML.

Re:The only once inside the GNOME-community

[Milo77]

I hear this a lot, but people seem to forget that XML is about "extensible" syntax. Sure you could use your "ini file" syntax above, but you'd better be darned sure you never want to store anything other than string name/value pairs. Sure a simple parser for what you gave above is easy, but say you start adding capabilites to your format like multiline string CLOBS or allow for string value quoting, etc. What if you decide (or someone else decided) that one of the key/value pairs should be "icon" and the value needed to be a "png"...sure you could go and add the ability to your parser and if your a hobbiest programmer, you'll find this fulfilling, but I program professionally, and I find making good design decisions fulfilling. When my boss comes to me and says you need to add the ability to read PNGs from the config file I say "done". And with XML all this can be added *without* breaking existing apps.

Re:The only once inside the GNOME-community

[robson]

<alice>
<bob>blah</bob>
<carol>blah</carol>
<da vid>blah</david>
</alice>

<ed>
<florence>blah </florence>
<george>blah</george>
<henry>blah</h enry>
</ed>

Look, buddy, I think you could've made your point without besmirching Alice's good name. I know for a fact that she and Bob are just friends...

Re:The only once inside the GNOME-community

[Anonymous Coward]

Actualy, using

<FullScreen>true</FullScreen>

is almost as amateur as using


[TRUE]
FullScreen
UseJoystick
UseOpenGL


You can always find the worst way to do the things, if you're creative enough. :)

Re:The only once inside the GNOME-community

[timeOday]

How does XML facilitate standardization for config files? The XML aspect of it just seems to add extra syntax.

Couldn't I just as easily have a "central" config file with the simpler syntax:

name1 = value1
name2 = valuw2
...

and accomplish the same thing without all the decorations.

In fact this is pretty much how it's already done; your "profile" sets environment variables such as EDITOR and PRINTER that are common among many applications.

Re:The only once inside the GNOME-community

[bwt]

How funny you are. The typo in your example "valuw2" really illustrates exactly why XML is a good thing.

You didn't include all the custom code that you have to write to validate that the numbers on the right side of the equals signs actually define valid settings for the variables. XML Schemas make this very easy.

Also, suppose I'm starting at your app and I wonder if I can use
name2 = value2, valuw2
or do I need
name2 = "value2, valuw2"
or does it even make sense to give name2 a list? Or do I separate lists with ";" or maybe ":" like in the environment profile that you hold up as a model? Now I have to read your code. Don't pretend that you put this in the documentation, because you didn't mention the documentation when we were measuring "simpler syntax".

Of course, even on UNIX, nobody can agree on the exact syntax for the profile. Csh is different from bash is differnt from korn shell is different from blah, blah, blah. And nobody on non-unix platforms knows what the hell you are even talking about.

XML is THE standard for platform independent data. Bash script syntax is not.

Because it is the standard, and an open standard at that, you don't have to worry when you move your app to win32 or BeOS or Mac or Tru64 unix or fooOS about the availability of tools that can read and write the format.

Re:The only once inside the GNOME-community

[Anonymous Coward]

Every anti-XML rant pretty much boils down to the same thing:

• It's trendy and I'm too cool to go along with the crowd
  
• The bloat offends my 386 sensibilities
  
• My favorite config format fits my contrived example

As to your contrived example, we lived through systems {OS/2, Win3} based on INI files, and we know the fundemental problems: (A) Parsers are buggy, and (B) You can not impose a 2-level heirarchy.

I think anyone who had to fight with Windows 3.1 would remember examples like this:

[alice]
bob=blah;blah;blah;{CR}
henry=blah:0|b lah:99|blah:32{CRLF}

(program crashs for unknown config-file related reason)

Speaking from experience, coding parsers for hierarchies imposed on crappy flatfiles is time consuming, expensive, NO fun, and inevitably buggy in some way.

Now if you are going to create a new config system like gconf, do you go down the Windows 3.1 road or do you do the right thing and use a standards-based format with off-the-shelf parsers? Or do you make a knee-jerk decision based on percieved "trendyness"?

Re:The only once inside the GNOME-community

[dead_penguin]

And what about code-size? Every progam it's own parser. Shudder.
Ease of programming?

I'm intentionally taking this slightly out of context, but I think this is one of the biggest overlooked benefits of XML.

Sure, there might be slightly better data formats out there for specific cases in terms of speed or file size, but as far as development time goes, XML parsers can't be beat. You should basically be able to take a parser, wrap it with a few calls or a class to deal with your specific file, and you're done.

You don't have to re-implement and fully test your own parsing engine; you're using a parser that's pretty much optimized and tested to completion. This lets you develop more robust software in a shorter amount of time, and also lets you focus on coding the things you actually *want* to be coding.

Unless anyone you're someone that actually gets off on writing parsers (people like that are out there; I've met them...), I think there are very few reasons NOT to use XML.

Re:The only once inside the GNOME-community

[rabidcow]

Compress your examples: XML=111b INI=94b (bzip2)

Is this supposed to be for or against XML? An 18% increase in size after compression is nothing to boast about. (and the XML can never be smaller, it has more information in it)

Ever programmed a validating parser?

There's a lot more to validate in XML than simpler formats. With the ini format, for example, there's basically two errors: "I can't find this," or "This line makes no sense."

Every progam its own parser.

ini format is pretty standard, not to mention that formats of this complexity have trivial parsers.

Well, certainly is the XML-syntax less readable then the INI-format.

I'll say. I'm a programmer and XML files hurt my eyes. Screw John Doe, *I* don't want to look at them.

Try an XML-editor, feed it the DTD or Schema, and it will check your modifications.

This is a cop out, you're essentially saying "yeah, I know it's not human readable, but you don't really need that."

If that's what you want, you might as well go for a binary format. You could have a binary format that's just as expressive and save a lot of space.

Re:The only once inside the GNOME-community

[dvdeug]

.profile, .bashrc, and .emacs, to name a few, contain source code.

Which explains why nobody but a few Emacs geeks ever mess with .emacs. Oh, maybe a few people get handed a chunk of code and add it to the bottom of .emacs, but many of us would rather not do even that, as it will have fun! consequences when we upgrade. .emacs is not the example to look towards for a user-friendly config system.

Re:The only once inside the GNOME-community

[Yokaze]

> An 18% increase in size after compression is nothing to boast about. (and the XML can never be smaller, it has more information in it)

You missed the point more important to me:
>> As if space for config files would matter...

A increase by some factor is debateable. A percentile increase not. Especially not in such a limited benchmark. On a sidenote: My compact example is even one byte smaller than the given INI-example.

> There's a lot more to validate in XML than simpler formats.
Yes, but you don't have to do it. Well, more importantly, I don't have to do it.

>I'm a programmer and XML files hurt my eyes

And it hurts my eyes (as a programmer) to have ever look at a textual-file beside code. I want the frickin data as binary in memory.

> This is a cop out [...]
> [...] you might as well go for a binary format

No, it is not.
It is human-readable. Visually not as pleasing as an INI-File. But not something you have to rack your brain about.
All those people answering here wrote portions of valid XML, in a simple text-box without the use of some XML-editor and with minimal knowledge about XML.

But additionally to editing it with vi, cat, echo, sed, awk, or dontknowwhat, you have the possibility of using any XML-editor which represents the data in a more eye-pleasing form, performs automatic syntax-checks, and saves you some typeing.

Think source-code: You can use your spartanic editor, or your favourite developing enviroment with code completion, syntax check and the like.

> I'll say. I'm a programmer and XML files hurt my eyes. Screw John Doe, *I* don't want to look at them.

I think that is the main problem. Your personal dislike for XML. I don't think, I can discuss your aversion away.
I'm not emotional attached to XML. At most I'm slightly unhappy about the redundancy introduced by the opening and closing tags, but it is there, it works, it is becoming standard.

Re:The only once inside the GNOME-community

[krogoth]

XML won't make applications share common settings, a well designed system will (KDE shares common settings just fine with plain text configuration files).

Re:The only once inside the GNOME-community

[krogoth]

Ease of programming?
Ever programmed a validating parser?
As for me, I don't want parse a single line of text anymore. Thinking of all the possible deranged things a user or another program can feed into ones program makes me want to hide and curl.

The situation is no different with XML. Is an XML parser really that much easier to write than a plan text parser? Oh, you use an XML library instead of writing your own parser? You can do that with plain text configuration files too.

Re:The only once inside the GNOME-community

[dotgain]

/proc/kcore is human readable.

It only depends on the capabilities of the human, and what he uses to read it. You wouldn't use more to read /proc/kcore, you'd use a hex browser. You could use more or vi to edit XML, but an XML editor will make this even easier.

Re:The only once inside the GNOME-community

[iamdrscience]

umm... maybe I'm alone on this, but I find the first one much easier to read.

Re:The only once inside the GNOME-community

[Roberto]

Oh, so you can't have hierarchies in pair-value files.

Yeah, right. Wake me up when you feel the sarcasm.

Re:The only once inside the GNOME-community

[Yokaze]

> You can do that with plain text configuration files too.

Ok, name me a single validating INI-parser (library).

I assume, when speaking of plain-text, you are referring to plain-text with INI-style syntax, as opposed to plain-text with XML-syntax.

Re:The only once inside the GNOME-community

[Roberto]

Uh.... KConfig?

If I read an entry for a font, I either get a font or an error.

Oh, well, it lacks the equivalent of enums and ranges, but it is a parser, and it validates.

Re:The only once inside the GNOME-community

[rabidcow]

You missed the point more important to me:
>> As if space for config files would matter...

Ah, so I did. Space isn't a really big deal, but I prefer not to waste it given the choice.

A increase by some factor is debateable.

I think it's provable, but I suppose there's no point. :)

It is human-readable.

Just barely. In small samples, sure, no problem. For a huge data file, forget it. That's like browsing the web with telnet. There's so much superfluous information (even ignoring the visual noise from angle blackets) that the thing you're really looking for is very hard to find.

Imagine you were looking to fix the "george" attribute for any element in something like your example:
<dsf fred=blah henry=blah martha=blah/>
<elizabeth joe=blah grant=blah george=blah/>
<alice bob=blah carol=blah david=blah/>
<ed florence=blah george=blah henry=blah/>
<ssfg mark=blah beth=blah ed=blah/>

All the extra structure that the XML file has is stored in a non-transparent way, and makes the file harder to read. In this case, there is no extra structure with XML, but the existing structure is now stored in a way that makes parsing it by eye take longer.

I think that is the main problem. Your personal dislike for XML. I don't think, I can discuss your aversion away.

Yes, I have a personal dislike for XML. This is based on my own experience of working with it. It's not like I have some irrational fear of TLAs.

I do think that XML has its place, but a "human readable" config format is not it.

Re:The only once inside the GNOME-community

[ADRA]

XML:
<Foo>
<Bar value="Value1"/>
<Bar value="Value2"/>
</Foo>

SH:
FOO=BAR1 BAR2
BAR1=Value1
BAR2=Value2

INI:
[Foo]
Bar1=Value1
Bar2=Value2

Tell me who XML is NOT the easiest way to abstract hierarical data. You are diluding yourself if you think that kv pairs are easier to parse / read than XML data.

The larger the hierarchy the more painful that shell scripts become. The larger the hierarchy XML becomes, the readability stays the same. Here is a 3rd level hierarchy.. tell me which is easier to read.

<Foo>
<Bar>
<Cheese value="1"/>
<Cheese value="2">
</Bar>
<Bar>
<Cheese value="3"/>
<Cheese value="4">
</Bar>
</Foo>

FOO=BAR1 BAR2
BAR1=CHEESE1 CHEESE2
BAR2=CHEESE3 CHEESE4
CHEESE1=1
CHEESE2=2
CHEESE3=3
CHEESE4= 4

Re:The only once inside the GNOME-community

[Anonymous Coward]

The heirarchies are not the same: the ini format is not heirarchical at all, it's section-based. To see this, add more nesting. In XML:

<contacts for="alice">
<person name="bob"/>
<person name="carol"/>
<person name="david">
<phone type="home">5550000</phone>
<phone type="cell">5551010</phone>
<phone type="work">5550101</phone>
<address of="home">
<street>1 Cul de Sac Ct.</street>
<city>Anytown, NA</city>
<zip>10101-0100</zip>
</address>
</person>
</contacts>

This is simply impossible to reflect in ini. You'd have to hack the parser to treat section names specially so that you can use some dot notation to represent nesting -- and then it just becomes ugly:

[alice]
[alice.person.bob]
[alice.person.carol]
[alice.person.david]
[alice.person.david.phone]
home=5550000
cell=5551010
work=5550101
[alice. person.david.address]
street=1 Cul De Sac Ct.
city=Anytown, NA
zip=10101-0100

This is just a trivial example that illustrates quite well that ini is a deficient format for all but the most straightforward data sets. The statement, with no difference in heirarchy, is misleading at best and hopelessly ignorant at worse. There is no heirarchy in the ini and the format you chose for your example (perhaps not incidentally) has very little structure. This only serves to further demonstrate the deficiencies of the ini-format for the general case: its simplicity fails to encapsulate structured data, lists (because it's a key-and-table-based format), and other essential features for many, many applications.

All of this without addressing the technical issues of implementation availability and stability mentioned elsewhere, and the problem of code-bloat due to varied implementations and reimplementations of a parser (with hacks to handle structured data, perhaps), also wisely mentioned elsewhere.

Re:The only once inside the GNOME-community

[Roberto]

I am "diluding" myself because I don't know "who XML is NOT the easiest way"? Not to mention I didn't say anything of the sort.

All I said is that you CAN have hierarchical key-value files, which is, I think, pretty much a fact.

Therefore, stop arguing about random stuff, please.

Re:The only once inside the GNOME-community

[Yokaze]

Damn... actually I hoped no one would come up with such one. I thought I request one in Java, one in C and one in C++ :).

Actually, in a XML-sense, it wouldn't even be a validating parser, as a validating parser would check for a required font field itself. But I'm getting picky here.

What I wanted to point out with that rhetorical question was, that XML is more widely spread and standardised.

Re:The only once inside the GNOME-community

[shellbeach]

The problem with each application it's own file is, that they aren't sharing common settings.

As someone who doesn't use either GNOME or KDE, but is quite happy with a whole variety of non-GNOME, non-KDE applications, I'm genuinely curious:

What possible common settings could be shared??

Default font settings, colours, etc, are generally provided just fine through the .Xdefaults file. What other common settings are there that would be useful?

Re:The only once inside the GNOME-community

[krogoth]

What's the big deal with validating parsers? Either something is a new section, a value, or useless. Is it that hard to remember [section] and name=value? Requiring certain sections or values might be useful, but in the case of configuration files it's much better to just provide a default - do you want your apps to die because they can't find a value for "FooBazerProgram" in their configuration?

Re:The only once inside the GNOME-community

[Yokaze]

> [...] In small samples, sure, no problem.
> For a huge data file, forget it. [...]

> I do think that XML has its place, but a "human readable" config format is not it.

Aren't those two statements slightly contradictory?

> Imagine you were looking to fix the "george" attribute for any element in something like your example:
The advantage of being a text-file:
sed s/george=blah/george=foo/
Actually not my preferred way, I'd use the same approach I'd use in English, German, or C++ a text editor with search and replace-capability.

> All the extra structure that the XML file has is stored in a non-transparent way

Well, its structure is as non-transparently stored as in C. All those curly brackets.
Formatting code in C (or similar languanges) is not required. But without it, it is too compressed and not readable. Hell, I can have a fight over correct formatting in C files every day.

XML offers even more structural means than an INI-file.

A hierarchy flattened in an INI-file

[foo]
a=b
[foo/bar]
c=d
[foo/sna]
f=u

A hierarchy in an XML-file

<foo a=b>
<bar c=d>
<sna f=u>
</foo>

Is there more hidden extra structure? Then you are more knowledgable in XML than I am. And certainly breaking the boundaries of what is possible with an INI-file.

> Yes, I have a personal dislike for XML. This is based on my own experience of working with it

Now I'm begining to see, you were forced to wield through masses of data, stored on request on some hip manager in XML.

Re:The only once inside the GNOME-community

[multi io]

XML can encode graphics and video in exactly the same way as every mail client in the world manages to...base-64 encoding.

It's very inefficient to encode huge chunks of binary data that way. An with XML being about structuring data, why not use

<image width="600" height="400">
<pixel r="67" g="177" b="101">
<pixel...>
...
</image>

? Too bloated, you say? Well, there you are :-). There is no binary encoding for XML data (as opposed to, say, ASN.1, which still gives you the possibility to validate your data against a specification). XML just isn't the right tool for such a job.

Re:The only once inside the GNOME-community

[multi io]

The people who created ant would probably disagree.

Well, Java is just too baroque to be useful for its own Makefiles :-). Ant seems to require writing customized plug-ins in Java for all non-trivial tasks. Take Perl's MakeMaker for a different approach.

Shell scripts have their use in some places. Mixing configuration and functionality however is a stupid idea. You create all sorts of dependencies and basically is the primary reason UNIX sysadmins are so expensive.

That's a two-edged sword I guess. Unix would be long dead without it scripting capabilities. Most programming languages don't comprise distinct sub-languages for defining data structures and using them either, as doing so would introduce unnecessary overhead that can be easily avoided using a little bit of organization anyway.

Re:The only once inside the GNOME-community

[dvdeug]

Compress your examples: XML=111b INI=94b (bzip2)

Is this supposed to be for or against XML? An 18% increase in size after compression is nothing to boast about. (and the XML can never be smaller, it has more information in it)

And back in real life, the smallest any file can be on my system is 4 kilobytes. I don't know of a modern filesystem with sector size less than 1kb. And considering as I just created 2GB of temporary files and 95MB of permanent files, I think worrying about 17 bytes is a little pointless. My /etc is 16MB; that's nothing, nowadays. (Yah, yah, modern waste. If you really still run a Commodore 64, then complain.)

Re:The only once inside the GNOME-community

[alext]

XML syntax is not extensible, only XML "vocabularies" (element definitions) are.

This is one reason why simple expressions (as in XSLT or XACML) are either clumsily verbose or hacked in by embedding an additional expression syntax in tag values.

Re:The only once inside the GNOME-community

[rabidcow]

> [...] In small samples, sure, no problem.
> For a huge data file, forget it. [...]

> I do think that XML has its place, but a "human readable" config format is not it.

Aren't those two statements slightly contradictory?

That depends what sort of config files you're talking about.

Your compact examples will tend to fill out horizontal space when more data is added, eventually forcing items to split across lines or forcing horizontal scrolling, and making it easy for the eye to skip up/down lines accidentally reading things from the wrong place.

The more typical method causes the file to expand vertically until you no longer know what you're talking about because the beginning of the current block is 5 screens up, hidden amongst the forest of XML tags.

If the XML file is well designed (balanced so that neither of these prevail), and short enough to fit in one or two pages with appropiate amounts of whitespace, then I guess I don't see a big problem.

Re:The only once inside the GNOME-community

[alext]

Every anti-XML rant pretty much boils down to the same thing

Then you've not been reading the posts.

One problem already discussed here is the difficulty of accommodating simple expressions, hence the problems exhibited by XSLT and XACML.

Another problem is the "level 0" nature of the language - it has no variables (and no one has yet proposed using XPath).

Any practical configuration language will require these characteristics, so it is indeed questionable whether XML is practical.

Re:The only once inside the GNOME-community

[multi io]

Which explains why nobody but a few Emacs geeks ever mess with .emacs. Oh, maybe a few people get handed a chunk of code and add it to the bottom of .emacs, but many of us would rather not do even that, as it will have fun! consequences when we upgrade. .emacs is not the example to look towards for a user-friendly config system.

Hmm. What do you suggest? The problem seems to be that source files are machine-readable, but not (automatically) machine-editable. In Emacs you have the "options database" (a machine-edited file named something like "~/.emacs-options" that gets read in from somewhere in ~/.emacs). If you want more flexibility than offered by the options database, you'll have to start programming yourself. That's not much different to any other sufficiently complex piece of software.

The problem that relatively few people "mess with .emacs" appears to be related to the (IMHO unjustified) unpopularity of LISP. I still think that there are more people editing *ix configuration scripts than there are people writing VBScripts or having a systematic understanding of the mess that is the Windows registry, even though the latter is present on ~95% of all installed PCs :-).

Re:The only once inside the GNOME-community

[alext]

But the people using Ant would probably not :-)

Would you care to outline more formally your proposed distinction between "configuration" and "functionality", covering such aspects as the use of variables, conditionals and expressions?

Thought not.

Re:The only once inside the GNOME-community

[alext]

Emacs has had a GUI based configurator for most settings since at least version 19.

More importantly, this is actually a good model to follow since the user only needs to learn one language. The logic of your approach requires at least two: the language for expressing values (e.g. XML) and the language for expressing logic (e.g. shell scripts).

This isn't to say that Emacs' implementation is particularly elegant, or that Emacs LISP is ultimate language, but the principle is sound.

Re:The only once inside the GNOME-community

[Doomdark]

First, XML is human-readable...

The interesting part behind XML is, you don't have to invent your own syntax and implement your own parser. As a result other applications can quite easily access your data, too.

Well. XML is human-readable, but not automatically human understandable. My pet peeve regarding most voal XML hype is the claim "XML is self-documenting" (most often used with SOAP but sometimes generalized to all XML data). Something that just isn't true. It's just like claiming C programs are self-documenting; after all, we do have common syntax with C as well as with XML.

XML can be understood by anyone only at syntactic (structural) level; you can see how elements are nested. What is not automatic is semantic meanings. Without knowing which XML application (as in XML terminology; not piece of code, but a language like XHTML or RDF) one is using (and knowing its semantics), it's not much use to know structure. It's like understanding syntactic structure of english language without knowing any of the words used. Knowing that a sentence has structure "noun predicate objective" isn't enough to understand what is actually being said. You need to know the words (vocabulary) and their meaning.

So... while using XML does simplify task of interchangeability a bit (on top of Ascii/Unicode, that solves another lower level problem, on top of de factor 'standard' of using 8-bit byte instead, of, say, older 9-bit words, and... ok, you get the idea), it does only solve first 10% or so. Agreeing on common XML application solves perhaps next 50% or so. And then actually specifying remaining semantics (that can not be expressed by DTD or even XML Schema) is the final part.

Re:The only once inside the GNOME-community

[DunbarTheInept]

As if space for config files would matter...

Rememeber that the context was about human editability of the config files. In which case having to type twice as much to say the same thing is very relevant, even if you have all the disk space in the world.

Re:The only once inside the GNOME-community

[bigchris]

Yeah, sendmail configurations files are SO human readable! Cartoon readable more like - the O'Reilly book calls the syntax a cross-between cartoon swear words and line noise.

Re:The only once inside the GNOME-community

[dvdeug]

Emacs has had a GUI based configurator for most settings since at least version 19.

True. I don't see how it's relevant to the discussion, though - the GUI-based configurator could be dumping out anything, sight-unseen.

More importantly, this is actually a good model to follow since the user only needs to learn one language. The logic of your approach requires at least two: the language for expressing values (e.g. XML) and the language for expressing logic (e.g. shell scripts).

True only for those who use Emacs as an OS. Those who use emacs as an editor actually have to learn how to edit other programs config files too, and may well never learn to write Emacs Lisp. (Even if you know a little Lisp, doesn't mean you know how to do meaningful stuff in Emacs - it's got its own API.)

Re:The only once inside the GNOME-community

[dvdeug]

That 2GB just wasted another 360MB.

Why? Those aren't config files. The considerations were only in relationship to config files. In any case, who cares? I have far more than 360MB free on the drive, and they're deleted now, so it never mattered whether they took up that extra 360MB or not.

Now, XML doesn't really waste quite that much space if you're intelligent about it (but why bother, I mean what's a little waste?), but this attitude of "who cares, we can afford to be wasteful" is so 1980s.

Have you ever heard the phrase "penny wise and pound foolish"? I store my scans as DjVu files, which are often one tenth the size of the same data stored as PNG files. These scans are B&W whenever possible, which saves me another 90% to 99%. These decisions have probably saved me 10GB, easily. If I needed 16MB of space (again, the size of my entire /etc directory), I'd delete one of the decompressed source trees to GCC or Glibc that I never look at. Heck, one of compressed GCC tarballs, which I could delete and download again if I cared, takes up about 16MB. I could also delete some redundant MP3 files, at 4-5MB a file, or I could delete my copy of my Gutenberg CD on the hard disk for 500MB. Or I could stress out and force every program to use the most compact config format, for a grand total of, what 8-10MB at the absolute most?

Re:The only once inside the GNOME-community

[sploxx]

I think in config files, there are three different levels:

1. simple name - value pairs, optional one-layer-sections
2. hierarchically structured content
3. everything above that (.emacs, .bashrc, ...)

And I think 1./2., as all the other threads show, can easily be covered by an external XML library.
But 3. is clearly not implementable in XML in a way that is human readable and comprehensive.
The hype has to stop there.

I'm really not very happy about things like
http://www.o-xml.org/. Not wanting to troll, but why are people wasting time with this?

It's nice to see

[The Bungi]

that Gnome and KDE are incorporating wonderful and exciting features... that are copies of stuff Microsoft was doing 4 years ago.

There's something to be said about innovation...

Re:It's nice to see

[Nerant]

So to use your analogy, if I was to design a car, I can't design one that uses wheels because someone else has done it before?
Microsoft has certain ideas that are sound in theory, but their implementation of it sucks in practice. There is nothing wrong with implementing GUI features in Gnome or KDE that have already proven to be useful in actual use.

Re:It's nice to see

[bonch]

Bad analogy. Wheels are essential. That's like a mouse cursor or a basic window in GUI terms.

But KDE and Gnome also copy dialogs, start menus, taskbars, basic design conventions, and much more.

You can either copy forever in a futile attempt at winning the Windows crowd (yeah, let's give them half-assed clones of what they already have), or innovate and create something people will actually want to use.

You say Microsoft has good ideas that are poorly implemented. KDE and GNOME are just copying what's been done in that department, under the guise of making it more "customizable" (wow, I can move the taskbar and start menu around now).

Please, won't somebody create something new? The "killer app" I think Linux needs is a new GUI system designed from the ground up for desktop use. Don't give me "well, write it yourself," because I don't have the skill level, but more importantly, it's a ridiculous attitude to have to start with. Besides, if you want a graphic designer, I'm your man. Linux apps are always sorely lacking in the aesthetics department.

Re:It's nice to see

[hswerdfe]

And MS is putting Features in longhorn that KDE had since 2.0 at least.

hmmm...

Re:It's nice to see

[kigrwik]

I often swap things from one server through ssh (fish://) to another one with samba (smb://) by drag-dropping from a vertically-splitted konqueror window from my desktop that sits on a third computer.

Do that with builtin Explorer functions.
For that matter, do that with Nautilus, too !

Re:It's nice to see

[DancingSword]

Try http://www.xfce.org/, then, oh vast and ominoidal dude...

Re:It's nice to see

[Trurl's Machine]

Gnome and KDE are incorporating wonderful and exciting features... that are copies of stuff Microsoft was doing 4 years ago.

...that are copies of Stuff Apple and NeXT were doing 8 years ago :-)

Re:It's nice to see

[kubla2000]

Bungi, you're such a troll.

Explain to me how the DOS cli wasn't a "copy" of the Unix cli? The trail for "originality" stretches back a long way.

And what's with the martyr like "-1 Pro Microsoft"? Stop trolling, start posting something insightful and you might get some respect.

I can't believe I've taken the troll bait... enough.

Re:It's nice to see

[BlackHawk-666]

Microsoft are not well known for innovation. They are well known for buying companies that are innovative or for fairly good implementations of someone elses innovation. Some examples might help here:

DoubleSpace/Stacker

DOS/CPM

Windows/X11/MacOs/Next

Excel/Visicalc/Lotus

Word/Word Perfect

IIS/Apache

IE/Netscape/Mosaic

There's tons more examples available for the interested. Also, Microsoft are well known for bad early releases (1.0-2.0) but getting it right the third time - hey, let's have some more examples:

Dos 3.0

IE 3.0

Word 6.0

Windows 3.0

See the pattern - all pretty suckful on first release (also all copies of someone elses IP) and yet all matured by version 3.0.

Re:It's nice to see

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the ridiculous attitude to have is to presume that you can sit, having made absolutely no contributions aside from a retarded comment about a "killer app ... new GUI system," and tell coders what they should be doing with their time.

What exactly do you expect? Some sort of magical new alternative to dialogs, start menus, and taskbars? Those have been the staple of GUI design, not only for Windows, but for MacOS, BeOS, OS/2, and basically all other GUI systems.

Have people tried to create radically new desktops before? Yes, and those have always been spectacular failures. The second someone finds something better, EVERYONE will switch. For now, this is the paradigm we have, and every group tries to creates its own vision of that paradigm. These are not "half-assed clones".

Believe it or not, but some people actually prefer using Linux desktop environments over Windows. I'm one of those people. I can't stand Windows at all, so I use Gnome. It's not perfect, but neither is Windows. I use what gets the job done quickly and get the bonus of not having to be constantly irritated by the Windows feel.

Whenever a program is cloned, it is usually for good cause -- sometimes Microsoft or some other company creates a good program or adds something interesting to the UI that others overlooked before. To not take advantage of a proven design for the sake of being different is sheer arrogance. I've noticed that Gnome and several GTK apps draw their influence from various sources to create programs that have their own personality. (I've never really used KDE, but I'm sure the same can be said about it.)

Which leads me to this: Your comment is total nonsense. Every one of your five paragraphs have at least one major flaw. Some have more. I don't think I'll be able to influence your opinion on the matter at all, so I won't even try. But since you've given your opinion, I thought I'd give mine.

Re:It's nice to see

[Gordonjcp]

... which is in turn a copy of stuff that Mac System 4 did four years before that, which in turn was a copy of Xerox's GUI work in the mid-to-late 70s, which in turn based itself around the work done at SAIL in the late 60s, which itself ripped off the Lascaux cave paintings. Yes, we know.

Re:It's nice to see

[khuber]

You're better off doing GUIs in a way people are familiar with. The familiar has become intuitive. When you change it, you are just making the computer get in the way. Those are common human factors / usability ideas.

Why do you think you can do a better GUI and make better widgets? You probably can't. Why do I have all these Linux apps with their own widgets and UI paradigm that work poorly? There is no good reason.

People don't want your avant garde hyperdimensional pie menu and mp3 visualizer scrollbar thingy, they just want to be able to use an app instead of fighting it.

-Kevin

Re:It's nice to see

[Anonymous Coward]

In KDE 2.x you could open a audio-CD with a konqueror and inside there would be two directories: ogg and mp3. If you copy those directories to the hard-drive, konqueror would automatically rip and encode songs to the mp3/ogg-format.

I don't know about XP, but this feature wasn't present in Windows 2000. Can we stop that "kde/gnome are just copying windows BS"?

Re:It's nice to see

[mickwd]

...which in turn are copies of stuff done at Xerox Parc years before that.

Standing on the shoulders of giants, etc......

Re:It's nice to see

[IamTheRealMike]

Don't give me "well, write it yourself," because I don't have the skill level, but more importantly, it's a ridiculous attitude to have to start with.

Why is it a ridiculous attitude? Tell you what, you go away and design this killer GUI, and come back when you've got it all figured out. If it's good, I'm sure somebody will be enthusiastic enough to help you.

Besides, if you want a graphic designer, I'm your man. Linux apps are always sorely lacking in the aesthetics department.

Sorry, but while you were whinging on Slashdot tigert, jimmac, everaldo and tackat were busy making GNOME and KDE pretty. By all means go and help them, but I find the latest GTK2/GNOME2 apps much better looking than their equivalents on Windows or the Mac.

Re:It's nice to see

[frankthechicken]

And lets just outline the five major things that the GUI needs to do:-

1. Open a file

2. Move a file

3. Delete a file

4. Copy a file

5. Other stuff and fluff

The first four points using a mouse interface have pretty much been covered in the most energy conservative manner possible in the general windows/Mac convention, and lets face it point 5, is just that, other stuff and fluff.

Re:It's nice to see

[squiggleslash]

The DOS CLI has two origins. The original and most influential was CP/M, which in turn was based on another OS whose name I forget.

This is because the first version of DOS, called QDOS and later MSDOS 1.0, was intended to be a way to get CP/M applications running (well, easily ported to) the x86 architecture.

MSDOS 2.0 introduced a new, hierarchical, file system, and Microsoft at that point planned to have it as the first step in a ladder of PC operating systems which had Xenix, MS's own Unix, at the top. As a result, it modified the shell slightly to incorporate some Unix-similar commands to handle the new file system. This included mkdir, rmdir, etc, some details like /anydir/device always pointing at that device (so nul could be accessed as \dev\nul for instance. Shame about that missing 'l'...) There's even a flag in DOS that you can set to change the directory seperator to /, and the option prefix to a dash.

That's about it really. After DOS 2, the attempts to converge the two operating systems faltered as it became clear that Microsoft and IBM would be working on an entirely different type of higher level operating system. Xenix was eventually spun off, and the above directory handling commands etc are pretty much the only remnents of that policy.

CP/M defined DOS. Unix, really, only had a little temporary influence.

Re:It's nice to see

[__aamuga9686]

I hear this a lot, the part about if you can't contribute (and it usually means code, another tangent would be what constitutes contribution), then don't bitch or tell coders what to do.
Okay, fair enough that coders do not have to listen. However, I am nearly fifty years old, and have been involved in the consumer movement since Ralph Nader's early days. I find it a nearly reprehensible attitude to takehat says users, consumers, etc. cannot offer valid critique or requests unless they actually contribute.
I'm aware coding is not analogous to other fields entirely, but surely someone who dines at a restaurandoes not have to be a cook, nor participate in chef duties, in order to make known thier consumer wishes and complalints.
Further, in reply to the, but this is FREE code, I belive that consumers have every right, and in fact, every DUTY, to vociferously make known thier views of products, free or not, in order to maintain a consistent improvement curve in them.

Re:It's nice to see

[squiggleslash]

You might want to remove DOS 3 from that ;-)

The differences between DOS 2.11 and DOS 3.2 were so slight very few manufacturers at the time made much effort to promote what they had. I think on a technical level, the differences really were limited to internals like hard disk support (sizes of filesystems, etc) and support for 3.5" disks which meant that, at the time DOS 3.2 was around, most people didn't care. DOS 3.3 added the "CALL" command to DOS Batch scripts, which was the first major bit of new functionality.

It wasn't until DOS 4/5/6 that major new functionality was added from a user's perspective, enough to actually mean people wanted to upgrade. The spur for this was competition. Digital Research, Gary Kildall's old stamping ground (not to be confused with Digital/DEC, an entirely unrelated company), created DOS Plus (based on CP/M86 but with the MSDOS APIs added), and then DR DOS, with various new features (the former had preemptive multitasking, though in a somewhat crippled form, the latter a usable file editor and other nifty add-ons)

The "Everything works for the third version" thing doesn't really apply to Windows either. Ignoring point releases, Microsoft released at least four versions of Windows before 3.0 (Windows 1, Windows 2, Windows 286, and Windows 386, the latter of which was supposedly better than Windows 3.0 when it finally came out, according to people who used it.) 3.0 still languished, it was the first version after Microsoft started a campaign to have it actively bundled with DOS (earlier versions were occasionally, but manufacturers rarely did because it cost more. Microsoft changed the DOS pricing and put pressure on manufacturers to ship 3.0), but few machines ran it well, and most people who used it at all used it for Solitaire... 3.0 had major problems with speed, with screen refreshes, and with the DOS compatability box, which were all fixed in 3.1.

3.1 was the first version of Windows that took off. By that, I mean people started actively using it at that point. This happened because all the pieces came together with it - PCs just about hit the point where they were fast enough to run it, and 3.1 was the first usable version of the 3.0 series.

BTW, I rather liked Word 2. I thought Word 6 was a bloated pile of junk... Oh well ;-) Too many people disagree with me for me to be able to disagree with you on that one, but I think it's much underrated.

Re:It's nice to see

[LMCBoy]

I find it a nearly reprehensible attitude to takehat says users, consumers, etc. cannot offer valid critique or requests unless they actually contribute.

That would indeed be reprehensible!...thank God that's not the reality! Go to bugs.kde.org (and probably its Gnome equivalent); there you will see "valid critiques and requests" from users handled far more efficiently, courteously, and with more professionalism than the way commercial software makers typically handle such requests.

That said, there's a BIG difference between offering valid critiques and requests and saying, essentially: "you developers are doing the completely wrong thing. The thing you've labored on and given me (for free) is nothing but a shitty knock-off. Why can't *any* of you invent, design and implement a completely new desktop paradigm?? I have no idea what it would look like, but I want it! Now!"

So, my points are (a) don't take comments on slashdot as indicative of attitudes of KDE/Gnome/whatever developers toward users, and (b) unrealistic comments about completely inventing a shiny new, totally different desktop paradigm (while offering absolutely no information on what it should be like, except different) already get more attention than they deserve.

Re:It's nice to see

[nomadic]

No, the analogy is you shouldn't make cars without wheels for a few years, insist that your product is superior to cars with wheels, then when you finally put some wheels on your cars dislocate your shoulder patting yourself on the back.

Re:It's nice to see

[lyle_hanson]

Please, won't somebody create something new? ... Don't give me "well, write it yourself," because I don't have the skill level, but more importantly, it's a ridiculous attitude to have to start with. Besides, if you want a graphic designer, I'm your man. Linux apps are always sorely lacking in the aesthetics department.

Good suggestions... but I WILL give you the "well, do it yourself"; in some ways, at least. You may lack the skills to WRITE the "killer app", but as you say, graphic designers can make sorely needed contributions. I suggest that for your part you can go check out SourceForge's Help Wanted System. I see there are currently 43 requests for graphic design work, and I'm sure a huge amount of other projects would eagerly accept design help.

Maybe you (and other people with art skills) would be willing to put an end to the hideous "programmer art" that gets put into open source apps?

Re:It's nice to see

[schon]

But KDE and Gnome also copy dialogs,

You mean the same way that Windows copied Mac dialogs?

start menus,

The "start menu" appeared on the Mac in 1994, way before MS copied it.

taskbars,

Like the way MS copied those from the Amiga?

Sorry, I thought you mentioned something about innovation.

Re:It's nice to see

[ceejayoz]

One counterpoint does not disprove an argument. Perhaps the argument would have been better stated as "KDE/GNOME are copying lots of Windows characteristics" or something like that, though.

Also, the new versions of Windows Media Player do this, too (but to WMA format instead). I personally would rather use my own ripping program and control all the options, be it on XP or KDE.

Re:It's nice to see

[lenski]

Must of the structure of CP/M was derived from the Digital Equipment Corporation ("DEC") PDP-11 console monitor interfaces, of which several existed:

• PDP-8 OS/8
• PDP-11 DOS/Batch
• PDP-11 RT-11
• Others that I don't remember...

The 8.3 format derives indirectly from the PDP-11 (mostly), which used a 6.3 format. I don't remember when the slick new invention of 8-character basenames came into existence. The idea of "switches" separated from their arguments by forward slash characters also came from this tradition. "PIP" (Peripheral Interchange Program, IIRC) was the most commonly used data/file transfer program, and tended to be the most "sophisticated" application of the command line work of its time.

The approach saw some real changes when DEC introduced their new CLI paradigm, represented on RSTS/E and VMS, called DCL ("Digital Command Language").

Historical note: The 6.3 format became popular on the PDP-11 family due to its use of the radix-50 encoding method: Each 16-bit word carried 3 characters selected from uppercase alpha, digits, and some punctuation. int(65536^(1/3)) = 50. Don't even *think* of commenting on "50^3" > 65536. Back then binary values were expressed in octal.

Re:It's nice to see

[einhverfr]

Please, won't somebody create something new? The "killer app" I think Linux needs is a new GUI system designed from the ground up for desktop use. Don't give me "well, write it yourself," because I don't have the skill level, but more importantly, it's a ridiculous attitude to have to start with. Besides, if you want a graphic designer, I'm your man. Linux apps are always sorely lacking in the aesthetics department.

Well--- here are my two cents for you--

Microsoft DOES have a number of good ideas which are not yet fully implimented in GNOME, such as a develop-the-vb-tool-by-tomorrow framework. Yes, you can do some of this in GNOME or KDE but it is not as simple yet as it is on Windows. But it is coming a long way (and results in lots of what people see as bloat, etc.) For the desktop use in corporate environments, this is extremely important.

I think that gconf, when fully developed, will be such a killer app-- especially if it can be used to push policies out to desktops, set permissions, user rights, etc. We will have somethign FAR more powerful and extensible that Microsoft can ever have with the registry and inActive Directory. However, I think it is about 5-10% there at this point.

Once the corporate market starts to adopt Linux desktops, the home user market won't be that far behind.

Re:It's nice to see

[The Bungi]

Bungi, you're such a troll.
And what's with the martyr like "-1 Pro Microsoft"? Stop trolling, start posting something insightful and you might get some respect.

Turn off sigs in your preferences and then look at my posts. Do you see a "troll"? I doubt it. That's the point of the sig, and if you're any indication, it works. Otherwise I'd been modded to -1 with alacrity.

And I really don't need "respect" - this is Slashdot, for cryin' out loud.

Re:It's nice to see

[SCHecklerX]

You can either copy forever in a futile attempt at winning the Windows crowd (yeah, let's give them half-assed clones of what they already have), or innovate and create something people will actually want to use.

Like This?

Re:It's nice to see

[IntlHarvester]

Anyone who used Word vs WordPerfect and Lotus vs Excel back in the 1980s would know that Microsoft was doing the real user interface innovation (with help from a bunch of Xerox people they hired and a lot of influence from Apple).

WordPerfect and Lotus got popular because they were "expert interfaces" that were designed to not take up any screen space and appeal to keyboard jocks. Recall that you had to be a real hacker nerd to own a PC in the early days. (For example. someone added mouse support to 123 that was just bizarre -- it used button chording to enter commands, and was practically useless for editing cells.)

Word and Excel went the complete other direction with _good_ WIMP interfaces designed to make tasks easier without removing functionality. It was now actually possible to add a table or a graphic to your document without having a manual on your desk.

Training cost went through the floor, PCs got put on manager's desks, and there's now 100x as many PCs in the field as their used to be. Microsoft did that.

Re:It's nice to see

[krogoth]

The "killer app" I think Linux needs is a new GUI system designed from the ground up for desktop use.

Can you give me more details? The problem is that you can't just sit down and say "I'm gonna design a killer app today!" - invention can't be planned. This is one of the reasons not to do everything from scratch - re-inventing things just to be different or to say that you did it yourself generally doesn't get you any farther and takes a lot longer.

Even if you do have some great idea, you can't just focus on that; you have to use it as a tool to build something useful. If you just focus on one great new idea, you'll end up making a "demo" - people will play with it for 10 minutes and say "Wow, that's a pretty cool idea. I can't wait until it's added to a real application.".

This is probably why KDE and GNOME copy certain things from Windows - they aren't trying to clone Windows, they just want to make a good desktop environment and they decide that having these elements will help, or they decide to copy something that people are familiar with, making improvements that they think are worthwile, instead of taking a lot longer to design something entirely new that may be worse.

If you wanted to write a word processor and have people use it, would you think "now, a lot of people like spellcheckers, but they're too common, so I'll have to come up with something new instead!"?

Re:It's nice to see

[bonch]

No, the ridiculous attitude to have is to presume that you can sit, having made absolutely no contributions aside from a retarded comment about a "killer app ... new GUI system," and tell coders what they should be doing with their time.

This is the attitude I see constantly that is holding Linux back. The idea that people are completely disallowed from making any criticism if they aren't elite coders themselves. If the GUI coders aren't in it to listen to the criticisms of the users, why bother pretending to be caring about their needs in the first place? I'm so sick of these attitudes. I've been hearing them since the mid-90s.

What exactly do you expect? Some sort of magical new alternative to dialogs, start menus, and taskbars? Those have been the staple of GUI design, not only for Windows, but for MacOS, BeOS, OS/2, and basically all other GUI systems.

I said dialogs and windows were staples of GUI design. But does it have to be such a blatant rip-off of Windows? Start-menu in bottom-left corner, taskbar, even print dialogs look the same. Yes, I do expect some innovative new alternative to a lot of things. Even Microsoft tried to modify their start menu a little bit so it wasn't just lists of items. Of course, I have more "revolutionary" ideas in mind for the basic design of my ideal GUI system, but as I am not a project leader nor a programmer, I won't list them on Slashdot. People here would be too afraid of the change anyway (yes, most Linux users are as engrained as Windows users when it comes to their systems).

Have people tried to create radically new desktops before? Yes, and those have always been spectacular failures.

So let's just copy forever. Yeah.

I don't expect something "radically new." I didn't even say to lose the concept of the desktop.

I just wish someone would start a project to create something new from the ground up. No X, no libraries like GTK/QT, no window manager on top of that, and then no desktop system on top of that. I'm sick of all the layers and the conflicting libraries and inconsistencies. I know it would take a lot of work, but if people can write entire 3D engines for free like Crystal Space and Genesis, reverse engineer the hardware for hundreds of arcade boards to write emulators like MAME, and create new VM subsystems from scratch for the kernel, surely there is the possibility of someone out there writing a good, seamless GUI system that can replace X. One in which there is a smart Install/Remove system for programs. One in which it intelligently auto-updates itself. One that actually looks and feel like a professional, productive system, but doesn't replace the command lines and so forth. I'm thinking of how OS X is like a "shell" on top of the Unix-like system behind it. I would love to have those two powerful systems on my laptop here. Instead, I use Windows 2000 because the GUI is actually responsive and pleasant on the eyes, and my apps install just by popping in a CD. I would love that sort of convenience on Linux so I can get things done, complete with a better overall GUI.

The second someone finds something better, EVERYONE will switch.

Exactly my point.

For now, this is the paradigm we have, and every group tries to creates its own vision of that paradigm. These are not "half-assed clones".

I'm sorry, but it's just that my opinion of GNOME and KDE are that they are horrible. Just because they are made by volunteers, quite honestly, doesn't mean a damned thing in the end. I still have a right to criticize it. If nobody wants criticism, don't release it to the public and instead just keep it on your private network. In the real world, it's not about the nice people behind the project, it's whether or not the output is actually good or not...

Believe it or not, but some people actually prefer using Linux desktop environments over Windows.

I know. I was one for years until Windows 2000 was released.

I'm one of those people. I can't stand Windows at all, so I use Gnome. It's not perfect, but neither is Windows. I use what gets the job done quickly and get the bonus of not having to be constantly irritated by the Windows feel.

Since neither are perfect, what's wrong with trying at something better? I'm sure you have ideas of your own about things that should be changed and improved.

Whenever a program is cloned, it is usually for good cause -- sometimes Microsoft or some other company creates a good program or adds something interesting to the UI that others overlooked before. To not take advantage of a proven design for the sake of being different is sheer arrogance. I've noticed that Gnome and several GTK apps draw their influence from various sources to create programs that have their own personality. (I've never really used KDE, but I'm sure the same can be said about it.)

It's just that I see all of the Windows conventions but poorly implemented. As someone with more of an eye for the graphics and usability side, I notice things like menu items being too close together or completely badly organized, colors not contrasting enough in certain areas, a bizarre and laggy desktop icon system, and so forth. I can't help it; my programming side is drowned out by the fact that what I'm looking at is kind of ugly. Pretty graphics here and there, but badly organized. For someone like me who spends hours into the night working, I need a GUI that doesn't cause me to want to rip my arm off and beat myself with it.

Which leads me to this: Your comment is total nonsense. Every one of your five paragraphs have at least one major flaw. Some have more.

Thanks for pointing out the flaws and addressing them instead of just flat-out calling my comment "total nonsense." With such logic, you have really convinced me that I should never criticize KDE or GNOME again.

I don't think I'll be able to influence your opinion on the matter at all, so I won't even try.

Why bother? If you're happy with KDE/GNOME, knock yourself out. Personally, I'm tired of feeling held back by those systems.

But since you've given your opinion, I thought I'd give mine.

Glad you did.

I just want something good enough that people stop relying on Microsoft. I think everyone here wants that. I just don't think KDE and GNOME and any of their obsessions with naming apps with a K or a G will get us there. Call me misguided or whatever, I think more people would agree with me than you think.

Re:It's nice to see

[bonch]

Did I say Microsoft didn't copy those?

Yeah, I said something about innovation.

Windows 1.0 had the taskbar, by the way. Amiga what?

Why do some many prefer Gnome then ?

[bushboy]

If all of what this article implies is a reasonable "comparison" between the way KDE and Gnome function, why is it that so many prefer Gnome over KDE ?

I've used both for years and have finally settled on Gnome as I find it faster, more intuitive and less "bloated" than KDE, yet the authour of the article finds pretty much the opposite to be true.

I'm no programmer, so what happens behind 'the scenes' is not something I can use to compare the different desktops.

All I know is that I much prefer Gnome over KDE.

Re:Why do some many prefer Gnome then ?

[rseuhs]

Why?

Because it's backed by RedHat and Sun.

And it's no coincidence that RedHat users usually say that Linux isn't ready for the desktop yet while SuSE, Mandrake or Gentoo users say it is...

At least that's my observation, and it's also confirmed by statistics (in Germany (= SuSE territory) Linux marketshare is about 3-4 times higher than in the USA (=RedHat territory))

Re:Why do some many prefer Gnome then ?

[twener]

> why is it that so many prefer Gnome over KDE ?

There are always some who don't share opinion or taste of the majority. For example have a look at the Gentoo Linux usage statistics. Adding all KDE installations compared to Gnome installations more seem to prefer KDE than Gnome. That's the tendency this statistic has in common with most web polls (which I in general wouldn't overestimate as being representative).

Re:Why do some many prefer Gnome then ?

[tempest303]

And it's no coincidence that RedHat users usually say that Linux isn't ready for the desktop yet while SuSE, Mandrake or Gentoo users say it is...

Perhaps this indicates that Red Hat users are more objective then, since Linux isn't yet ready for the desktop.

KDE is a complete mess of feature and preference overload, with little apparent thought given to design. GNOME has the design part down a lot better, and has a far more sane attitude towards preferences, but is lacking in some features, a few of them major. (No, I don't mean stupid sh*t like edge-flipping - I'm talking about stuff like a lock-down system for administrators, a must-have in office environments!)

Neither desktop is quite ready for Joe Consumer use - but I predict that one or both will get damn close this year, either by GNOME filling in a few feature gaps, or KDE getting serious about consumer-level usability.* We're not there yet, but we are damn close.

* side note to Mosfet-worshippers: "organization" will not save you - kontrol center is drowning in useless preferences. Some of them simply have to go

Re:Why do some many prefer Gnome then ?

[mbogosian]

If all of what this article implies is a reasonable "comparison" between the way KDE and Gnome function, why is it that so many prefer Gnome over KDE?

Applications.

Seriously, you're never going to get rid of GNOME for (at least) one simple reason: GIMP.

I'm among the most disappointed with RedHat's choice to reduce desktop configurability to near zero (no, themes do not count as configurability...a real window manager with extensively modifiable behaviors does) in RH8.0. But what I *really* don't understand is why RedHat went with GNOME as the default base desktop (other than having invested a lot in GNOME with their custom apps).

I am a long time GNOME user and have to agree that one is constantly reminded of the vast inconsistencies among GNOME apps. Not so with the latest KDE. Of course you can always run KDE/GNOME applications side by side, but it can be really confusing for users without years of experience having to differentiate between the two. Even for experienced users it's a pain in the ass (why do I have to wait 10 seconds for the DCOP/MCOP/whatever server to start up when I run the first KDE app in a GNOME session; and then, after I quit the last KDE app, why does the server quit too even though my session is still alive?).

The sad thing is that unless GnuCash, GIMP, Galeon, Evolution, Red Carpet and the RedHat configuration/updates tools (e.g., the rhn applet) are rewritten for KDE, then GNOME is not going away (and don't tell me to use Konqueror or KMail).

If someone could come up with a way to make the look and (more importantly) the feel be configurable in both, and have a common behavior configuration interface (kind of analogous to what RedHat has with its GTK+/GTK+2 theme chooser), we'd probably be most of the way there (or at least be at the point of a passing grade).

Re:Why do some many prefer Gnome then ?

[bushboy]

Quote: Because it's backed by RedHat and Sun.

You make that sound like some kind of nasty conspiracy ! :)

I'm using Redhat 8.0 as my primary Linux Distro because I find the Bluecurve Theme for Gnome so elegant and pleasing to the eye and feel it's the best Desktop implementation I've yet seen for Linux.

I'm sincerely hoping that Mandrake 9.1 will make me switch back to Mandrake as my primary distro, as I was dissapointed with 9.0 which felt slow and scrappy compared to RedHat 8.0

Getting involved in a 'gnome is better' or 'kde is better' argument/discussion isn't anything I'm willing to do, I don't really care so long as I can do stuff easily and quickly - Gnome presently affords me more stability and useability than KDE.

I find that I mainly use Desktop Linux for watching movies, surfing the web, playing quake3 etc. so for Desktop entertainment use, it's perfectly adaquate.

I've also investigated using the RedHat on the Desktop in an office environment by doing several quotes in Open Office and saving/printing to a windows box - it was just as easy as windows, however, I encountered numerous incompatabilities when saving as an MS Word Doc, which is a problem considering how wide the MS Word userbase is.

Linux is most definately ready for the Desktop, or at least, this is the year it will prove itself.

Re:Why do some many prefer Gnome then ?

[nonmaskable]

>I'm talking about stuff like a lock-down system for >administrators, a must-have in office environments!

Do you know about kiosk mode? What do you want to do that kiosk doesn't support?

Re:Why do some many prefer Gnome then ?

[rseuhs]

Perhaps this indicates that Red Hat users are more objective then, since Linux isn't yet ready for the desktop.

Because you say so?

KDE is a complete mess of feature and preference overload, with little apparent thought given to design. GNOME has the design part down a lot better, and has a far more sane attitude towards preferences, but is lacking in some features, a few of them major. (No, I don't mean stupid sh*t like edge-flipping - I'm talking about stuff like a lock-down system for administrators, a must-have in office environments!)

There cannot be such a thing as "preference overload" because you only set preferences once, but use features daily. The maybe 10 seconds that it takes longer to find your preference in a preference-rich control-panel is irrelevant compared to the features you gain.

The drooling morons just use the defaults anyway and never use the control panel, so they are the least affected user group

Neither desktop is quite ready for Joe Consumer use - but I predict that one or both will get damn close this year, either by GNOME filling in a few feature gaps, or KDE getting serious about consumer-level usability.* We're not there yet, but we are damn close.

Nonsense. KDE and even GNOME (yes, I'm a KDE fan, but while GNOME isn't that great anymore for power users, it's still good enough for basic users) is technically ready for Joe Consumer.

All problems have nothing to do with KDE or GNOME itself:

• We need Win32 application support. Hopefully Wine will get good enough this year to run most Win32 apps flawlessly, some Win32 apps with no equivalent on Linux are keeping a lot of people on Windows.
• We need PC-makers to preinstall Linux. The best desktop in the world (which is IMO KDE) won't make an impression when it's not preinstalled. The Win32-compatibility will be of great help convincing PC-makers, too.
• We need better marketing. At first the "Linux is too complicated" FUD has to stop (yes, I'm also talking about you), simply because it's no longer true. kcontrol may be complicated, but it's far easier to find something in it than it is to find the right tool in the Windows control panel. (kcontrol is organized in a tree, the Windows control panel is just a folder with tools thrown in) So if KDE isn't ready, neither is Windows. In reality both are good enough anyway.

* side note to Mosfet-worshippers: "organization" will not save you - kontrol center is drowning in useless preferences. Some of them simply have to go

Gooddamn, that's nonsense. You only need to set preferences *once*, so any time-gains are negletible and the so-called mysterious "average user" doesn't change the preferences at all, so using the "average user" as a reason to reduce kcontrol functionality is pretty moronic.

OK, now in all-tabs, otherwise you won't get it:

SHOW ME A SINGLE PROGRAM THAT IS SUCCESSFUL BECAUSE IT HAS REDUCED CONFIGURATION FUNCTIONALITY

Name one. Everyone *I* know, ICQ, Winamp, Photoshop, MS Office, etc. is loaded with configuration options, and every version more are added. MS Office alone probably has more configuration options than KDE in it's full glory.

Name a single program that has become successful because it has removed configuration options. Just a single one.

So according to you, MS Office can't be used by "Joe average", right?

You are dead wrong, sorry. I'm a Wordprocessing-newbie (well actually not really a newbie, I use them for several years, but only about once every 2 months, so I'm at the same skill level as a newbie, but I disgress) and I can get my work done using the defaults in OpenOffice. If I would use it more often, I would dig around and customize it to fit my needs - and I would be very happy to find the options I need.

Re:Why do some many prefer Gnome then ?

[bushboy]

The drooling morons just use the defaults anyway and never use the control panel, so they are the least affected user group

Ok, so we can see where your coming from then !

Anyone who doesn't care to change the defaults is a drooling Moron ?
How so ?
Please explain that concept further to enlighten the drooling Morons.

Why should I have to fiddle with all sorts of settings to make a program work ?
Surely the defaults should be setup so that the program functions correctly and work can be done.

Not everyone is into customising thier preferences to the Nth degree - some of us "Drooling Morons" actually want to do other things aside from meddle with preferences.

Having said that, obviously preferences have thier important place in the grand scheme of things - but NEVER assume someone is a moron because they accept the default !

Re:Why do some many prefer Gnome then ?

[tempest303]

That's my point - GNOME doesn't have a kiosk mode! KDE does - good for them. Fortunately, kiosk mode is a much-requested feature, and may be part of GNOME 2.4 this summer.

Re:Why do some many prefer Gnome then ?

[twener]

> Seriously, you're never going to get rid of GNOME for (at least) one simple reason: GIMP.

Why not? Gimp isn't a GNOME program. Nor are XChat or Pan which I use personally.

Re:Why do some many prefer Gnome then ?

[tempest303]

Ok, clearly this is going to go no-where, but just for you...

SHOW ME A SINGLE PROGRAM THAT IS SUCCESSFUL BECAUSE IT HAS REDUCED CONFIGURATION FUNCTIONALITY

Now, in all caps also, AND in bold, so you'll here me back (just in case, y'know)

SHOW ME A SINGLE PROGRAM THAT IS SUCCESSFUL BECAUSE IT HAS A RIDICULOUS NUMBER OF CONFIGURATION OPTIONS

That said, the fundamental flaw in your arguments is that Windows, MS Office, ICQ, etc, are somehow the pinnacle of usability. Perhaps the reason the average user never changes preferences is because it's fucking hard for them. That doesn't make them idiots, either. It makes them non-geeks. Furthermore, in order to make headway in the desktop market, Linux can't be on par with Windows - it has to be much better. Getting people to leave what they know is hard, so you have to provide them the incentive somehow.

You also state that people only ever set preferences once - this is also untrue. Many preferences are like this, sure, but some may need frequent adjustments. For non-geeks (since you're allergic to the term "average user"), this is daunting, and understandably so.

Next time you see a non-geek relative of yours, watch them on the computer. Ask yourself if the user is the idiot, or if maybe the designer of the software was too myopic to see past what he thought would be "cool".

Re:Why do some many prefer Gnome then ?

[rseuhs]

Anyone who doesn't care to change the defaults is a drooling Moron ? How so ?

If you would understand plain English, you would notice that I said that "drooling morons don't change defaults" and not vice versa. No, it's not the same, the sentence gets a very different meaning when you switch that around.

Why should I have to fiddle with all sorts of settings to make a program work ?

You shouldn't. And I'm all for discussing how the defaults should be. But no configurability shall be taken out simply because you can't make the defaults perfect for all people. Different people have different needs, the defaults should try to be the best setting for many, but only configurability can make ALL users happy.

Re:Why do some many prefer Gnome then ?

[entrox]

Show me a single program that is successful because it has a ridiculous number of configuration options.

Emacs

Re:Why do some many prefer Gnome then ?

[rseuhs]

SHOW ME A SINGLE PROGRAM THAT IS SUCCESSFUL BECAUSE IT HAS A RIDICULOUS NUMBER OF CONFIGURATION OPTIONS

Didn't you read my post? I already provided several examples: MS Office, Winamp, ICQ - and also KDE is more successful than GNOME.

So it's YOUR turn now.

That said, the fundamental flaw in your arguments is that Windows, MS Office, ICQ, etc, are somehow the pinnacle of usability.

Usability is impossible to measure.

Since we were both talking about popularity and popularity can be measured, I used popular examples.

Perhaps the reason the average user never changes preferences is because it's fucking hard for them.

Perhaps, perhaps. We shall cripple the successful KDE to copy the unsuccessful GNOME just because of "perhaps"?

You better come up with some proof. Or at least one example. Don't you realize how out-of-touch of reality you sound? You want KDE to throw over their whole philosophy, copy the much less successful GNOME and ignore their userbase - all just for some unconfirmed hypothesis that reduced configuration options will help some hypotetical average user.

In my experience, computerphobes don't mess around with configuration options because they are afraid of changing something they don't like and don't know how to change it back. - That's why the "restore defaults" options are so popular. They are also not interested in changing anything.

That doesn't make them idiots, either. It makes them non-geeks.

No, they are not idiots.

However when the self-proclaimed usability experts talk about "average users" they mean idiots. In my opinion, idiots are clearly sub-average, not average.

Furthermore, in order to make headway in the desktop market, Linux can't be on par with Windows - it has to be much better.

Well, in desktop usability, KDE/Linux is already much better than Windows.

The problem is that a) compatibility is more important than usability and b) people don't know about the greater usability.

Ad a) - If you need application x and it runs only on Windows, you use Windows, period. Usability does not matter at all in that decision. We need more applications, Wine could fuel that process. I'm in the lucky situation of being able to do all my work under KDE/Linux, but if I would have to use some Windows program, I would have no other choice, or would I? Compatibility beats Usability.

Ad b) - Most people use what is preinstalled and don't even look at alternatives.

Anyway, SuSE/KDE has reached about 10-20% Linux usenet postings in Germany (where SuSE dominates the Linux market), while RedHat/GNOME has reached only about 2-6% in US-groups. (Yes, it's simplified, but check the usenet statistics yourself. Yes, I only looked at non-technical OS-neutral newsgroups.)

And now you argue that KDE should make the same mistake that GNOME made and take out configuration options?

KDE is much more successful than GNOME. I don't see that as a reason for KDE to copy GNOME.

Getting people to leave what they know is hard, so you have to provide them the incentive somehow.

True. But trowing out configuration options is no incentive at all.

You also state that people only ever set preferences once - this is also untrue. Many preferences are like this, sure, but some may need frequent adjustments.

Which are?

For non-geeks (since you're allergic to the term "average user"), this is daunting, and understandably so.

Sorry, but I don't think the average user has a problem with kcontrol.

Sub-average drooling morons may have a problem, but I doubt they can configure anything else either.

Re:Why do some many prefer Gnome then ?

[gurumeditationerror]

You make a lot of sense dude. If noone else seems to understand your meaning know that at least I do. Heh. Personnally I want stuff to work straight away with defualt settings too. It would be very frustrating to have the ability to fine tune a tool for myself. Especially the actual desktop itself. If people are worried about confusing fools with too many options the current complete settings should be put under "all options" (or something like that) and under "basic options" (or something similar) can have cut down "simple" dialogues. I've popped the cherry of a lot of linux virgins and I haven't seen any have probs with kontrol. The plan was made and called genocide.. Took all the children and then they died.. The few that remained were never found.. All in a System Of A Down ..

Re:Why do some many prefer Gnome then ?

[mickwd]

"* side note to Mosfet-worshippers: "organization" will not save you - kontrol center is drowning in useless preferences. Some of them simply have to go"

I do so love being told what I can and can't do with my own computer.

But yes, good organisation can sort out this situation. Why is it so difficult to choose a sensible level of "standard" options, well-thought-out and well presented, and hide more advanced options behind an "advanced" button in the appropriate dialogs ? Some applications already do - Microsoft also uses this idea in places.

And if you insist that you're dealing with people that can't deal with "advanced" configuration options, I would suggest two solutions:
1) All advanced dialogs to have a "Restore to Defaults" button (some applications already do this). In fact, this would probably be a good idea on all dialogs;
2) Have some single centralised option, controllable by root or a system administrator, which simply turns off all "Advanced" dialogs (and the buttons which acccess them) if you insist that users can't be trusted to use them, and will only be confused by them (or that their use will make a system administration / support harder).

Re:Why do some many prefer Gnome then ?

[gurumeditationerror]

I need to read through what I write next time...

You make a lot of sense dude. If noone else seems to understand your meaning know that at least I do. Heh.

Personnally I want stuff to work straight away with default settings too.
It would be very frustrating to have the ability to fine tune a tool for myself taken away.

Especially the actual desktop itself.

If people are worried about confusing fools with too many options the current complete settings should be put under "all options" (or something like that) and under "basic options" (or something similar) can have cut down "simple" dialogues.

I've popped the cherry of a lot of linux virgins and I haven't seen any have probs with kontrol.

The plan was made and called genocide..
Took all the children and then they died..
The few that remained were never found..
All in a System Of A Down..

Re:Why do some many prefer Gnome then ?

[blibbleblobble]

"I've settled on Gnome as I find it faster, more intuitive and less "bloated" than KDE, yet the authour of the article finds pretty much the opposite to be true."

I think the author of this article would agree with you, although he doesn't cover such issues in the article. Take his example of file-select box. He has a screenshot of KDE file-select, with bookmarks, favourites icons, an image-previewer, an optional directory-tree, a browser toolbar, and little icons by each type of file.

He then gives a screenshot of the Gnome file-select, with a listbox and a "parent directory" dropdown, and goes on to note how basic it is. Yes, but how long did the K take to load? How much memory is that file-select using? How long does it take to redraw a directory with thousands of files?

For me, speed is not the issue so much as reliability. I've had problems with KDE and Gnome crashing (Fixed in whichever version comes with the Drake 9) which lost me more time than any delays in the operating environment.

WindowMaker is very good, for people who've not tried it yet. You can run you Gnome and KDE programs the same, but the environment is more stable and robust, and it loads in less than a second.

Re:Why do some many prefer Gnome then ?

[macshit]

Why is it so difficult to choose a sensible level of "standard" options, well-thought-out and well presented, and hide more advanced options behind an "advanced" button in the appropriate dialogs?

I share your opinion of Gnome's `new style' -- I think it sucks, and wish they had kept more options that I used in older Gnome versions.

However, as much as I'd like to complain, I've seen the Gnome team point out that any option, even if hidden by default, makes the software more complex, requires support, and will contribute to the overall number of bugs.

Given this, I've bitten my tongue with regards to all the obscure options I want, and only bitch when I can make a good case for something... :-)

Re:Why do some many prefer Gnome then ?

[mickwd]

"I've seen the Gnome team point out that any option, even if hidden by default, makes the software more complex, requires support, and will contribute to the overall number of bugs"

So do all features. Will these slowly start to be removed, too ?

What they appear to be arguing is that it's good enough to only offer the basic functionality that, say, 80% of (their least-experienced) users need. Their problem is that "they" seem to have "taken over" a system written by hackers, for hackers, and are making it into something else.

(PS: The above comment is aimed at the people who made the point you quoted, not you personally).

I wonder how much of gnome is still being written by unpaid volunteers "scratching an itch", and how much by salaried professionals working to some defined specification.

Re:Why do some many prefer Gnome then ?

[flacco]

I'm among the most disappointed with RedHat's choice to reduce desktop configurability to near zero (no, themes do not count as configurability...a real window manager with extensively modifiable behaviors does) in RH8.0.

Same here. After the Metacity abortion found its way onto the RH8 desktop, I just dumped the gnome desktop environment and used IceWM. Light, fast, configurable, attractive.

Re:Why do some many prefer Gnome then ?

[TheRaven64]

Well, in desktop usability, KDE/Linux is already much better than Windows.

Maybe. If you put a decent theme on it, and only use KDE apps. While Windows is not the best desktop environment around it has one feature which X lacks:

Consistency

I know that any app with a 'Designed for Windows' sticker on it will behave as I expect it to. The same is (i believe) true of the apps included in the KDE core distribution, but beyond that it can be a real mess.

Question: 'Why should I conform to this UI guideline? The person who wrote it was clearly an idiot.'
Commercial Answer: 'Because a) our users expect it to work that way, and b) I'll fire you if you don't.'
Open Source Answer: 'You don't have to. No-one's paying you, are they? Anyway, I'm sure you do know much more about UI design than the idiots who released those guidelines. Ha, I bet they don't even know C...'

Re:Why do some many prefer Gnome then ?

[Simon Brooke]

And it's no coincidence that RedHat users usually say that Linux isn't ready for the desktop yet while SuSE, Mandrake or Gentoo users say it is...

Perhaps this indicates that Red Hat users are more objective then, since Linux isn't yet ready for the desktop.

My milage varies. Linux (and nothing else) has been on my desktop for eight years now. If it isn't on your desktop, that isn't a problem with Linux.

Re:Why do some many prefer Gnome then ?

[squiggleslash]

SHOW ME A SINGLE PROGRAM THAT IS SUCCESSFUL BECAUSE IT HAS REDUCED CONFIGURATION FUNCTIONALITY

Now, in all caps also, AND in bold, so you'll here me back (just in case, y'know)

SHOW ME A SINGLE PROGRAM THAT IS SUCCESSFUL BECAUSE IT HAS A RIDICULOUS NUMBER OF CONFIGURATION OPTIONS

Ok, in bold and italics and caps:

SHOW ME A SINGLE PROGRAM THAT IS SUCCESSFUL BECAUSE IT HAS A REASONABLE AND SENSIBLE NUMBER OF CONFIGURATION OPTIONS, NEITHER TOO MANY NOR TOO FEW, BUT JUST ABOUT RIGHT

Bet neither of you are able to...

Re:Why do some many prefer Gnome then ?

[rseuhs]

Maybe. If you put a decent theme on it, and only use KDE apps. While Windows is not the best desktop environment around it has one feature which X lacks:

Consistency

Oh, sure. That's why Winamp is soo consistent. Oh wait, what about WMP? Not really consistent. And ICQ? Also not consistent.

No, with Windows you don't get consistency any more than with KDE.

The same is (i believe) true of the apps included in the KDE core distribution, but beyond that it can be a real mess.

So then don't use anything not in the KDE core distribution, goddamn. The ability to use GNOME and classical X-applications gives you MORE choice, you don't have to use those apps.

Re:Why do some many prefer Gnome then ?

[flacco]

So you compare a desktop environment to a window manager? What are you, retarded?

Well, that's arguable.

Have you tried IceWM? Pretty much a full desktop environment.

Re:Why do some many prefer Gnome then ?

[triptolemeus]

Dunno, dunno, haven't you guys learnt anything from Microsoft. They used some statements like: 30 new features in office are because of one person. They invented the talking paperclip, turning that one off was pretty hard. They got rid of it.

One of the few things I found in three years of user support is that they want: features (and they all want different features) and customizability. Why do you think skins are so popular. Everyone wants every program to look the way he/she likes. Means: options, options and more options.

And yes you will be surprised to see what options users find. Even the dumbest ones. So yeah Gnome is becoming the adminsitrators dream by removing the advanced button everywhere: if a user can't change it he cannot screw the system. KDE takes the other approach and gives all the features. I like it, I'll stick to it.

And it is having the first version of a kiosk option (like windows profiles). To be honest: I don't care what runs my car, as long as it takes me where I want to go. KDE is the better motor for me. I don't like SUN commitees deciding what I can configure and what not. I chose Linux, remember?

Re:Why do some many prefer Gnome then ?

[buddha42]

sendmail

Re:Why do some many prefer Gnome then ?

[flacco]

So where are the Ice application?

I use GNOME applications, along with others. I don't consider those part of the desktop environment per se.

I'm talking about windowing, application launching, menus, task switching, panels, etc.

Re:Why do some many prefer Gnome then ?

[ceejayoz]

And it's no coincidence that RedHat users usually say that Linux isn't ready for the desktop yet while SuSE, Mandrake or Gentoo users say it is...

You're right. RedHat is the predominant business-oriented distribution, whilst the others are more hobbyist-oriented.

Ergo, the people who have average computer knowledge (most people) say it's not ready, whilst the hardcore techies say it is.

Re:Why do some many prefer Gnome then ?

[fymidos]

Well, it's more like GNOME is a GIMP program :>

Re:Why do some many prefer Gnome then ?

[gurumeditationerror]

Go suck your anonymous cock.

Re:Why do some many prefer Gnome then ?

[tempest303]

Usability is impossible to measure.

BZZZT! Game over. You just essentially said that any one software design is as good as any other from a usability standpoint. (Since it's "immeasurable", how would you know which is better? Not knowing, all must be equal, then.) Usability is measurable, especially with regards to the amount of time it takes a given user to accomplish a specific task.

I think that pretty much hits the "Godwin's Law" principle for me... I'm done.

Re:Why do some many prefer Gnome then ?

[buysse]

KDE is updated more often (major revs) as well, so it's not a clear statistic. It could just be that more people emerge KDE to jump versions than Gnome users (which have been at 2.0 for a while).

Statistics lie.

Re:Why do some many prefer Gnome then ?

[chundo]

Mod this as off-topic if you will, but as long as we're on the subject of what it will take to get consumer acceptance of desktop linux, I've gotta throw in my two cents. Call me petty, but consumers in general ARE petty.

This is for KDE developers: desktop linux is not going to be taken seriously by consumers as long as you continue to use asinine naming conventions for all your core apps, and most other apps as well. Konqueror, KMail, KControl, Konsole, KOffice... give it a rest. First impressions are everything in the consumer market, and when you're making up or mis-spelling words (which I'm sure you call "branding" them) for every application you make, it looks immature and unprofessional. Yes, the apps are for KDE. Yes, KDE contains a K. Let it go!

GNOME is guilty of the same conventions at times (i.e. Gnumeric), but overall they do a much better job of coming across as a professional UI.

People don't want use something that sounds like it was marketed by kindergartners as their primary OS for productivity in the office. Maybe it's not very purist of me to say so, but mass acceptance of desktop linux will have a lot less to do with quality than with appearances, impressions, and MARKETING. If you don't think so, stick your head out of your foxhole for a few minutes and look around. How did Windows get so popular? Microsoft wasn't always a monopoly - they gained that power because they were effective in making their product look attractive and professional to consumers.

I know Microsoft isn't a very popular model to aspire to around here, but from the beginning they knew their shit when it came to software marketing. The functionality of desktop linux is coming around now, but if the linux community doesn't borrow a page or two from Microsoft's book of marketing, they'll never replace them in the consumer market.

-j

Re:Why do some many prefer Gnome then ?

[sparrow_hawk]

There cannot be such a thing as "preference overload" because you only set preferences once, but use features daily.

Sigh... I bow before your 1337n355...

Believe me, I have seen Hell and it is preference overload.

I'm a geek. I consider myself to be a geek. I'm not afraid of things I don't understand. It took me five months to install Linux, but I stuck with it.

Recomplining my kernel was enough to leave me quivering on the floor mumbling "math coprocessor... i386 instruction set... Minix filesystem..."

*That*, my trollish friend, is preference overload. Certainly, I can learn what each configuration option does and become a 1337 h4>0rm31573r such as yourself. The thing is, *I* *shouldn't* *have* *to*. Even something as simple as showing me "this is how your kernel is *currently* configured" so I could be sure I wasn't *breaking* anything would have gone a long way to alleviating my discomfort.

Or look at Grip -- welcome to UI Hell. Tabs??? For the love of God, why? It took me a while to tweak the settings so it worked consistently for me, and every time I reworked something I had to wade through "Rip nice value", "Max nonencoded .wavs", and other things I wasn't likely to ever change. It only takes ten seconds longer if you know which preferences don't matter.

Y'see, if the default configuration is fscking broken, you *have* to learn the prefs if you want to get something done. It's a royal PITA. Even if it isn't, the more commonly used preferences shouldn't be embedded in amongst the more esoteric ones. MS Office succeeds because it doesn't force you to wade through the prefs to get stuff done. That's really the big push I'm seeing from people like Havoc Pennington -- pick rational defaults.

Also, reducing the options available in a program doesn't mean actually eliminating the options. More power-user type options are probably better left in text-based configuration files, because configuration dialogs get really overloaded with 100 checkboxes. This, again, seems to be the big thrust of gconf.

Believe me, grip would be a lot more successful if it didn't have so many fscking options. I used Enlightenment for a while, and if you like the options you're more than free to use it too. Myself, though, I switched to Metacity and never looked back.

Re:Why do some many prefer Gnome then ?

[bogolisk]

>> SHOW ME A SINGLE PROGRAM THAT IS SUCCESSFUL BECAUSE IT HAS REDUCED CONFIGURATION FUNCTIONALITY

GNU Emacs!

A lot of options now have to be set using custom. I know a lot of avg Emacs users start configuring emacs more and more since the introduction of custom.

while custom is not as flexible as lisp but it does help non lisper to configure emacs, thus make emacs (v20 and later) more successful.

Re:Why do some many prefer Gnome then ?

[evilviper]

it's also confirmed by statistics (in Germany (= SuSE territory) Linux marketshare is about 3-4 times higher than in the USA (=RedHat territory))

Give me a break! There is absolutely no cause and effect here. Just because SuSE is more popular some place where Linux is more popular, does not mean that SuSE (or KDE) is better.

An example as moronic as your own:
In the north, where heavy jackets are popular, the sales of jackets is very high. In the south, where light jackets are more popular, jacket sales are low. That must mean the sale of light jackets leads to lower jacket sales, and people who buy light jackets are less happy with their jacket experience overall. It couldn't possilby have anything to do with the fact that the weather is many times hotter in the south as in the north.

Can't these kids grow up?

[BrokenHalo]

I am very tired of reading flame wars between Gnome and KDE. OK, I am a big supporter of Gnome, but that doesn't mean KDE sucks. It plainly does not. I would be the first to agree that there have been some terrible blunders made by some of the Gnome developers along the way, but the current 2.2 is very sweet. Every so often I try out new versions of KDE as they come up, and every time I abandon it because my desktop looks cluttered and Kalling Keverything Kfoo.Kbar Ketc Kgives Kme Kthe Kshits... :-) [/rant]

Re:Can't these kids grow up?

[hswerdfe]

I am very tired of reading flame wars between Gnome and KDE

I agree, 100% both are excelent (but both could be better to) desktop environments to use, both have advantages, and I could see an argument for either one.

Personally I like kde (the Klipper does it for me) but hey I also like gaim, grip, & Glade.

Re:Can't these kids grow up?

[chadm1967]

I agree, as well. I use Gnome but every once in a while I'll use KDE for a couple of days to see what's new. What bothers me the most is the fact that there are authors that keep writing crap articles like this.

Re:Can't these kids grow up?

[rseuhs]

I am very tired of reading flame wars between Gnome and KDE.

my desktop looks cluttered and Kalling Keverything Kfoo.Kbar Ketc Kgives Kme Kthe Kshits...

You don't seem so tired of flame wars at all...

Re:Can't these kids grow up?

[Tyreth]

Yes, I can't stand every app starting with a "K" - even though I now prefer KDE over GNOME. Sim-ICQ, now that's a better name, not a "K" in sight!

Re:Can't these kids grow up?

[MulluskO]

It's time for Cerulean Studios to release Killian.

Re:Can't these kids grow up?

[jejones]

Kalling Keverything Kfoo.Kbar Ketc Kgives Kme Kthe Kshits... :-)

Actually, what it always reminds me of is the Ku Klux Klan.

Re:Can't these kids grow up?

[TheRaven64]

am very tired of reading flame wars between Gnome and KDE.

I am tired of there being a GNOME and a KDE. Those folks in Redmond with their single consistent user interface must laugh with joy whenever they hear about KDE or GNOME. Oh, and for the record: Making everything skinable does not make up for poor original UI design.

Re:Can't these kids grow up?

[Darren Winsper]

Actually, making things skinnable from the start isn't a bad idea at all. Whenever I change my KDE theme, all my KDE apps look fine with the new theme. Now, take Office XP. In Outlook, it has *two* types of scrollbar in the main Window.

Re:Can't these kids grow up?

[madpuppy]

if the adding of a "K" to the front of an apps name makes you dislike the app or GUI rather than the ability of the app or GUI to do what you need it to do I think that is a shallow and foolish way of thinking.

I am not saying that you don't have valid reasons to dislike KDE, or parts of KDE, which you do. I am actually pointing to the people who hate "dislike" KDE specificaly because of it's naming schema. Granted, I somtimes think the "K" thing gets out of hand, but, I also think that it works, for example Konqueror, Kicker, Konstruct, and to a degree Koffice, using the "K" is actually apropriate and tells the user that these are KDE specific apps.
But, overall the naming thing gets blown out of proportion by alot of people because IMHO they cannot find a really good reason for not using KDE, Like it being not mature, or extremely buggy or unusable because of having an inconsistant GUI.

To my observation, knocks about KDE are mainly about it being ugly, the "K" naming schema, KHTML not rendering like GECO or not being able to choose GECO as Konqueror's html engine rather than KHTML. or just plainly KDE "sux" sucks. which I just don't get. I don't really use Gnome alot, so I have nothing to say about it except that without Gnome KDE wouldn't be a good as it is. I think that KDE would be not much different as it was at 1.x if the competition from GNOME didn't drive KDE to really kick-up development to keep up with the advances that Gnome was proposing and did implement. the competition has made both DE's mature and faster than anyone could imagine. and that is the best thing about them both existing, we, the users get some cool features and choice.
and, to me that is what's it's all about.

Re:Can't these kids grow up?

[arose]

I too prefare GNU/Linux to Kinux.

Re:Can't these kids grow up?

[olau]

my desktop looks cluttered and Kalling Keverything Kfoo.Kbar Ketc Kgives Kme Kthe Kshits...

You don't seem so tired of flame wars at all...

Did you notice the smiley you removed from the OP's statement? It is generally supposed to mean, "don't take this too seriously". In fact, it might even signify a joke. :-)

How about

[SourKAT]

if we all step on wet paint and then put a GNOME logo on his butt.

I've tried to use GNOME but always go back to KDE

[systemapex]

From a pure user experience, I like GNOME's simplicity. But that simplicity, for whatever reason does not extend to its usability. I keep returning to KDE, though I sometimes find it tries to do too much and spreads its quality thin. GNOME simply does not do enough. There are just some things that bug me too much about GNOME that should be fixed immediately because it's just an embarassment to the project - the default file selector for gtk apps would be a good place to start.

who gives a fuck

[Herr_Nightingale]

I used to care about these KDE vs. GNOME wars, but you know what? They're both equally useless, when it comes right down to it. Bloat is bloat is bloat. Who gives a fuck, really, when there are alternatives like Windows 2000 or Mac OS X? Come on, fringe users don't count.

Whoops. I think I just offended about .0001 percent of the population. Somebody mod me down!

Where's the flamage?

[Isldeur]

Nicholas Petreley (should that be KNicholas KPetreley) ...&&... Despite the sensationalistic flamage throughout the article,

So can you give examples of this "sensationalistic flamage"? I sure didn't find any. Why is there an immediate knee-jerk reaction when anyone ever criticizes gnome or kde? I personally think he has some very good points. Why can't people try and learn from constructive criticism?

If I could now lapse into a personal opinion: I've tried gnome and I try it regularly. And to be simply honest, I continue to get this "Is this all?" feeling every time I use it.

He's right about the dialogs. When I tried changing my background with one of the latest gnomes, I get this measly little window with three different picture boxes that don't help at all. I remember thinking how Spartan (?) this was back then.

Gnome just seems to be going in so many directions that it's turning into a mess. And no one wants that.

Re:Where's the flamage?

[bonch]

"Why can't people try and learn from constructive criticism?"

Because they're so used to their command shells and Emacs sessions and idealistic FSF attitudes that they don't realize that sometimes, you have to drop the attitude and listen to the usability needs of a typical user if you want the success that Linux needs to completely topple the competitors.

That is, of course, if you want Linux to be more generally used than it is. There are those who wish it to remain amongst the elite masses as strictly a geek OS so that they can impress their IRC friends. Whatever.

Re:Where's the flamage?

[msaavedra]

So can you give examples of this "sensationalistic flamage"?

You don't think referring to GNOME as LAME is flamage?

I personally think he has some very good points.

I'd say he has one good point: GNOME's file selection dialog sucks, and KDE's is much better. One thing I like about the Gtk file dialog is that it has tab completion. I don't know if KDE's does or not. The bookmarks rock, though.

Beyond that, Petreley just seems to harp on consistency, though he doesn't give any concrete example of how KDE is consistent and GNOME is not. He seems to imply that KDE is consistent because it uses a bunch of small tools from a common framework. But Gnome is the same way. I fail to see what his point is.

Further, he criticizes Gnome and Bonobo for not fully exploiting CORBA's network transparency, yet he doesn't explain how this makes it worse than KParts. He also ridicules Gnome's efforts at language indepence, though doesn't really explain why their efforts are bad.

He also briefly criticizes a few other components:

• GConf is like the windows registry - This old chestnut has been thouroughly debunked by Havoc Pennington in a number of places. I won't recount them here. Google is your friend.
• Metacity and Nautilus are lacking features - Of course, he doesn't say what these missing features are, though.

Beyond that, he incessantly spins things as negatively for Gnome as possible. I love this passage: "New holes are appearing, as well. Read my lips: no new file-pickers." When did not fixing a problem become equivalent to a new problem emerging?

When I tried changing my background with one of the latest gnomes, I get this measly little window with three different picture boxes that don't help at all. I remember thinking how Spartan

Changing a background image is a simple procedure, why would you need a complex dialog? I've used the Gnome2 background picker as well, and I haven't found anything lacking. On the contrary, I think it is quite elegant.

Gnome just seems to be going in so many directions that it's turning into a mess.

This seems to contradict your previous observation of Gnome's spartan qualities. How can something be both spartan (simple and lacking luxuries) and a mess moving in many different directions? That said, I can see your point here. There are places where Gnome is a bit awkward, though these are mostly relics from Gnome 1.4 that haven't been fixed yet. This is not an indication that things are moving in many different directions, just that they are moving, and still need to move some more.

As an aside, I've noticed an increasing frequency in these anti-Gnome trolls. A while back, an Australian site did an interview with Shawn Gordon, and he came across as very arrogant and contemptuous of Gnome. The same interviewer tried to bait Gnome's Jeff Waugh into a flamewar over this, but he politely declined. Why have certain members of the KDE camp become so bitter? By the way, I don't mean to imply that your post was anything of the sort. Rather, I think it was honest and tactful. Petreley's article was a major league troll, though

<disclaimer>I do not use either Gnome 2.x or KDE 3.x, though I do follow the Gnome project closely and admire what they are trying to accomplish.</disclaimer>

Re:Where's the flamage?

[FrostedWheat]

I continue to get this "Is this all?" feeling every time I use it.

In a way that's a good thing. GNOME is trying to be a desktop environment, nice and simple. Let the add-on's do the rest. This stops bloat, keeps things fast and stable. (Well, kinda stable :)

I do miss a lot of things from the previous GNOME but the things people really miss will come back! That's the best things about open source! If it matters, it will be done.

Hopefully!

Re:Where's the flamage?

[flacco]

* Metacity and Nautilus are lacking features - Of course, he doesn't say what these missing features are, though.

Metacity? How about the ability to turn off the sluggish, hideous, ungainly, disgusting, pile-of-shit window animation whenever you minimize an app? Wanna see pathological stubbornness in action? Read the comments for that bug (don't have it handy).

Or, how about the ability to flag a window to be "on top"?

Or, how about the ability to relegate a window's taskbar icon to that applet tray area where the clock is?

I'm still using RH8, but not their GNOME desktop (nor KDE for that matter).

Re:Where's the flamage?

[msaavedra]

Your complaints are mostly correct, and I could name several more of my own. My point, though, is that Petreley did not bring up any of this, he just flamed. If he had given some concrete examples such as these, his article could be called constructive criticism. As it is, it is just a troll.

KDE did have a headstart

[nkv]

Which is something to be said. I'm a GNOME user myself. KDE is definitely good and beats GNOME in lots of ways. But it does seem to be like the latter is getting there.

One thing I completely agree with is the removal of sawfish and the inclusion of metacity. A lot of the GNOME users I know loved sawfish. Removing it was a bad decision. Perhaps the developers had their reasons but.... *shrug*.

Re:Gnome's very problem

[snofla]

Are you talking about the development process behind KDE? In that case you're right! :-)

I find both of them "lame"

[g4dget]

And that's not necessarily a bad thing: Gnome and KDE are competing with Windows and OS X for users, so they should look and behave roughly like what common users expect.

However, some of Petrely's remarks are just silly. For example, he thinks that KDE being "more feature rich" is a good thing. Sorry, but that's not true. Having lots of features and buttons and widgets may work for some users, others may prefer something simpler, and yet others may want a different set of complex features. And while some users get all pushed out of shape about inconsistent appearances, consistency just isn't a big deal to many users either.

But what makes Gnome/Gtk+ and KDE/Qt both really lame in my book is that they don't take advantage of the really powerful and useful capabilities of X11. Motif and Xaw, for all their many and fatal faults, had better support for remote applications, customization, and inter-application communication than either Gnome or KDE. And Gtk+ and Qt both make very inefficient use of the X11 APIs, giving X11 an undeserved reputation for being slow. The Gnome and KDE developers don't even seem to understand what they are not doing, they are just complaining with some regularity that X11 is more cumbersome than Windows (which it is, if you try to program it like Windows).

As I was saying, I think both Gnome and KDE are ultimately good projects for Linux. I'm glad I have something simple and pretty to install on PCs for use by friends and family, something that, for better or for worse, works just like Windows and MacOS. But I also view them both as about equally "lame" from a technical point, and the differences between them seem minor compared to their common limitations.

Re:I find both of them "lame"

[JimDabell]

For example, he thinks that KDE being "more feature rich" is a good thing. Sorry, but that's not true.

Yes it is. Simplicity is a feature too. Or are you confusing "feature" with "clickable thing" like so many people who argue against "features" do?

And while some users get all pushed out of shape about inconsistent appearances, consistency just isn't a big deal to many users either.

If it isn't a big deal to those people, then they won't mind if everything is consistent then, will they?

Motif and Xaw, for all their many and fatal faults, had better support for remote applications, customization, and inter-application communication than either Gnome or KDE.

Remote applications? That's something built into X, not specific to Motif. Inter-app communication? Like DCOP and MCOP? Like embedding X apps directly into a QT application?

And Gtk+ and Qt both make very inefficient use of the X11 APIs, giving X11 an undeserved reputation for being slow.

Care to give an example? The QT percieved slowness is largely due to slow startup speed, something directly related to the GNU tools used to compile it.

Re:I find both of them "lame"

[BlackHawk-666]

And while some users get all pushed out of shape about inconsistent appearances, consistency just isn't a big deal to many users either.

The consistency of the Windows environment is one of that platforms most compelling features. If you have worked in support for any length of time or as a developer then you would know exactly how much people like consistency. How would you like it if the tokens and rules for regular expressions were different for every package that provided RegEx? People need a common base of idioms on which they can building their computing experience.

And Gtk+ and Qt both make very inefficient use of the X11 APIs, giving X11 an undeserved reputation for being slow.

Seems pretty damn quick on my PC. Beats Windows 2000 to the desktop by a good 2 minutes...and Windoze doesn't even use X11 or gcc! My KDE 3.1 desktop is up and fully running (KMail, Konsole and Konqueror all launched and in their standard window positions) 30 seconds after I "startx". P.S. I use both KDE and GNOME...

Re:I find both of them "lame"

[rseuhs]

For example, he thinks that KDE being "more feature rich" is a good thing. Sorry, but that's not true.

OK, show me the app that is successful because it's not feature-rich.

MS Office? Nope, probably more configuration options than full KDE and full GNOME combined.
Winamp? Nope, the plugins are all configurable, plus Winamp itself. On top there are skins.
ICQ? Nope, configuration options are crawling everywhere and more are added with each version.
And finally KDE: KDE is more successful than GNOME. That's a fact. The Gentoo statistics and numerous web polls confirm that. To argue that KDE has to become like GNOME to be more successful is quite retarded.

KDE is great, better than the Windows GUI and MacOSX (yes, I tried both of them). I don't want to see make KDE the same mistake GNOME did and sacrifice usability and features for some mysterious "average user" that doesn't exist anyway.

Re:I find both of them "lame"

[g4dget]

Yes it is. Simplicity is a feature too. Or are you confusing "feature" with "clickable thing" like so many people who argue against "features" do?

Petrely was talking about "clickable things", and I was simply using his terminology.

If [consistency] isn't a big deal to those people, then they won't mind if everything is consistent then, will they?

All things being equal, no, they wouldn't mind. But all things aren't equal: effort you spend on consistency won't be spent on other tasks. And you can't be consistent with everything at the same time.

Remote applications? That's something built into X, not specific to Motif.

As I was saying, KDE developers often don't even understand the issues... remote application usage isn't just about moving graphics from one screen to another, it's making configuration parameters, window management, and communications work correctly. Doing that requires toolkit and application support, but KDE and Qt don't even really try very hard.

Inter-app communication? Like DCOP and MCOP?

Yeah, that's the problem, like DCOP and MCOP.

Care to give an example?

Sure: the Konqueror window I'm looking at has about 50 distinct widgets and manipulable elements in it (buttons, menu entries, labels, scroll bars, icons, etc.), yet it only uses 7 distinct X11 subwindows. The intent of X11 was to use subwindows as a kind of structured graphics for building toolkits, but Qt and Gtk+ just do a whole lot of drawing inside big windows, and they have a whole lot of their own event processing logic. As an analogy, you can create graphics in PostScript by using its drawing commands, or you can create it by embedding a big bitmap. KDE/Qt and Gnome/Gtk+ are effectively doing the latter in a lot of cases.

Re:I find both of them "lame"

[g4dget]

OK, show me the app that is successful because it's not feature-rich.

The "i" applications from Apple, for example.

To argue that KDE has to become like GNOME to be more successful is quite retarded.

Yeah, so who argued that? Not me. I just find both Gnome and KDE generic, interchangeable, and dull. And that's just what they need to be in order to be successful. It's just funny to see either side argue that they are better than the other when both are so similar.

Re:I find both of them "lame"

[g4dget]

The consistency of the Windows environment is one of that platforms most compelling features.

Like the "most compelling anything" about Windows, that isn't saying much. Windows desktops typically use numerous different toolkits and interface conventions, it's just that people have gotten used to it.

Seems pretty damn quick on my PC. Beats Windows 2000 to the desktop by a good 2 minutes.

Yup, it's quick. That doesn't mean it's efficient, though, it just means that it is fast enough given current hardware.

30 seconds after I "startx".

Wow, given the relative speed of a Sun workstation of 1986 and the current desktops that makes it only about 100 times slower than the desktops back then.

I use both KDE and GNOME...

What's your point? I don't have a technical preference between them either.

Re:I find both of them "lame"

[Caligari]

>And Gtk+ and Qt both make very inefficient use of >the X11 APIs, giving X11 an undeserved reputation >for being slow.

I don't know about Qt, but recent versions of GTK+ use the XRender extension. This bypasses entirely the regular X11 API. In fact, GTK+ makes VERY efficient use of X.

Give some concrete evidence (e.g. benchmarks) before making wild claims about performance.

Otherwise its just FUD.

Re:I find both of them "lame"

[Nick_Gunz]

However, some of Petrely's remarks are just silly. For example, he thinks that KDE being "more feature rich" is a good thing. Sorry, but that's not true.

In my experience, this is wrong. In my experience, people don't complain about too much configurability; people complain about not being able to find the features they want.

Let me develop this idea further:

As everybody with the ability to think knows, there are going to be different kinds of user that use any program. Some people just want to pick it up and have it work. Other people care about a few things and want to be able to change them. Other people want to be able to change every damn thing because a) they like to work with the computer in an unusual way or b) they just like to play. Then there are, obviously, going to be people arrayed at other various different points along this spectrum, but for now I'll just talk about it as a simplified model.

The first type of users aren't going to be particularly freaked out by lots of features. They never even open the preferences menu, for the most part. Many of them don't know it exists. For these people, the important thing is that there are a good set of default preferences that work in an ergonomically reasonable way, and work the way that they expect it to work and feel comfortable with. This may mean that you have to set up your defaults to work kind of like Windows. The Win32 interface has become the standard, and that's how people expect their computer to operate. But it doesn't mean you don't have to let them change it.

Ok, so lets skip ahead to the third kind of user, the kind who wants to change everything: Are these users so unreasonable? I don't think so. Partly this is because I am one. I like to play with my interface, tweaking it constantly. Gradually, as this happens, I drift way from the default windows-like standards. So be it. My point is that I will never be confused by 'too many features'.

But there's another, more important, reason to allow users who want to change everything to change everything. Computers are designed to be flexible: to do tasks you never envisaged. That's the main point of them, really. Often, people will start using a computer in a new way and find that the old default configuration is no longer convenient or ergonomic. In this situation, not letting them change basic things about the way their computer interface works is like not letting them move the furniture around in their office. User interfaces aren't just an interface between the user and your application; they are also an environment in which the user uses your application.

Ok, so to the second kind of user. The user that causes all the trouble in this respect. The user who wants to change the odd thing now and again, but not spend hours playing with tweaks. Again, this is not totally unreasonable. There are setting that users have to change even when they generally aren't into customization all that much. For example, if you don't happen to be an American and you want to use a word processor, chances are you're going to have to change the default language setting. So even the dumbest user who doesn't want to change anything will, at some point, have to venture into the bowls of some big, convoluted, preferences interface.

As they do so, they become more and more frustrated. This is the important part: they don't become frustrated by the fact that they can change every little thing in the program. They become frustrated because they can't figure out how to change the things they want to change. This is when they start 'freaking out because of too many features'.

There are a number of ways 'round this. For example, you can have a clearly marked 'meta' setting set, by default, to the simplest user mode. Alternately, you can put as many settings as possible in the context in which they're used. You want to change the way the window frames work? Click on the 'advanced' option in the window menu. This way the central prefs menu doesn't get too cluttered with options to find anything.

Above all, you should make an effort to put commonly used preferences front and centre. Language settings in word processors are a prime example of this. Programmers know that even users who change no other options are going to have to change this one, but they still tend to put it three layers down in the options panel under a section marked: 'Advanced! No, we really mean it! This is supper advanced! Experts only!'

Joe user wants to change to UK English. Joe user can't find the option for all the buttons asking whether he wants to set an alarm every time a new user logs on to a remote part of the network that doesn't exist, Joe user 'freaks out about features'.

These ideas applied to the debate over GNOME:

This is where I get to my critique of the new GNOME interface. When I started using it, there was a clear difference between GNOME and KDE from a user's perspective. KDE worked better. It kind of hung together better and look slicker. GNOME was the one you used if you liked to change everything and tweak everything. But in 2.2 they've taken out all that good stuff. Even simple things, non-confusing things, have been ripped out in the name of 'simplification'.

To make matters worse, they've made it harder to get to whatever options remain. The gnome control centre is gone, and now you have to track trough endless menus to get to the bits you want (yes, there is a strange nautilus based interface, but they don't make it easy to find at all). There are even features where they left in the 'potentially confusing' control interface, but crippled the feature so that it doesn't actually work any more (eg. I used to be able to make each of my directories look physically different from one another in nautilus by changing the background colours. The control interface is still in place for that feature, but it doesn't work any more).

Apparently, the GNOME development people think they're helping ordinary users by making all the features hard to get to, but nothing could be further from the truth. Power users are going to be pissed off because they can't find the features they used to rely on. Non-power users are going to be pissed off because they can't find or get to the few features they do need to change (remember my basic thesis: they're not annoyed by choice, but by not being able to find the choices they need). Nobody has been helped.

Re:I find both of them "lame"

[IamTheRealMike]

However, some of Petrely's remarks are just silly. For example, he thinks that KDE being "more feature rich" is a good thing. Sorry, but that's not true. Having lots of features and buttons and widgets may work for some users, others may prefer something simpler, and yet others may want a different set of complex features.

Agreed. He also seems to confuse "lots of stuff" with "features". Having 3 media players or whatever they're up to now is not feature rich, it's bloat. OK, OK, so I'm being picky, but I've yet to find features that I really miss from KDE. Sure, I liked the idea of having a mini-webserver in my panel, but I never actually used it.

And Gtk+ and Qt both make very inefficient use of the X11 APIs, giving X11 an undeserved reputation for being slow.

Ignoring the fact that both GTK and Qt have pluggable backends, which entails a very slight loss of tight integration, the real reasons that GTK2 is slower than GTK1.2 are

1) It is double buffered. This slows GTK down, but makes it feel faster and smoother to the user. Net win.

2) It uses anti-aliasing. XRender is still not finished, nor well optimized. Profiling the new gnome-terminal widget for instance showed that most of the time was spent inside the X server. That will speed up over time.

3) If you do opaque resizes of apps, you'll find the content area doesn't stick to the borders. That's due to a problem with the internal scheduler, not due to lack of speed on the part of GTK.

Re:I find both of them "lame"

[BlackHawk-666]

Wow, given the relative speed of a Sun workstation of 1986 and the current desktops that makes it only about 100 times slower than the desktops back then.

You can't really directly compare the features offered by KDE 3.1 with those of fvwm or their like. I use KDE because it does more than the DE of 1986, and that takes more computing resources. It's the old axiom, "the OS will expand to consume all the resources of the PC you use it on".

Yup, it's quick. That doesn't mean it's efficient, though, it just means that it is fast enough given current hardware.

It must be reasonably efficient to operate on my hardware with the degree of responsiveness that I experience. We're not all using 1mhz 6502 processors now, so coding efficiency rules don't need to be so heavily evangelised. Coding for maintenance is now the norm in my code house. This is because it is more important to be able to diagnose and maintain a package over it's likely lifespan (5-10 years typically) than to save a few bytes of space or execution cycles.

What's your point? I don't have a technical preference between them either.

I don't have a technical preference either, but I do have a user preference for KDE. On my machine it runs quicker, looks better, and is a rich environment to work with. I like the applications that come with it (Konqueror, KMail, etc) and rarely use any GNOME apps other than Grip/MPlayer. That said, I haven't yet tried GNOME2, the install fucked up on me, and I ran out of time/patience that evening - I'm always willing to have another look.

Re:I find both of them "lame"

[tf23]

Having lots of features and buttons and widgets may work for some users, others may prefer something simpler, and yet others may want a different set of complex features. And while some users get all pushed out of shape about inconsistent appearances, consistency just isn't a big deal to many users either.

And what that really says is that you can't please everyone.

I personally think that you can come close - and here's how you'd do it:

1) Leave all the customization options *in*. Organize them as best you can. If someone wants to fiddle with 'em, fine.

2) Create an interface that let's an admin *lock* out options/preferences and/or set the defaults. I think the Kiosk type thing may fit the bill here.

I think if KDE and GNOME, and any other graphical interface parties do this, they'll be successful.

An example: With a setup like this, I can put linux on a machine primarily for the kids to use. I can have either GNOME or KDE available to them to pick which one they want to use. And I can lock things like their webbrowser so that it uses our proxy, which filters out inappropriate sites. I can lock down their look n feel so that I don't get the "help me I lost this icon" etc while I'm watching MNF. Yet I can login and use the box with as much customizations as I want.

Re:I find both of them "lame"

[robson]

Sure: the Konqueror window I'm looking at has about 50 distinct widgets and manipulable elements in it (buttons, menu entries, labels, scroll bars, icons, etc.), yet it only uses 7 distinct X11 subwindows. The intent of X11 was to use subwindows as a kind of structured graphics for building toolkits, but Qt and Gtk+ just do a whole lot of drawing inside big windows, and they have a whole lot of their own event processing logic. As an analogy, you can create graphics in PostScript by using its drawing commands, or you can create it by embedding a big bitmap. KDE/Qt and Gnome/Gtk+ are effectively doing the latter in a lot of cases.

Interesting. Are there any environments in development that utilize X11 in the way you think it should be done?

Re:I find both of them "lame"

[farnsworth]

KDE is more successful than GNOME. That's a fact. The Gentoo statistics and numerous web polls confirm that.

Using gentoo stats to prove the success of a software product is a bit like using college radio play-lists to determine the nation's top 40. I would think that redhat (with it's millions of real-life users) shipping gnome as the default would be a more useful measurement, although still an inaccurate one.

and using "webpolls" as a success metric? come on.

Re:I find both of them "lame"

[Anonymous Coward]

Konqueror only uses 7 distinct X11 subwindows?
Plain wrong. Just do 'xwininfo -tree'.

Re:I find both of them "lame"

[caseih]

OK, show me the app that is successful because it's not feature-rich.

MS Office? Nope, probably more configuration options than full KDE and full GNOME combined.

Umm, actually the feature bloat in MS Office is making it harder to use and harder to teach newbies how to use it. In fact, the mass of menu options has been deemed to be so comfusing that MS defaults to not showing all the menu options (which could be argued to be a usability blunder in itself). Also there is a difference between features and configuration options. Workable defaults is always the best thing. No one I know knows how to set much in MS Office. Fortunately the defaults are okay most of the time.

And finally KDE: KDE is more successful than GNOME. That's a fact. The Gentoo statistics and numerous web polls confirm that. To argue that KDE has to become like GNOME to be more successful is quite retarded.

Umm again, gentoo users are hardly average linux users. They typically tend to represent the minority "l33t" linux users. These users are control freaks and have the skills and the time to mess with every little thing. All you can really say is, "Among gentoo users that we have statistics for, I think that KDE is more popular." Anything else is unsupported.

As a Linux professional, I just don't have the time or the caring to tweak every stupid little thing in KDE. I use Gnome and it's clean, nice, and it works. I can tweak everything I need or want to (I've been using transparent gnome-panel's for years -- by using special pixmaps in the background!). Most Linux professionals I prefer Gnome to KDE. And a good many prefer fluxbox in conjunction with gnome-panels. Hmm. Fluxbox has even less useless "features" and bloat than KDE.

No blanket statements here. Just my own observations about what I have *seen*.

Re:I find both of them "lame"

[hanzwurst]

OK, show me the app that is successful because it's not feature-rich.

Isn't that the unix-(shell-)philosphy? An application should concentrate on just one task (i.e. `cat' for concatening file). Being able to combine usage of different applications you can find solutions to more complex problems.

<flame>Yeah, to hell with emacs ;)</flame>

Re:I find both of them "lame"

[GreyWolf3000]

How about this? Get rid of most of the options in the control panel, but make then accessible to themers. Thay way, the user doesn't select Every Little Detail (TM), he just chooses a theme that happens to match both his asthetic preferences, and his ui behavior preferences. In this way, a theme designer could successfully emulate a Win2k look and feel, and someone else could emulate a OSX l'n'f.

Power users could just modify the themes. Not-so-power users can find a cool theme and learn to use that.

Re:I find both of them "lame"

[da cog]

I can't claim to be an expert on Qt's design philosophy, but I would imagine that part of the reason that it acts he way that it does is because it is meant to be a cross-platform toolkit. The Qt developers presumably figured it would be easier to write a single widget rendering engine that could be ported with minimum effort to multiple platforms, rather than to rewrite it for each platform to take advantage of it's unique features.

It does raise an interesting philosophical question, though: is it better to write a program that can easily be ported, or is it better to take advantage of the unique features of each platform? After all, if all programs were made portable by acting in a least-common-denominator fashon, then no individual platform would have a reason to come up with new features since the cross-platform toolkits wouldn't taken advantage of them in the interest of portability. On the other hand, the more that one's codebase changes from platform to platform, the more of a code development/maintenance nightmare you have on your hands.

Re:I find both of them "lame"

[spitzak]

If you actually wrote X11 programs or toolkits you would know that using X11 child windows for each child widget is *extremely* inefficient and slow. Motif was forced to add "gadgets" (as they called them) to get around this problem (these were a new type of "widget" that did not create an X window). Modern toolkits were written by people who are well aware of this problem and actively try to use as *few* windows as possible.

The only reasons for using child windows is lameness in the X drawing copabilities. You need them if you need different "visuals", you need them to enforce clipping such as when you want a program you don't trust to draw into an area, and you need them for efficient scrolling of areas with correct exposure events.

Re:I find both of them "lame"

[g4dget]

It must be reasonably efficient to operate on my hardware with the degree of responsiveness that I experience. [...] This is because it is more important to be able to diagnose and maintain a package over it's likely lifespan (5-10 years typically) than to save a few bytes of space or execution cycles.

I happen to agree. But apparently there are lots of people who complain that KDE and Gnome are so much slower than Windows, and they misattribute the overhead to X11. But it's KDE and Gnome that make this tradeoff, not X11.

I don't have a technical preference either, but I do have a user preference for KDE. On my machine it runs quicker, looks better, and is a rich environment to work with.

I find all available KDE themes rather ugly. For example, I find that the non-anti aliased rounded window corners clash badly with the anti-aliased drawing inside windows. Functionally, I find it's a toss-up: KDE has better "small" apps, while I find Gnome has better "big" apps.

I'm always willing to have another look.

I look at both of them periodically; Debian makes it really easy. Fortunately, they are as easy to remove as they are to install.

Re:I find both of them "lame"

[g4dget]

You're right--my bad--it does have more subwindows. It was late and I gave the wrong option to xwininfo; the actual picture is more complicated.

The point remains, though: Qt does not use X11 subwindows directly for rendering. For example, if you suspend Konqueror and wipe the contents of its window clean, almost nothing remains visible. Qt wraps a layer of classes and abstractions around X11, and there is no direct 1-1 correspondence between its model of the window system and X11. Also, its extensive use of theming and bitmaps imposes a high cost.

There is nothing wrong with doing any of that--X11 supports lots of programming styles--but it's a set of performance tradeoffs KDE/Qt choose to make, not X11.

Re:I find both of them "lame"

[g4dget]

It does raise an interesting philosophical question, though: is it better to write a program that can easily be ported, or is it better to take advantage of the unique features of each platform?

I don't think it's a problem for Gtk+ or Qt--they are fast enough. It's only a problem when people claim that X11 needs to change because Gnome and KDE run more slowly than Windows. Unlike KDE/Qt, the Windows GUI is native and optimized only for Windows.

It is a problem with Java2D and Swing, parts of which are really too slow on Linux.

Still, while KDE and Gnome are nice for what they are, we really need a new, native X11 widget set, something that is well-optimized for X11 and takes advantage of features like multiple displays, application mobility, etc.

Re:I find both of them "lame"

[Piquan]

Xaw?

Re:I find both of them "lame"

[g4dget]

Yes, kind of like Xaw and Motif, just with more modern software engineering and easier extensibilty.

Re:I find both of them "lame"

[AsparagusChallenge]

cat has eleven options. Eleven. For an application that only redirects a stream.

It concentrates on only one task, but for its weight I'd say it's feature rich.

Re:I find both of them "lame"

[AstroJetson]

Sounds like enlightenment, which I prefer to both Gnome and KDE. Yeah, I know....apples & oranges since e is a window manager not a desktop. Still that's the e philosophy in a nutshell.

Re:I find both of them "lame"

[IamTheRealMike]

Winamp? Nope, the plugins are all configurable, plus Winamp itself. On top there are skins. ICQ? Nope, configuration options are crawling everywhere and more are added with each version.

Over the last 3 or 4 years I've seen all but one of my friends leave ICQ, because the client took 20 minutes to load. So they released ICQ Lite. It still has skins. Now they all use MSN, because the client doesn't attempt to manage their life for them.

WinAmp 3 is not replacing WinAmp 2 at all - nobody I've met who's tried it thinks it's better than WinAmp 2.

So they were pretty bad examples.

Re:I find both of them "lame"

[Dave2 Wickham]

vi isn't feature ritch? o_O

Re:I find both of them "lame"

[t_hunger]

Th erender extension is just that: an extension to X.

X + Extension != X

X11R6 was defined 1996 IIRC. There is nothing about an render extension in there. So you can have a X11R6 display server that can't run Gnome. Is that what you are saying? Is it possible to run GTK+ apps on vanilla X servers?

Re:I find both of them "lame"

[SewersOfRivendell]

OK, show me the app that is successful because it's not feature-rich.

Unix. If it had been feature-rich, it wouldn't have been portable, because features were too expensive on the 'commodity' hardware of the time...

Macintosh 128k.

Early versions of Netscape.

But it's all relative, dude.

I want my Swallowed App Back!

[Anonymous Coward]

The "best" feature of gnome-panel was the Swallowed App, but it seems it's not to be in Gnome2... Now That's LAME!!

Re:I want my Swallowed App Back!

[Rolozo]

# apt-get install libpanel-regurgitate

Talkin' 'bout a bad file selector...

[MonoSynth]

...when KDE's own one has horizontal scrolling enabled *by default*! I mean, how blind can you be to copy one of the most irritating parts of the Windows UI into your desktop?

(but, okay, the Gnome file selector, ehm, needs some improvement too.)

Re:Talkin' 'bout a bad file selector...

[luther]

(but, okay, the Gnome file selector, ehm, needs some improvement too.)

Which didn't make it in 2.2, but is scheduled for 2.4.

Re:Talkin' 'bout a bad file selector...

[BohKnower]

It's easy to do a FilePicker exactly equals to a MS one, what is hard a new concept to be used on every upgrade of GNOME.

The GNOME community is working hard to make a good replacement to his original file selector, as you can see here.

Re:Talkin' 'bout a bad file selector...

[sparrow_hawk]

whoa -- sweet! Who says open-source can't be innovative? That looks great without copying Microsoft's stupid left-pane shortcuts idea.

Hmmm... might want to make sure the 'Save' dialog actually says 'Save' by that textbox, though. Ah, well.

Re:Talkin' 'bout a bad file selector...

[BohKnower]

GNOME 2.4 was not released yet, so there is no way to tell how it will looks alike, the developers are promissing something new, perhaps based on theses screenshots

Re:Gnome's very problem

[Anonymous Coward]

+ References to obscure, technical sounding fields of study
+ Some vaguely accurate software engineering speak
+ No substatantiation whatsoever for any claims made

First class trolling, sir!

Why I use Gnome

[JamesGreenhalgh]

When I upgraded to SuSE 8.1, I decided to give KDE another whirl since it had hit version 3. Pretty good, does a lot of stuff, appears to do it well aside from a couple of basic apps which would crash every time they were closed (not KDEs fault as such).

Why did I switch back to Gnome 2?

Speed. The two systems I was using KDE on were a dual p2-400 and a celeron 800. On both, there was an enourmous speed increase switching to Gnome - especially with lots of open apps. They definitely still have work to do, I like Metacity because it's nice+light+simple, but the configuration leaves a little to be desired. GTK2 based apps appear to run a lot slower than GTK1, but even then they're still much quicker than the QT based KDE.

Fortunately, with "big players" backing KDE and Gnome seperately, I don't see either going away - a good thing, although I do wish they'd agree on how drag+drop should work ;-)

Re:Why I use Gnome

[Anonymous Coward]

You may want to give KDE 3.1 a whirl. I was a GNOME user up until KDE 3.1 for the very same reasons as you, but KDE 3.1 provides a much necessary speed boost. I have a higher end system (P4 512MB RAM) but KDE 3.1 performs better now than GNOME 2.0 does for me.

Re:Why I use Gnome

[JamesGreenhalgh]

Could be an interesting test. I used to roll my own Linux some years ago, but now I really can't be bothered and use SuSE instead (flames to /dev/null please). I'm pretty sure with KDE 3.1, GNOME 2.2, XFree86 4.3.0, and java now building properly with gcc 3.2 - that SuSE 8.2 will be just around the corner. I've just ordered the parts to build a new PC too (dual xeon 2.4ghz :-) ), so I'll try it all out at some point and see how they compare.

Re:Why I use Gnome

[Fluffy the Cat]

Have you actually tried to use Nautilus?

The Gnome 1 version of Nautilus was justifiably criticised for its performance, but Nautilus on Gnome 2 is usably fast on relatively low-end hardware.

Re:Why I use Gnome

[Enahs]

Ever used KDE on anything other than Linux?

Just as GNOME is relying on GTK+ to have improved file dialogs in the future, KDE is crippled by things out of its control. Admittedly, if you compare KDE on Linux to KDE on Darwin, you're going to think that KDE on Linux is a speed demon, but if you use KDE on, say, FreeBSD, you'll be thinking "what speed difference?"

It's a known architecture problem, and if developers are waiting for someone at Red Hat to fix it for them just so that KDE can run faster, I'm sure they'll be waiting for a long, long time. ;-D

Re:Why I use Gnome

[SymphonicMan]

This, by the way, is one major sign that KDE is maturing. I confirm for my part, anecdotally, that 3.1 is considerably faster than previous versions of KDE. This speed increase is a sign that the project is reaching maturation. Exciting stuff.

Re:Why I use Gnome

[scharkalvin]

I recently set up a box running Debian Woody and pointed to a back port of Gnome 2.2. Well to put it lightly, it sucked canal water bad. Most apps opened with windows docked to the top of the screen and I couldn't move them. The Gnome configuration utility was castrated, where were the options from gnome 1.x? I liked the Sawfish WM MUCH better, but maybe just lack of configuration was the problem. I think the author of this piece hit the nail on the head here, something IS broken, though it may be the Debian packages (which after all ARE NOT official yet). Actually the version of Gnome packaged with stock Woody has problems. I have to disable the esound demeon or no sound applications (such as XMMS) work. KDE had no such problems.
So for the time being, I've switched to KDE for Woody after using Gnome on Potato. I think much of the problems were config issues in the Debian packages, I even have a few ideas of how to fix it, but the documentation isn't good enough to point me to the files responsible for the problem!

I think it's a good idea though for me to give KDE a try. I can always go back to Gnome when Sarge comes out, if Debian fixes the configuration issues.

well...

[Unominous Coward]

my GNOME has always sat silently on my front porch. And now it's singing MP3s encoded with LAME?
Who would've though that open source software would lead to a singing GNOME?

These evil geneishes...

[kyz]

they sheme and sheme and sheme...

What bugs me with all GUIs...

[niminimi]

...is that the keybindings use the
full PC keyboard; navigation is done
with arrow keys etc.

That's inconsistent with the unix tradition,
vi & nethack and everything, wherein
one uses the letter keys for just about
everything.

I also hate it when UIs load the meta/alt key
with some weird-ass semantics; I use it
to type 8-bit characters, and that's what
the key is for.

Re:What bugs me with all GUIs...

[Fourier]

Your ideal GUI is out there, if you just put in the time looking for it. Maybe you want something like Ion. It lets you control all windowing operations with the keyboard, using whatever keybindings you desire.

I'm glad GNOME and KDE are there for people who want a Windows-like desktop, but I personally can't stand either one.

Re:What bugs me with all GUIs...

[Roberto]

Use the kvim part, then eventually all text editing in all kde apps can be done with vi (no, it doesn't get so far yet).

And did you try pressing k in konqueror?

Any other places where you think this would be adequate?

KDE VS NOME

[westyvw]

I use gnome when I am root. As a user I like KDE. I am using Redhat 8 and I like KDE. I wanted to like gnome, I really did. I have upgraded it and KDE, and yes KDE is HUGE and its bloated big time. But so what, its linux, and its not like its gonna hit a swap file. Linux does what it does well, and on this laptop KDE is running smooth and sweet. I have eye candy, I have apps I use, and they work fine. Gnome just doesnt cut it when it comes to looking good. There are also several things in gnome that bug me. But the best part of all is that it doesnt matter, I also use Evil Entity and have been very intrigued with Enlightenment. When I get around to gentooing E17 as long as I get font antialiasing, I am going there and not turning back. Evil Entity Linux has shown me enlightenment and I am on board. How cool is it to double click the desk top and get a console? Very. How fast is it? Click and GO. So in conclusion KDE is huge, but has a reason to be, gnome? I dont know what your thinking. Its becomming more blurred every day.

Re:KDE VS NOME

[tunah]

So in conclusion KDE is huge, but has a reason to be, gnome? I dont know what your thinking. Its becomming more blurred every day.

Are you drunk?

Re:KDE VS NOME

[westyvw]

yeah

Re:KDE VS NOME

[westyvw]

Are you being narrowly, stodgily, and often ostentatiously learned (pedantic) or are your being of or relating to knowledge that is restricted to a small group (essoteric)

Re:KDE VS NOME

[westyvw]

Calling me drunk is ok. Calling me stupid is ok. Calling me offended is ? Why would I be offended? Lets recap. We are talking about computer gui's. I have an opinion where is yours? Personally I find the Amiga a great interface with and easy command line. The topic was about KDE VS Gnome. Yeah I took the liberty of calling gnome nome, and yeah I sort of went off with a bent towards KDE. Ok whats the rebuttle? I am stupid? I am drunk? Um OK like this is my United States of Whatever. Liam Lynch.

Re:KDE VS NOME

[tunah]

I'm being curious, if that's okay with you. I'm also being right.

Re:KDE VS NOME

[westyvw]

So you are a troll? interested in what is not one's personal or proper concern (Curious). Heh Hey arent we all trying to get to the best GUI for Linux or are we not?

Re:KDE VS NOME

[tunah]

Meh, I like KDE. I don't have anything particularly interesting to say about it, and I'm bored. I saw your post, and thought, "I wonder if he's drunk" for no particular reason, so I asked for no particular reason. That's it.

And dude, the offended bit is my sig. Are you drunk? :P

Re:KDE VS NOME

[gurumeditationerror]

The Amiga rocked.

VS.

[Matrix2110]

Redhat choses to use Gnome while most of the "Pure" distros like KDE as do I.

In my opinion, Gnome is turning into the Frankenstein of the open sourced world.

I know that this is flamebait, but I totally belive it as true as a recent Linux adopter.

I burned Redhat in a hot second in a showdown between Mandrake and Redhat competing for hard drive space.

I needed more space for my Win98 system.

Before you flame me, Understand the fact that I refuse to run Windows XP on my system and I really like the open-sourced chances in this year.

I am slowly converting my system to Linux and if you want to flame me for that, go ahead.

Re:VS.

[@madeus]

Redhat choses to use Gnome while most of the "Pure" distros like KDE as do I

Painting a picture that it's only Red Hat who like GNOME and that everybody else uses KDE is entirely false.

According to http://counter.li.org/reports/machines.htm, which is just about the most reliable source of information on the subject (due the lack of actual retail figures it's very difficult to count accurately), the most popular core distributions are*:

- Red Hat (~ 29%)
- Debian (~ 14.5%)
- SuSE (~ 11.5%)
- Slackware (~ 11%)

It should be noted that Mandrake is the second most popular distribution of all with over 17.5% market share, though it is not a 'core' or 'pure' distribution as it is based on Red Hat.

* = These figures are taken for a random sampling of 110,000 GNU/Linux users.

Out of these distributions:

- Red Hat - primarily supports GNOME
- Debian - primarily supports GNOME
- SuSE - primarily supports KDE
- Slackware - no notable preference exhibited

Anaecdotally - even when you include Mandrake's slight predisposition towards KDE - this puts GNOME's market share at ~ 43.5% and KDE's at ~ 29%.

With all of these distributions you can obtain GNOME packages or opt to use the GNOME desktop. There is clearly no case to be made that 'core' distributions choose to use KDE to GNOME or even prefer KDE to GNOME, if anything, GNOME seems to have greater market share, not less.

In my opinion, Gnome is turning into the Frankenstein of the open sourced world.

It should be noted that GNOME and KDE are NOT trying to meet entirely the same goals!

KDE works very well 'out of the box' - all the applications are tightly integrated and it works with little fuss as most of the core components are built and written by a core set of KDE developers.

GNOME however, has become a vastly more ambitious project, it is about building a scaleable, flexible, and to some degree language agnostic graphical environment. It is perhaps not surprising that someone might think it has become a Frankensein product - but that is to misunderstand the point of GNOME.

GNOME is a platform for developing and rolling out great best-of-breed applications from disparate developers - software such a GIMP, Gnumeric, Abiword and Nautilus - having them interoperate with each other - and, most importantly - having them interoperate with the user and the desktop environment in a consistent and user focused way. The fruits of this are visible clearly in most current release of GNOME.

GNOME is being developed with long term goals of usability and expandability in mind. It's not just about creating a desktop for the here and now - to borrow a phrase being used recently by Sun - it's about building a product that can "stand the test of time", an expandable product the developers can be proud of and an environment that others will want to build their applications around.

The current incompleteness of GNOME means that many users will prefer the convenience and tight integration of KDE at present - KDE certainly better meets many of the shared GNOME/KDE goals, like the provision of a useful default set of software tools and a coherent control panel. In such an imperfect world it's certainly important for users to have choice - but with regard to the future and long term desktop dominance I belive GNOME is a much more likely canidate than KDE.

Re:VS.

[Xpilot]

Well put :)

I'm a Slackware and GNOME user, and I'm sometimes amused by remarks such as "all the popular distros except Redhat use KDE as their default desktop". In Slackware, there is no "default desktop". You get to choose between KDE, GNOME or the lighterweights at install time, and switching between all of them is as easy as xwmconfig.

At Distrowatch, Slackware's default desktop is given as "KDE", and I wonder why. Maybe it's becaused KDE is listed on top of GNOME in the selection menu? ;)

As for other popular distros, it's also quite easy to choose your desktop, so I don't really get why the notion of a "default" desktop is even an issue.

Re:VS.

[twener]

> this puts GNOME's market share at ~ 43.5% and KDE's at ~ 29%.

Trying to deduct the desktop's market share from distribution share is ridiculous. If a distribution ships both why do you assume that the default is used? Btw, can you name a single only-Gnome included distribution? Compare that to the available only-KDE included distributions. You assume every Debian user prefers Gnome which according to this poll is not the case. You assume that RedHat is used as desktop system, but perhaps it's primary used for the 40% non-workstation system and has no desktop environment installed at all? You can't tell unless your statistic counts the desktop environments like the Gentoo user statistics where KDE leads.

Re:VS.

[@madeus]

Trying to deduct the desktop's market share from distribution share is ridiculous

That's why what I actually said was:

Anaecdotally - even when you include Mandrake's slight predisposition towards KDE - this puts GNOME's market share at ~ 43.5% and KDE's at ~ 29%.

In content this was quite clear - when you try to take it out of context it makes little sense - when you take it out of context and deliberatelty choose not to quote the entire sentence (so that you can twist the statement to form an argument around it) it makes even less sense.

It was with reference to market share within the distribution sector, was clearly in context, and remains entirely valid and qualified commentary.

Re:VS.

[Matrix2110]

Very well. One thing I really like about Linux is the fact that I have a choice.

Windows sure as shit does not offer me that.

In my first post I was complaining that GNOME seems to be selling itself to the highest bidder, and will sooner or later wind up being owned.

In my choices of operating systems, Once Redhat quits being a whiney Microsoft wannabe and rediscovers its open sourced roots the better I will like the distro.

I was voicing opinion and I am thankful for a forum that allows me to do that.

Sawfish

[steveha]

My understanding is that they removed Sawfish because it is difficult to maintain. The original developer of Sawfish has moved on to other things, and he isn't working on it at all. Sawfish is lacking some major features (multihead support, accessability), and large parts of Sawfish are written in LISP. I guess the GNOME developers don't like working with the code base.

Metacity is simpler than Sawfish, and the theory is that it will be simpler to keep it bug-free.

I've switched to Metacity; I'm content with it.

The guys who get paid to work on GNOME are not doing anything with Sawfish. If its fans are dedicated enough, however, they could keep it going.

steveha

Gnome vs. KDE is a matter of taste.

[miffo.swe]

What i want is a slick empty GUI when i start setting my workstation up. Gnome is what suits me the best right now. I fleed bloat and tight integration in the windows world and im not going to just pickup different branded bloat from KDE. Someone else likes many buttons and for him KDE is better. Dont get me wrong, i love KDE to but it isnt what i want.

All in all i think the competition between KDE and GNOME is very healthy. What wee need to refrain from is mudslinging and bashing.

A Computer Science Student's Take

[Twintop]

As a Windows-only user for nearly my entire life (minus the DOS/Win3.1 years), I was actually looking forward to being forced into using nothing but Linux in my Computer Science classes. Windows has so many things I hate, and I have heard such good things about Linux.

To my disapointment, when I went into the *UNIX side of the computer lab at the start of this semester, I had noticed that they had upgraded from some pure-UNIX OS to Red Hat 8.0. I figured "oh well, *nix is *nix." The first time I logged in to GNOME, my first reaction was, "Holy crap, this is windows!" Then it began to sink in, the GUI is too much like windows. This was good for all the Math Majors who are required to take CS202, but for everyone else--EE and CS Majors--it seems pretty useless to have such a developed GUI that discourages people from learning handy terminal commands (atleast in a timely fashion). Sure the GUI makes it an easy transition for me, but I know that 'an easy transition' isn't going to help me in the long run.

Re:A Computer Science Student's Take

[tempest303]

Then it began to sink in, the GUI is too much like windows.

Really? In what ways? And why is this a bad thing? Cite examples - be specific.

it seems pretty useless to have such a developed GUI that discourages people from learning handy terminal commands

I will now quote from the book of jwz:

But here's the thing that really struck me about this: command lines, as a user interface, really suck ass. Even if you use them, you know that's true. Somewhere, deep in your heart, you know what you're doing is ridiculous, and there's got to be a better way.

(this quote shamelessly lifted from: http://www.jwz.org/gruntle/bittybox.html)

Yes, command line interfaces can be very useful and efficient for some tasks, but wow do they suck in so many ways. But regardless, Linux, whether in GNOME, KDE, or otherwise, has one very strong difference that will always seperate it from Windows, thus making the "It's just like Windows all over again! Wahhh!" arguments false: the very command line you mention. Linux will always have a variety of powerful shells available, with flexible command line tools, all available within that awful GUI you despise so!

Re:A Computer Science Student's Take

[Anonymous Coward]

At my university, the TAs would spend time with the students teaching them how to run simple commands from a terminal window. We were taught how to decompress our lab archives, create make files, use emacs, run CVS, and some other stuff.

If your school doesn't take similar initiative, then I feel sorry for you, but it's stupid to blame a "developed GUI" for a lack of knowledge. Perhaps you were under the belief that becoming a CS major would open you to the Unix School of Witchcraft where bearded coders spend all day feeding arcane commands to the CLI until the reach Computer Nirvana.

That's not how real life works. I just thought I should let you know now before you spend three years working towards a CS degree and then decide what you really wanted to do was business or biology. I've seen a lot of people do that at my school already.

My school uses Mandrake. My first experiences with Mandrake on my home computer were fairly poor and I didn't like that my school was using it. Now, I really don't much care. So long as Gnome works and I can compile what I need to, I'm happy.

I used Redhat 8.0 for 3 months my desktop, and at no point did I ever think "this is like Windows." I did, several times think "this is much better than Windows" and "why doesn't it support XXXXX, even Windows supports that."

For those wondering how a second year CS undergrad learned to work with Linux, I think I mostly learned how to deal with it by running Slackware as a dual-boot for about 9 months, then running RedHat by itself for 3 months (I didn't know how irritated I would get with RPMs until it was too late. I didn't remove it until the end of the quarter because I didn't dual-boot anymore and I didn't want to be without a computer for an extended period of time), and then Gentoo for the past 3 months. I'm hooked on Gentoo, for now.

Re:A Computer Science Student's Take

[0x0d0a]

The first time I logged in to GNOME, my first reaction was, "Holy crap, this is windows!" Then it began to sink in, the GUI is too much like windows.

Then you're going to *really* hate KDE, which clones Explorer even more closely.

Re:A Computer Science Student's Take

[Feztaa]

To my disapointment, when I went into the *UNIX side of the computer lab at the start of this semester, I had noticed that they had upgraded from some pure-UNIX OS to Red Hat 8.0.

Boy, you need a smack.

Some of us at "lesser privileged" universities have Windows in their Computer Science labs! I would die to be in a RH8 computer lab... next year it's not so bad, Solaris and FreeBSD, but this year it's all Windows... f*ck.

I don't get you people

[FooBarWidget]

"Then it began to sink in, the GUI is too much like windows."

I don't get you people.
Many, MANY people complain that Linux on the desktop is dead because the desktops don't look enough like Windows and the transition is too hard. Some of them even demand to copy Windows entirely, including the underlying filesystem structure.

And now, YOU suddenly jump in and say the GUI looks *too much* like Windows? That it discourages people from learning "handy terminal commands"? People complain how "average users don't WANT to learn the terminal" and you complain about how this discourages people from learning the terminal?!

Make up your mind already!

Re:I don't get you people

[Twintop]

You miss the point, I'm a CS Major, not the average user, and need to learn the terminal. By using such windows-like GUI, I think it's hindering how fast I'll progress through learning the terminal. For other people, ofcourse a GUI like windows is going to be a good selling point if you're going for the desktop-esque visual that everyone is familiar with, I don't disagree with you there at all.

Re:I don't get you people

[DancingSword]

The config you were using may have been rigged to be as braindead as Vindoze[tm], but that doesn't mean you're stuck:
try http://www.knoppix.net/ for a bootable CD you can run on your own machine ( or on a friend's ), since it'll little-touch the machine's filesystem ( I think it now places a config-file on the first FAT16 / FAT32 filesystem it finds? ), and you can boot into either GNOME, KDE, or Xfce ( unless they've changed that...? it was an advanced-boot-option )

Re:I don't get you people

[Knuckles]

I'm a CS Major, not the average user, and need to learn the terminal. By using such windows-like GUI, I think it's hindering how fast I'll progress

So what you are saying is, RH should change their desktop configuration so that you are kicked from your lazy ass? For chrissakes, just fire up a terminal in KDE or Gnome and learn it. What keeps you from doing that? And, being a CS major, it should be not too hard for you to just start a a small window manager instead of either Gnome or KDE. Otherwise, consider a switch to a marketing major

The problems of GNOME

[rseuhs]

GNOME has a couple of problems:

• It was created in a political effort (to replace (=kill) KDE.) and politics is still very involved in GNOME. I really acknowledge what GNU has done in the 80's and early 90's, but lately they have become a bunch of buerocrats and politicians. KDE vs GNOME is pretty similar to Linux vs. the Hurd. - Pragmatism versus Politics. It has improved lately, at least GNOME's primary goal doesn't seem to be killing off KDE anymore and they seem to even cooperate.
• GNOME made the big mistake in listening to bashers. The bashers (= non GNOME users) said GNOME was too complicated so the politicians (see above) decided that many configuration options must go in Gnome2. That pissed off many real users but attracted not a single new user. (The drooling moron that was targetted by this decision doesn't use anything else other than what is preinstalled anyway. And even if he does (or it is preinstalled), he doesn't dig around config options anyway and uses the defaults, so any "complexity" doesn't hurt him.)
• C. KDE/Qt/C++ programming is faster and more elegant. Again, this was a rather political decision. (Almost all GNU software is C-based, therefore GNOME has to be C-based, too) Yes, in theory many non-C language bindings exist, but in the real world none of them are used for any non-trivial project.

Re:The problems of GNOME

[msaavedra]

GNOME made the big mistake in listening to bashers. The bashers (= non GNOME users) said GNOME was too complicated

No, they didn't listen to bashers. They listened to the usability tests that Sun and Ximian have done, with user skills from beginners to those very experienced with UNIX.

Yes, in theory many non-C language bindings exist, but in the real world none of them are used for any non-trivial project.

Not true again. Galeon is written in C++. A large portion of redhat's system tools, including their installer, are written with the python bindings. Sawfish is mostly written in a weird dialect of Lisp called Rep. None of these are trivial apps.

I think your idea that Gnome is very politically oriented is a bit off. After all, they've refused to elect Richard Stallman to the Gnome Foundation Board :^)

Re:The problems of GNOME

[deaddrunk]

Drooling moron? I wish you smelly, pedantic bores would realise that most people don't want to hand-hack some poorly documented config file, they want to play games, browse the web, do their taxes and all the other things that Windows allows them to do (albeit sometimes in shades of blue).

Don't diss peope like my dad just because he's got better things to do. If you took your head out of your backside occasionally you might be able to see this for yourself.

Re:The problems of GNOME

[koh]

Some clarifications are needed here.

It was created in a political effort (to replace (=kill) KDE.) and politics is still very involved in GNOME. I really acknowledge what GNU has done in the 80's and early 90's, but lately they have become a bunch of buerocrats and politicians. KDE vs GNOME is pretty similar to Linux vs. the Hurd. - Pragmatism versus Politics.

Once upon a time, a couple of students coding an image manipulation program (The Gimp) decided to design their own X toolkit as the existing ones didn't satisfy them. They called it gtk+, and it soon became the toolkit of choice for many coders, since QT was still affected by license sickness at the time.

Gnome came up later not as a KDE killer, but as a higher-level UI API to design applications on top of gtk+. The K desktop environment is an environment, Gnome was supposed to be a toolkit (and in many aspects still is).

It has improved lately, at least GNOME's primary goal doesn't seem to be killing off KDE anymore and they seem to even cooperate.

The KDE vs Gnome flamewar was started, battled in, and lost by the same people who bash emacs vs vi or linux vs windows : users. The Gnome developpers and project leaders never tried to "kill" KDE AFAIK, and it wasn't the other way around either.

GNOME made the big mistake in listening to bashers. The bashers (= non GNOME users) said GNOME was too complicated so the politicians (see above) decided that many configuration options must go in Gnome2. That pissed off many real users but attracted not a single new user.

What they did is try to "innovate" in a "corporate" way by producing UI guidelines and following them. This may have been a political decision indeed, but the real problem here is that the UI specs just get in the way. Gnome is trying to be an environment, but, as a toolkit, it has to coexist nicely with former versions of itself. Having gnome1 and gnome2 apps running simultaneously (often you can't avoid it, e.g. everything you run is gnome2 except evolution which is still gnome1) brings chaos to your desktop. The preferences have to be defined twice, once for gnome then gnome2, and some overlap and mess things up.

C. KDE/Qt/C++ programming is faster and more elegant. Again, this was a rather political decision. (Almost all GNU software is C-based, therefore GNOME has to be C-based, too) Yes, in theory many non-C language bindings exist, but in the real world none of them are used for any non-trivial project.

C was chosen because not everyone could afford C++ compilers when gtk+ was designed. The choice has stuck ever since. Many language bindings do exist, and since you found no non-trivial project using these, did you consider the possibility it may be so because the _original_, _raw_, _C_ toolkit is easy enough to get the job done ? ;)

As I final word, I have to say my main concern about gnome these days really, genuinely is gconf. I know about it being not evil, not really a registry, XML based, easy to modify, and such. I don't buy it. It is a registry. It means that every emerge -u world I issue that upgrades gnome2 may result in me and my users having to lose 20 minutes reconfiguring. Because some applet in your panel changed its gconf property format. Or everything keeps crashing because a major component has. And you can't be bothered to dig the gconf repository (ha!) to find the offending key, because, well, it's time to go to work. Which means deletion of .gconf and .gnome* so defaults can be restored and things can run again.

Some registry upgrade strategy is required I believe...

Re:The problems of GNOME

[Anonymous Coward]

> Not true again. Galeon is written in C++.

Get a clue. Galeon is written in C so is Epiphany.

> No, they didn't listen to bashers. They listened to the usability tests that Sun and Ximian.

Ximian is not responsible for the usability tests because they don't have the money to make some and the Sun tests are cut out of arse because the people used for this test where apes. Oh by the way SUN where responsible for CDE that everyone hates. So they can't be wrong making such tests :)

Re:The problems of GNOME

[twener]

> Gnome was supposed to be a toolkit (and in many aspects still is).

Agreed.

> C was chosen because not everyone could afford C++ compilers when gtk+ was designed.

How old is gtk+? How old is gcc ('s C++ support)?

Re:The problems of GNOME

[rseuhs]

Gnome came up later not as a KDE killer, but as a higher-level UI API to design applications on top of gtk+. The K desktop environment is an environment, Gnome was supposed to be a toolkit (and in many aspects still is).

Come on, I still remember when GNOME was started. The main reason was that Qt was proprietary and GNOME wanted to replace the "evil" KDE. And in computing replace is equivalent to kill.

What they did is try to "innovate" in a "corporate" way by producing UI guidelines and following them. This may have been a political decision indeed, but the real problem here is that the UI specs just get in the way. Gnome is trying to be an environment, but, as a toolkit, it has to coexist nicely with former versions of itself. Having gnome1 and gnome2 apps running simultaneously (often you can't avoid it, e.g. everything you run is gnome2 except evolution which is still gnome1) brings chaos to your desktop. The preferences have to be defined twice, once for gnome then gnome2, and some overlap and mess things up.

I don't see why this should lead to reduced configuration options.

Re:The problems of GNOME

[Simon Brooke]

C was chosen because not everyone could afford C++ compilers when gtk+ was designed.

I'm sorry? How much do you pay for g++? This is the GNU Network Object Model Environment, isn't it?

Re:The problems of GNOME

[Anonymous Coward]

Both are older than any decent C++ standard.

Re:The problems of GNOME

[slux]

Yes!

I've only started to really like GNOME after 2.x where they made it simple and elegant. There used to be millions of little options in the control center, WM, everything, just like there still is in KDE. The usability test have really improved GNOME a lot.

Customizability is only a good thing up to a certain point. You can't really be easy to use *and* ultra-customizable at the same time. I have a lot of respect for KDE (and the file picker dialog really is better because of offering easy shortcuts to desktop, floppy, CD etc. even if a little busy... I bet GNOME will adopt those).

So, you basically have to make some sort of a compromise between intuitive, ultra-customizable and efficient to use. GNOME has just decided to have the ease of use as the top priority and I applaud them for that. Fortunately, we can all choose between GNOME, KDE or something else (I'm currently using ion which could fall to the concentrate on efficiency above all category)

Re:The problems of GNOME

[fymidos]

Usability tests? Come on, there is no better test than the internet. Put it there and see if people like it.

Why listen to usability tests to strip off features ? I LOVED enlightenment, why did it have to go? Why did sawfish have to go? why did balsa have to go?

I definetely appreciate that their job is open-sourced but they are NOT really helping if they adopt a project, then throw it away and start something else.

For once the kde project sticked from the very beggining to its own tools and they ALL got very much better. Is kword better than abi ? i don't know, i don't care. But i know there are two of them being developed. I wouldn't want to loose an option 'cause OO is "better" than gnumeric.

Being political oriented is not an idea, it's the only EXCUSE for all the things they are doing!!!

Re:The problems of GNOME

[fymidos]

and some gconf backup MOST definetely. But then again how would a simple user do it ?

Re:The problems of GNOME

[timeOday]

That's like saying the Microsft registry is bad because people don't want to sit around hacking regedit, they want to use apps. So what? A commercial-level app will have graphical editing of the configuration, whatever the storage format. The question at hand is which backend storage format is best.

Config files are best, because they don't require a specific library to access and are human readable - unimportant to some, great for others, a drawback to nobody.

Re:The problems of GNOME

[lordcorusa]

Gnome has gone with usability tests because the first thing you learn in any Human-Computer Interaction course is that developers know squat about how regular people use computers. Gnome, through Red Hat, Sun, Ximian and others, are targetting regular people with their software, so it is natural that they perform usability tests. If Linux is going to remain relevant in the long term, we must gain users, and guess what, those users will be mostly regular people, not developers. Both Apple and MS make extensive use of such tests, I'm glad to see that we (the Linux community) are too.

The Internet really doesn't tell you much, as only geeks like us ;-) comment on computer interfaces online, and we aren't necessarily the people they are targetting. That's not to say Gnome doesn't care about retaining existing users, as most Gnome users I know, except for a couple of die-hard "I must customize everything" uber-geeks, love 2.0. It just means that they want feedback from a new source, regular people, and the only way to get that is to conduct tests.

The results are about to pay off. Gnome made massive usability steps forward with 2.0. 2.2 didn't really improve the interface as noticably, but 2.4 will include such things as improved file dialogs, and many other fixes to a lot of the currently outstanding interface complaints.

As to your complaint about removal of features. Enlightenment was "removed" because Enlightenment's maintainers were moving it in a direction opposite of where Gnome's maintainers wanted to go. Sawfish was removed b/c its code was extremely complex (messy) and I believe I heard that its maintainer was quitting, hence Gnome wanted a lightweight WM that they could *properly* integrate into the desktop. As Metacity matures, expect to see it gain some more functionality, although it will never be as customizable (bloated) as Sawfish. Finally, I do not know what you mean by Balsa being removed. Sure, Evolution is now the default email client, because it offers an easier and more feature-rich interface than Balsa, but Balsa is still in active development and is only one install away from being on your system!

As far as your last comment on using politics as an excuse for the things they are doing, what they are doing is making the interface easier to use and attracting new users, all while making sure that the code is more easily maintainable for the future. Does that sound like the result of politics or pragmatism?

Re:The problems of GNOME

[IamTheRealMike]

Some registry upgrade strategy is required I believe...

They have one already though. Basically if you change the format of the keys (which only happens rarely), you have to migrate data across when you start, leaving the previous keys intact. Upgrades should in theory be painless, if they aren't it's a bug in the app.

Which means deletion of .gconf and .gnome* so defaults can be restored and things can run again.

Or you could just go and delete the individual config files, using the good old "cd" and "rm".

Re:The problems of GNOME

[nbvb]

ealise that most people don't want to hand-hack some poorly documented config file, they want to play games, browse the web, do their taxes and all the other things that Windows allows them to do (albeit sometimes in shades of blue). Don't diss people like my dad just because he's got better things to do.

You know, it's not even all about people like your Dad -- people like me want stuff to Just Work too.

I'm a Unix sysadmin by trade. (Mostly Solaris, but now some HP-UX as well) At work, I do nothing _but_ futz with configuration files and tweak things and make it go --- not so much because things are busted, but because I'm trying to make them run _better_. Things like setting the sd_max_throttle setting in Solaris, or various ndd commands to disable source-routed frames and so on ...

Anyway, when I get home at the end of the day, the LAST DAMNED THING ON EARTH I want to be doing is tweaking config files, downloading Widgetx 0.234567 and finding out it's incompatible with the libc libraries in my OS, so I have to upgrade to glibc and now Widgetx still doesn't work because glibc broke my window manager.

I remember those days --- the libc-to-glibc migration ... I still have nightmares about that.

March 24, 2001 I bought my first Mac. And I haven't looked back since ...

Now stuff Just Works. I come home and I can read my email, play games, connect to work, and even watch DVD's and edit home movies and play with my digital camera ....

Some folks can't see the forest from the trees --- The end-goal here should be for the system to just GET OUT OF MY WAY and let me work ... and Linux unfortunately hasn't done that in many years.

Re:The problems of GNOME

[7-Vodka]

"No, they didn't listen to bashers. They listened to the usability tests that Sun and Ximian have done, with user skills from beginners to those very experienced with UNIX."

Yeah, and therein lies their problem. For all the money that goes into usability testing, they are BULL-FUCKING-SHIT.

No offense, but they sit these people who've never used gnome before in front of a computer for 15 minutes. Watch them go: duh.. I don't get it.
and then try to draw conclusions based on this as to what would make gnome better for everyone.

What utter fuckin bullshit. Do you buy a computer, use the desktop environment for 15 minutes, and then throw it away because you're done? NO! You use your computer for at least 3-4 YEARS. You learn. You're not a computer-illiterate-monkey for the rest of your life with a goldfish memory. In other words, of ALL the people using gnome *right now* only about 2 of em are within the first 15 minutes of using it. All the rest are at different stages of being used to it. Therefore the whole basis of these usability studies is that they're great for making gnome usable the first 15 minutes you sit down with it.. but that's it. Then you're out of the target market that benefits from them.

You want to do R-E-A-L usability studies? get 100+ people who use gnome NOW. Of all different levels of skills, just like distributed in the user community. Study them for at least 3 months. Thouroughly. Then make your decisions.

Re:The problems of GNOME

[Zagadka]

I have a lot of respect for KDE (and the file picker dialog really is better because of offering easy shortcuts to desktop, floppy, CD etc. even if a little busy... I bet GNOME will adopt those).

This has me totally confused. I've been using GNOME for a few years now, and the file picker dialog doesn't look like the one in the article. It looks more like this, and it's looked like that for many months.

The author's argument that KDE apps automatically gain from having standardized components like the file picker is also bogus, because GNOME applications benefit from the same thing. Does he really think that every GNOME application writer implements their own file dialog?

Re:The problems of GNOME

[Zagadka]

Sawfish was removed b/c its code was extremely complex (messy) and I believe I heard that its maintainer was quitting, hence Gnome wanted a lightweight WM that they could *properly* integrate into the desktop. As Metacity matures, expect to see it gain some more functionality, although it will never be as customizable (bloated) as Sawfish.

Sawfish's code wasn't messy or bloated. Now Enlightenment, it was messy and bloated to the extreme. Sawfish has a very good design. Large parts of sawfish are in Lisp though (actually rep), which I suspect scared off some of the highschool programmers. So my guess about the real reasons for abandoning sawfish are Lisp-phobia, possibly combined with an accute "NIH" complex.

As far as your last comment on using politics as an excuse for the things they are doing, what they are doing is making the interface easier to use and attracting new users...

While it's admirable that GNOME is trying to attract new users, some thought should be put into not losing the existing users as well. Sawfish is actually one of the main reasons I use GNOME rather than KDE. If it's going to become just as hard to use sawfish in GNOME as it is to use sawfish in KDE, then there's very little stopping me from switching over to KDE.

Re:The problems of GNOME

[fymidos]

the first thing you learn in any Human-Computer Interaction course is that developers know squat about how regular people use computers.
Well the first thing you learn in science is that real life is not what you measured in the lab.

as only geeks like us ;-) comment on computer interfaces online
Geeks like us (at least like me) also comment on computer interfaces to other people.

Balsa is still in active development and is only one install away from being on your system!

So is enlighntenment and sawfish, but not thanks to gnome anymore.

Re:The problems of GNOME

[Mr. Frilly]

Yeah, what you're seeing is the Ximian version of the file picker. If you had installed GNOME directly from the GNOME web site, or installed RedHat's version, you'd see the current, very simplistic file dialog.

While the current file dialog works fine, it's due to be replaced in the near future by something more advanced. I'm sure it just hasn't been a high priority for the GNOME people because it's not currently broke, and it's trivial to replace (as Ximian's shown).

Re:The problems of GNOME

[Istealmymusic]

A large portion of redhat's system tools

What does RedHat gain from making their own "system tools"? Shouldn't they be contributing to the project at hand, rather than writing their own superfluous configuration tools? For example, whats with the redhat-xfree86-probe (or whatever it is called program); doesn't that belong in the XFree86 CVS? I can understand having a RedHat-specific installer, but some times these Linux distributions go to far in making their own distribution-specific tools.

Re:The problems of GNOME

[deaddrunk]

My objection is to the description of my family and most of my friends as drooling morons, merely because they haven't been users of various Unices for years as I assume the parent poster has been.

I personally consider text files to be by far the simplest way of configuring a system out of the two I know (XML config files I havent messed with yet) because I can back them up, copy them to other machines, and if I royally screw up, can restore the default one from the package with ease.

Would be nice, though, if IT people showed a little less contempt for people who are probably just as knowledgable as them, but in different fields.

Re:The problems of GNOME

[krow]

Keep in mind though that it has only been recently that g++ wasn't a buggy/half implemented nightmare. At the time that the gtk was first being written g++ really wasn't worth using.

Re:The problems of GNOME

[dr.badass]

You use your computer for at least 3-4 YEARS. You learn.

I R-E-A-L-L-Y don't want to wait 3-4 years before being able to perform basic file-management tasks. In fact, I wouldn't,
I'd go use an environment that has paid attention
to usability studies, and doesn't design only for
it's current users.

Therefore the whole basis of these usability studies is that they're great for making gnome usable the first 15 minutes you sit down with it.. but that's it. Then you're out of the target market that benefits from them.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. Making an interface
more intuitive benefits everybody. The less time
you have to spend wondering how to perform a task,
or wondering if it's even possible, the better. I've found that the users that complain the most about the GUI sucking are the ones that are perfectly capable of configuring it in a way that they like, or using something else.

You want to do R-E-A-L usability studies? get 100+ people who use gnome NOW. Of all different levels of skills, just like distributed in the user community. Study them for at least 3 months. Thouroughly. Then make your decisions.

As if you could possibly find 100+ GNOME users that use even remotely similar configurations or applications! Or that many of them wouldn't be utterly counterintuitive to anybody but that user. And if you think that a lot of money goes into usability tests now, imagine the cost of studying hundreds of people for months at a time!

Any environment that emerged from what you're suggesting would be so configurable that it would be impossible to document, impossible to learn, and utterly useless to anybody but those very same users (who are perfectly capable of configuring things the way they like it *now*.) Not to mention the flamewars over which of the hundred menu styles should be the default.

-Fascist GNOME2.2 User

Re:The problems of GNOME

[ADRA]

Go nuts and ask them :-)
Since it is tied into Gnome, I don't see much hope in your assumptions. Why isn't Gnome Terminal or kterm in X as well? Because X is the bare minimum in functionality, no the biggest and best

http://rhlinux.redhat.com/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/red ha t-config-xfree/

Re:The problems of GNOME

[nonmaskable]

The KDE vs Gnome flamewar was started, battled in, and lost by the same people who bash emacs vs vi or linux vs windows : users. The Gnome developpers and project leaders never tried to "kill" KDE AFAIK

You don't know much then. Miguel personally (and he wasn't the only GNOME leader to do so) waged a personal campaign on mailling lists and IRC for _months_ calling KDE "eeeevvvvillll" along with spreading license and technical FUD.

Re:The problems of GNOME

[shellbeach]

The author's argument that KDE apps automatically gain from having standardized components like the file picker is also bogus, because GNOME applications benefit from the same thing. Does he really think that every GNOME application writer implements their own file dialog?

IIRC (and correct me if I'm wrong - I don't use GNOME), all GNOME applications simply use the GTK file picker ... which is due to be upgraded to something a lot more saner when the backwardly-compatible GTK 2.4 is released. So it's even better than KDE since you can write a GTK, non-GNOME application and it will look and feel almost identical to any GNOME app.

Re:The problems of GNOME

[Planesdragon]

You can't really be easy to use *and* ultra-customizable at the same time.

The hell you can't. Simple three-step process:

1: Make a simple default state, just like you would use if you weren't going to follow #2.
2: Take every configurable thing you've got, and let the user tweak it to their heart's content.
3: Have "reset settings" function that's universal for the system--heck, make it a keybinding, and have it pop up on "first run" or somesuch.

The above program may grow to mammoth program sizes, or be horrendiously expensive to write, but it's sure as hell possible.

Re:The problems of GNOME

[BrokenHalo]

I've seen the argument that Sawfish==bloat a few times now, but I wonder... I used Sawfish while it was the default, and I'm using Metacity now. OK, I haven't looked at the code, but the memory footprint (according to top) is pretty similar: metacity currently at 6.5 Mb vs. sawfish last time I looked was about 5.6 Mb. Given the size of the codespace, it would be nice if Metacity would remember window sizes.

Re:The problems of GNOME

[DunbarTheInept]

The problem that people who believe usability studies doen't see is that ease of learning and ease of use are seperate things. Sometimes the method that's easiest to learn is slowest to actually use. Take menus versus hotkeys for example. The easiest way to learn the options available in an application is to see them arrayed out in front of you visually, and pick them with the mouse - like off a menu. But that is an inherently slow process compared to hitting a key. So an ideal interface should do BOTH, and most these days have learned that. But that's NOT the sort of thing you learn in a usability test that ONLY tests people who have no previous exposure.

Test usability only against newbies and you end up developing an interface that only newbies like, like Windows.

Re:The problems of GNOME

[Alex Belits]

gcc C++ implementation was limited, however exactly in ways that have no effect on a GUI toolkit. C was chosen to make the object-oriented nature of the GUI accessible to programs not written in an OO language. It makes sense because with Qt (and MFC) many programs that do not benefit from C++ had to use that language just to accommodate GUI.

Before GTK was released one could argue that this approach causes huge amount of convolitedness citing Motif as an example, however now we know that it has nothing to do with C and everything with Motif and Xt being giant messy pieces of code.

Re:The problems of GNOME

[koh]

And, pray tell, since when do significant opensource projects depend on some arbitrary "leader"'s wrongdoings ?

Many people are contributing to gnome with code, as many people do for KDE, and sometimes they are the same. Would they so-called "leaders" strangle each other to death, the projects will go on, and eventually some new "leaders" will show up, and the show will go on again.

People used to say the same as you about RMS in the 80's. Please tell me we've grown up a little since :)

Re:The problems of GNOME

[nonmaskable]

Your reading skills need some work - look at what I replied to.

No reasonable person could doubt where the bad blood between KDE and GNOME started unless revisionist history like that becomes accepted.

Did something really go "wrong"?

[dcuny]

This is one of those "what went wrong with Gnome" articles. Obviously, if you love where Gnome 2.2, the isn't anything gone wrong.

I belong to the "something has gone wrong with Gnome" school of thought. I dearly want Gnome to succeed. It's got a different sort of style and sensibility than KDE and Windows, and there's a lot of great stuff there.

Love it or hate it, KDE feels like a unified desktop, while Gnome feels like a cobbled together set of unrelated tools.

The "Open File" dialog is a thing of shame, and I can't believe that it won't be until October until a replacement comes along. The fact that something so basic has been allowed to stay unchanged so long, in my mind, reflects the difference between KDE and Gnome.

I don't think that it's an organization issue, or even that one group is more clever than the other. My guess is that, at some level, Qt really is better than GTK. I don't know if it's C vs. C++, or KParts vs. Corba, Glade vs. KDevelop... Perhaps Nick's got it right, that it's the underlying objects. KDE doesn't seem to have suffered from having a C++-centric toolkit, and Gnome doesn't seem to have benefitted from having a C-centric toolkit.

The last release of KDE had some pretty cool stuff in it - I was eager to get my hands on it and play with it. In contrast, most of what I've heard about Gnome 2.2 has been about what it doesn't have in it anymore. It apparently won't even be featured in the next Knoppix release, since it's broken so badly.

But I wouldn't discount the future of Gnome. Maybe .NET/Mono will solve the problems (I wouldn't bet the farm on it). Maybe there are no problems at all - just a different desktop, with a different way of doing things.

But, gah... Please, fix that "Open File" dialog!

Re:Did something really go "wrong"?

[nonmaskable]

>My guess is that, at some level, Qt really is better than GTK. I don't know if it's C vs. C++, or KParts vs. Corba, Glade vs. KDevelop

Bingo. I've worked with both on different projects over the last five years and there's no comparison - a (non-trivial) KDE app is much easier. Also, the way the framework and dev tools are designed, you have to work at it to write an app that isn't consistent with KDE environment standards. Not the case with GNOME.

Also, C++ is a much more natural fit for gui app development than C. Yeah, you can make a C library look somewhat OO, but if you've got C++ coding skills, why try to make a pig fly?

The language and framework baggage that the GNOME developers are saddled with make them work twice as hard to achieve the same thing. Thus, less time available to make things polished, bug-free, etc. Maybe this is why the GNOME leadership is pushing the super-stripped newbie desktop direction.

Yes, these are all my subjective opinions, but I've seen them played out over and over throughout the last several years of KDE and GNOME releases. Better performance (and art pre KDE 3.1) for GNOME, better consistency and integration on KDE. And every release of GNOME, more promises that the latest set of brainfarts will be fixed in the next release.

Re:Did something really go "wrong"?

[GauteL]

"The last release of KDE had some pretty cool stuff in it - I was eager to get my hands on it and play with it. In contrast, most of what I've heard about Gnome 2.2 has been about what it doesn't have in it anymore. It apparently won't even be featured in the next Knoppix release, since it's broken so badly."

While I'm not that opposed to the rest of your post, this one is assuming way too much. GNOME 2.x has been about cleansing and purifying. You assume that removing things makes it broken. I on the other hand applaud what have been done, since it makes GNOME easier, simpler and more elegant. The people complaining are very loud. The people that like this do not bother screaming about it. In addition the project is trying to attract newbies, which would not care about the ability to switch window manager in the GUI (which KDE thankfully does not do either).

Knoppix has always been about KDE (the whole name implies it). That they did not like GNOME 2.x does not surprise me the least.

I also disagree that KDE feels more unified, I personally think it is the opposite, but every one has their own taste.

The file dialog is not good, and is being fixed, but there is a lot of applications out there that just use GTK+ and not the rest of GNOME. Two totally different file dialogs for The GIMP and Gedit would not be very good, so it has been decided that the file-dialog will need to be fixed at the GTK+-level.

The rest of the GNOME-project is not going to stand still and wait for it to be included in GTK+, so it is highly possible that the next GNOME-version (2.4) will still be based on GTK+ 2.2 (with the old file dialog).

Re:Did something really go "wrong"?

[twener]

> Knoppix has always been about KDE (the whole name implies it).

The name implies it? You don't know that Knoppix is created by Klaus Knopper? It's only a coincidence his last name starts with a "K".

Re:Did something really go "wrong"?

[mickwd]

"Knoppix has always been about KDE (the whole name implies it)."

Actually, the name comes from the guy who produces it, Klaus Knopper.

But then again, maybe he changed his name by deed poll ;)

Re:Did something really go "wrong"?

[macshit]

The file dialog is not good, and is being fixed, but there is a lot of applications out there that just use GTK+ and not the rest of GNOME.

BTW, what is it about Gnome's file dialog that everybody hates so? It seems OK to me (it's certainly as good as the one in windows). Also, the fact that the TAB key works properly is a big point in Gnome's favor...

Re:Did something really go "wrong"?

[mjh]

what is it about Gnome's file dialog that everybody hates so?

What I hate about it is that if I have to navigate around to different directories (i.e. directories other than the default) it is extremely inefficient.

The windows dialog is better in that it gives you a bunch of defaults that can rapidly take you to common places (e.g. Desktop, My Documents, My Computer).

KDE takes this one step further and allows you to define your own common places. So that if you configure "~/ftpin/" as a common location for you in one application, every other application inherets that common location.

I personally find it incredibly frustrating to navigate around in the gnome file dialog. I typically switch between two directories: ~/ftpin/ and ~/win/windows/Desktop. In GNOME apps, switching between these two locations takes 5 double clicks and lots of drag navigation. In windows this takes 1-2 double clicks and a little navigation (depending on where I'm trying to get to). In KDE it takes 1 double click no matter where I am.

Re:Did something really go "wrong"?

[Knuckles]

what is it about Gnome's file dialog that everybody hates so? [...] the fact that the TAB key works properly is a big point

The reason everybody complains is that nobody knows that normal shell tab completion is possible in the dialog. I don't know if that works in KDE at all. People clickety-click their ways through it. Of course the gtk dialog sucks then. I once filed a bug that the selector should have a text saying "Use tab completion here" over the text enter area, but was turned down (rightly so :)

Re:Did something really go "wrong"?

[Xacid]

I agree with you completely here. The whole KDE vs Gnome "war" seems a little silly to me. Personally I just think it's a matter of tastes. At first I started out using only KDE, but then I started using gnome. I simply just preferred gnome more but never really thought about why. However, in the end, I settled for ximian gnome, which is near perfect for me. Sure, there are some issues I have with it, but that's preference and I can't whine all that much until I learn to program into it myself and make my own changes. For example, file associations: a lot of my files are unassociated with any programs automatically. That's a pain for me, being used to windows for the years and years I've used it before. What would be nice would be a windows-like file association type thing where you just have to pick the program from a menu, not have to go scouring through files and files to find the damned program. (Normally I just fire up whatever program via commandline without having a clue as to where it is and then open it, but that's a hassle). Funny thing is that I think KDE does have something like that so maybe it wouldn't be so hard to implement something like that on gnome. Being a fairly new user, if anyone can lead me in the right direction I'd be more than welcome.

Re:Did something really go "wrong"?

[Quickening]

I've installed gnome programs that provide their own mime-types, and everything works automatically on the desktop. I suggest the developers are hesitant to do so lest they end up in the typical file association wars you have on windows.

Re:Did something really go "wrong"?

[IamTheRealMike]

Also, C++ is a much more natural fit for gui app development than C. Yeah, you can make a C library look somewhat OO, but if you've got C++ coding skills, why try to make a pig fly?

You're forgetting a few things, like C is far, far easier to use than C++. I must have learnt ten languages in my lifetime, most of them object oriented, but I still don't know C++. It scares me. I can normally read a language I don't know and figure out what's going on with a bit of effort. C++ eludes me. It's a mess. It appears to have several ways to typecast something. Multiple inheritance and generics makes any non-trivial codebase hard to understand. GLib C is a little easier, at least the base rules are more easily understood, but that's not so great either.

The good thing about GLib C is that it's very easily bound to other languages. The Python GNOME bindings for instance are a delight, and the GTKmm/GNOMEmm bindings are more C++ish than the KDE code is. For instance, you don't need a preprocessor to do signals, and you use the STL a lot more.

I know there are Python bindings for KDE. I've yet to find things that use them. On the other hand, for PyGnome there's Straw, the Redhat tools, for Perl::GTK there's the Mandrake setup tools and a photo gallery program I was working on a few months ago.... etc etc.

The language and framework baggage that the GNOME developers are saddled with make them work twice as hard to achieve the same thing.

GNOME has language baggage? You clearly haven't seen the ridiculous flamewars on kde-multimedia. Presented with a feature-rich, powerful multimedia framework that is light-years ahead of anything else (GStreamer) some of the KDE developers were objecting to it because despite the presence of KDE bindings to use it, you might need to write a GObject in C to extend it.

In fact with more complete bindings you wouldn't even need to do that. Nonetheless, it appeared to be their opinion that nobody could possibly want to use something based on the GObject object model, and made some very condescending remarks about it. It was even suggested that a new framework based on C++ was started, an utterly stupid idea, considering GStreamer hardly needs extending at the moment, and that it'd take 2+ years to get to where GStreamer is today. Nonetheless, that's how tied to C++ those guys were.

Unfortunately, KDE is still highly C++ centric. Perhaps this is no longer the case, but when I last looked KParts was simply a wrapper around the c++ classloader, you couldn't create a KPart in anything other than C++.

Thus, less time available to make things polished, bug-free, etc. Maybe this is why the GNOME leadership is pushing the super-stripped newbie desktop direction.

Instead of wildly speculating, why not go review the flamewars of the GNOME2 development era and you can find out why they simplified things right now. It's pretty simple - the majority of the developers felt there was a need for a clean desktop that had usability designed into the core. The fact that it's written in C had nothing to do with it.

Re:Did something really go "wrong"?

[7-Vodka]

"Knoppix has always been about KDE (the whole name implies it)."

Shows how much you know. Knoppix is named after it's creator Klaus Knopper.

Re:Did something really go "wrong"?

[caseih]

> The "Open File" dialog is a thing of shame, and I can't believe that it won't be until October until a replacement comes along. The fact that something so basic has been allowed to stay unchanged so long, in my mind, reflects the difference between KDE and Gnome.

There is one redeeming feature of the file dialog box that makes the whole thing incredibly more efficient than the QT or KDE selector. Tab completion. (I know tab-completion somewhere violates HIG guidelines about navigating through a dialog box, but...)

Try it. Need to go home in a hurry? try typing '~/' and hit tab. Need to see only mp3s? Try typing '*.mp3' and hit tab. Need to drill down in a hurry, type the first letter. Just like bash. Maybe better. That one feature alone makes me really like the gnome file dialog box, as hideous as it is.

I only know about tab completion because I discovered it accidentally while browsing the source code. I was trying to make a better file dialog by extending the original source.

Re:Did something really go "wrong"?

[Istealmymusic]

No its not OK, at least v1. I tried to save a file in gedit; it popped up the usual file save dialog. I want to go up one directory, but I'm too lazy to move my mouse and click the dot dot directory. I don't want to use the dropdown either. So I type ".." in the filename to save as, The Windows file dialog is smart enough to recognize that it is a directory, and will open treat it as such - displaying the directory listing. But no, the GNOME File Dialog stupidly replies:

``/home/user/docs/..'' is about to be overwritten. Do you want to continue ?

Besides grammatical errors (using grave accents as an opening single quote, and having an extra space before terminating sentence puncuation?), the error message makes no sense. You can't overwrite a directory. I tried to, but luckily I didn't have write permission. I don't even want to think about what would happen if I did, and accidently overwrote /.

When I enter ".." in the GNOME file dialog of xmms, nothing happens. Useless. The windows are also too small to see anything. All my long directory names are truncated.

Galeon's rendititon of the GNOME file dialog is a little smarter. Entering ".." when in /home/user correctly identifies /home. But that's where the intelligence stops. GNOME loudly complains:

/home is a directory

Please enter a filename.

Did the developers not think of any more creative things to do when a directory is selected, but to complain?

When I use arrow keys, the file I would want to be selected is outlined, but not highlighted. What the fuck is that? (Pardon my French.)

More integration with a file manager in the file dialog would be nice, but I think its too much to ask. In Windows, your file dialog is a full-fledged Windows Explorer. Sure, GNOME's file dialog can rename, delete, and create (directories), but Windows Explorer can run programs, create files, sort, by name, date, size, or other attributes. Maybe I'm just weird but I find this mini-Windows-Explorer functionality very useful. Its too bad the GNOME folks, armed with their UNIX philiosophy of reusable components, has not so. In this respect, Microsoft Windows is more Unix-like than GNOME. Its a shame.

Re:Did something really go "wrong"?

[Arandir]

Love it or hate it, KDE feels like a unified desktop, while Gnome feels like a cobbled together set of unrelated tools.

That's exactly the impression I get everytime I install gnome to try it out. Every time it still feels like unrelated applications that merely use the same toolkit. Different applications will have different dialogs, different toolbar layouts, etc. Mozilla is not a gnome application, but it integrates into the gnome desktop just as well as most core gnome apps.

Re:Did something really go "wrong"?

[nonmaskable]

You're forgetting a few things, like C is far, far easier to use than C++. I must have learnt ten languages in my lifetime, most of them object oriented, but I still don't know C++. It scares me. I can normally read a language I don't know and figure out what's going on with a bit of effort. C++ eludes me. It's a mess.

If I had tried to learn and use _all_ the features of C++ at once, I might have felt the same. No one forces the use of MI, generics, operator overloading, or templates (typical concerns for people on the learning curve). You can (as I did) start out by just using C++ as a better C with OO features. You won't find all the stuff in Bjarne's books in QT or KDE (and certainly not in my code). Sometimes I see a place where the fringe stuff offers value, so it'll sneak in here and there.

Unfortunately, KDE is still highly C++ centric.

Great! I hope it continues! Pick the best core language (C++) and the best scripting language (Python) and go get it done. I don't see GNOME benefiting (other than better performance with older compilers) at all from either it's C foundation or being language-agnostic (are there any core GNOME apps written in something other than C?).

But KDE benefits a lot from uniformity and building everthing off the same base without catering to every tool and language fad. Look at all the garbage (and weird social engineering hoops GNOME will have to jump through to fix it) in the GNOME baseline http://www.gnome.org/%7Echrisime/random/ui/. KDE has virtually none of that stuff because it offers developers a single best way to do things.

GTKmm/GNOMEmm bindings are more C++ish than the KDE code is. For instance, you don't need a preprocessor to do signals, and you use the STL a lot more.

I've worked with them, and they don't suck at all. I agree with the preprocessor comment, and I sure wish STL was used in Qt (they don't conflict, though). But, there is _no_ comparison to Qt and the KDE frameworks - none. IMHO, of course, but I've built several things with both.

Re:Did something really go "wrong"?

[aaabbbccc]

Konqueror has tab completion as well.

Re:Did something really go "wrong"?

[nonmaskable]

Good point - and one that was really important to me on a project where I had do do some significant widget subclassing. It's nearly impossible without reading the Gtk and GtkMM code, something I didn't have to do with Qt.

This is another heavy burden GNOME developers have to carry that KDE developers don't.

Re:Did something really go "wrong"?

[Ig0r]

Maybe you should try pressing the TAB key to move around in the filesystem and save ENTER for when you would want to click "OK".

Re:Did something really go "wrong"?

[Simeon2000]

That wasn't french.

Re:Did something really go "wrong"?

[Gnulix]

and the best scripting language (Python)

That's a weird way to spell perl!

Re:Yes

[DopeRider]

If you can consistently reproduce crashing, why don't you report the bug?.

Re:Gnome's very problem

[asobala]

As a GNOME developer, I have no idea what you're talking about.

Which technologies? Or are you just trolling?

Excellent topic for discussion...

[gnovos]

As a followup, I wonder if we can finally settle which religion is the one true faith and whether or not abortion should be legal.

Re:Excellent topic for discussion...

[TheRaven64]

I wonder if we can finally settle which religion is the one true faith

Discordianism. Hail Eris, all hail Discordia.

Re:Excellent topic for discussion...

[squiggleslash]

I don't think either would generate much discussion, I mean, we all pretty much agree on those issues don't we?

Now, "vi" vs "EMACS" on the other hand...

Both GNOME and KDE are LAME.

[Pornosonic]

Actually, if you want to be technical about it, both GNOME and KDE are LAME; They are both uber-hyped window managers. This more-or-less follows directly from the Eliteness of the Console axiom.

The proof, which is left as an exercise to the reader, is more or less the same as one would use to proove the lameness of most window-managers. (Hint: Try to prove that it is LAME to have more than three applications taking up screen-share at once.)

Ratpoison, due to its special properties that make it more like screen than a window manager, is one of the few acceptably not LAME window managers under X11.

Re:Both GNOME and KDE are LAME.

[twener]

Please learn about the difference between a window manager and a desktop environment first.

Question on licensing

[Tyreth]

I used to be a GNOME man myself, but have recently become sold on KDE, because it really does shine. Not that long ago, both projects were at a similar level. Now kde has shot ahead, and gnome is left unconfigurable, empty. But that's not why I'm writing...

Something concerns me with the Qt licensing. I'm asking people who likewise share a love for the freedom that free software gives us, not to those who don't really care.

Imagine 3 years from now KDE has overtaken the Linux desktop, and GNOME/GTK+ has faded to obscurity. The Linux desktop is beginning to look bright and we start to have many commercial applications made for us (free is always better, but commercial is necessary).
With GNOME or KDE it is possible to make commercial applications. With GNOME the developer merely takes advantage of the LGPL license. In KDE however, the developer would need to purchase a license from Trolltech for Qt.

Now I have no problem with making companies pay - it's an incentive to make free software. But what I don't like, is if Qt becomes the necessary standard, that we have a commercial company that is the controller of the fate of commercial applications. I don't like the thought of commercial apps for Linux being in the hands of another company - I'd much rather if the community controlled such a mechanism.

So I want to know if others think my concerns are legitimate or misinformed?

Re:Question on licensing

[twener]

Let the companies decide: Obviously Adobe, Borland, Hancom, Opera and others have no problem with Qt being available either under GPL or QPL license. In my opinion the price for Qt under QPL and for support are peanuts for these (and smaller) companies. They are glad to have someone who can give them support for the tool kit. Who offers commercial support for Gtk?

Re:Question on licensing

[darnok]

> So I want to know if others think my concerns are
> legitimate or misinformed?

If you're misinformed, then so am I ;->

I share your concern with Qt's licencing. I'd hoped Trolltech might have recouped whatever costs they have and then released Qt under something like the GPL - who knows, they still might? - but it hasn't happened yet.

What bugs me with licences such as those that apply to Qt is that it's not "scalable". If Adobe or Oracle want to buy a Qt licence for their commercial apps, well it's not really going to be a significant expense for them. However, if I want to release my "commercial" app, with no marketing budget, then a Qt licence represents a much more significant investment.

Suppose I only sell a single copy of my app (extreme example). Depending on the price I charge, I may find myself out of pocket when I factor in the Qt licence cost.

I'd be much happier if I could pick one of the following payment schemes for Qt licencing:
- pay Trolltech x% of the gross income I derive from all software that uses Qt
- pay Trolltech a flat $$$ amount which will allow me to sell any software I like that uses Qt
- pay Trolltech a (smaller) $$$ amount per application that uses Qt
- (maybe a few others as well)
and have the freedom to switch between payment schemes at my own discretion.

My tiny startup company would start out with the first option, as it would presumably cost me hardly anything for the first few copies of my product that were sold. Then I might switch to the 3rd option, once I'd sold a few more copies. Finally, I might switch to the 2nd option once my software company was in full swing and I was pulling in the big bucks.

The Adobes of the world would probably use option 2 from day one, simply because the expense would be a relatively tiny one for a company of that size.

The current licencing scheme seems biased in favor of large commercial software houses over the startups.

Re:Question on licensing

[Roberto]

And what's in it for TT?

YOu start with an option where they may make no money at all, yet they have to give you support. Then, once you start to see that you will get money from your app (some of which would go to pay TT)... you switch to the other scheme, and they only get the flat fee!

What you want is TT to take the risk involved in the first scheme, while topping your expense at the fixed cost of the flat fee. No company is going to increase their risk FOR YOU!

Really, what you want is charity. Like the part about "I'd hoped Trolltech might have recouped whatever costs they have and then released Qt under something like the GPL"

Even ignoring for a moment that Qt *is* released under the GPL, why on hell would someone who makes a living selling a product stop selling it just because he has recovered the initial investment???? That makes zero business sense!

It's like saying "hey, I bet Disney has recouped costs from The Lion King, why don't they make it FDL?"

Re:Question on licensing

[TheRaven64]

I recall reading ages ago (KDE Beta 4 era) about something called 'Project Harmony'. This was meant to unify the GNOME and KDE camps, and I think developing an LGPL version of qt was part of that. When qt was Open(ish) Sourced it seemed to go away. Anyone know what happened to it? Would anybody be interested in developing a BSD/LGPL version of qt from scratch?

Re:Question on licensing

[Daengbo]

If you're misinformed, then so am I ... I'd hoped Trolltech might have recouped whatever costs they have and then released Qt under something like the GPL - who knows, they still might?
No offense, but you're misinformed. It's been a long time since QT was released GPL, which is exactly the problem that the grandparent is referring too. There is no LGPL QT, either full GPL or commercial license.
Does the license for QT cost significantly any more than, say, a license for MS development?

Re:Question on licensing

[JimDabell]

You have two separate issues confused - the licensing of the code and its commercial value. Commercial does not imply closed-source, in fact the very toolkit you are talking about (QT) is both open-source and commercial.

Now, it's true that closed-source applications will need to license QT under something other than the GPL/QPL, however there is something that can be done to avoid this - clone QT.

Back before QT was GPLed, there was a project to clone QT, when it was far simpler. It died because nobdy cared enough to put the work in. They didn't care because:

1. It affected very few people in the community.
2. Trolltech seem to be very clueful.

If Trolltech turned around and started being unreasonable, they can expect people to care much more about a clone.

Re:Question on licensing

[198348726583297634]

Isn't one of the nice things about the GPL that once something is GPL'd, it can't be un-GPL'd?

if QT closes the source etc, won't the community always have the last GPL'd version, still free?

Re:Question on licensing

[infiniti99]

Would anybody be interested in developing a BSD/LGPL version of qt from scratch?

Nope. Are you going to reimplement the entire Qt toolkit, something that has taken years for Trolltech to design, just to save a couple thousand bucks? If you want to write closed source software, it is simpler just to pay the money. If you don't want to write closed source software, then why the heck would you start such a project? Do you feel the need to be charitable to corporations? The rest of us Free developers don't need an LGPL Qt.

Re:Question on licensing

[spitzak]

Contrary to popular belief it is possible to run non-Qt programs under KDE. IMHO the most useful stuff coming out of the Gnome+KDE cooperation is the relativley simple documentation of protocols like the window manager hints and so on that are not tied to *any* toolkit. These are working very well to eliminate any true need to use Qt, other than convienence. I think the KDE developers are well aware that any core interface cannot be "use the code in Qt for this" since that in effect closes it as much as Windows.

Re:Question on licensing

[darnok]

You raise several points, so I'll address them in turn.

I'm quite happy if Qt provides little to no support for the "lower income" licensing options. What I want is the freedom to write some code using Qt and sell it, without having to take on the extra financial risk (on top of all the others you take on as a tiny software company) of having to fork out what to me are significant chunks of change for a commercial Qt licence.

I don't see that TT is taking any risk at all in this. Some/many potential TT customers will be put off by the cost of the commercial Qt licence, so they won't ever be financial customers of TT in the first place. What they would be doing is getting SOME income from people that they wouldn't have gotten it from under their existing system

Regarding my suggestion that Qt should be released under the GPL, my brain was thinking "BSD" and my fingers typed "GPL". Late night, and I apologize for the mistake...

There are precendents for people recouping their initial investment in a product, then making it free (as in "no cost"). Consider Codeweavers for one; they progressively release more of their in-house developed functionality to the Wine project as they recover costs and move further forward. In TT's case, they could do this and still turn a sizeable dollar; by offering services around the (now-free, and presumably more widely used) Qt, or by developing and enhancing new toolkits around Qt and selling those.

Finally, as far as your Disney analogy goes, I think there's already a fairly strong moral/ethical/public-interest argument that they should not have the level of copyright protection they now do. For example, I don't see how the public is being served by having the Mickey Mouse copyright extended from 75 to 95 years. IMHO, a copyright protection period of about 10 years for movies "feels" reasonable, in which case The Lion King would be coming out of copyright pretty soon now.

IANAL, and I'm sure 10 years would be too short for some people/projects, but my thinking is that the creator of something of value should be afforded what's effectively income protection for about the same period people stay in any one career path. Changing career about every 10 years seems to be about normal these days, and that same level of income security and protection should apply to copyright holders as well.

Re:Question on licensing

[Roberto]

If you want it to be rereleased BSD after 10 years, you would still be 5 years away from getting Qt 1.0. And trust me, Qt 3.1 is a lot better ;-)

And there are obvious ways to abuse the per-copy scheme you propose. TT has no way to audit or control your licensing, you could be writing a internal use app using this scheme, and never sell a copy, yet you get to keep it proprietary, and TT has made you a gift they didn't intend to do.

As for all the stuff about how TT should make the money or "change careers"... why? They are doing fine. They seem to be making money. Why change horses in midstream?

Again: why should they do it? What is in it for THEM. I know what is in it for you (or me ;-)

Re:Question on licensing

[twaltari]

License for MS development does not cost you anything, and that really pisses me off with QT. You can download Plaform SDK for free from Microsoft. It contains all the libraries and header files for coding win32 applications. However, the most widely used compiler/IDE on the Windows platform, Visual Studio, is not free. That's OK since if I ever decide to go serious with commercial win32 apps, Visual Studio is just another expense...

Re:Question on licensing

[StormReaver]

"So I want to know if others think my concerns are legitimate or misinformed?"

I love Qt and KDE, but that one issue about Qt's GPL license has recently become a sore point with me. Some coworkers and I have debated this off and on for a while, and we have all come to agree that the GPL Qt will hinder the small startups who try to strike out with commercial, closed source apps (no, I don't think closed source is inherently evil).

We have three options:

1) Stop using Qt/KDE. Not gonna happen because they are the best things going. I certainly don't begrudge Troll Tech for its licensing (I wholeheartly thanked everyone there for adding the GPL to the release licensing).

2) Petition Troll Tech to make Qt LGPL. This would be suicide for Troll Tech, and it isn't going to happen (no reasonable person should expect this to happen). Troll Tech has been indispensable for the development of Qt, and I wish the company the best of success.

3) Create a new implementation of Qt's APIs. It's a big job, but it's very doable.

Because I want to eventually be able to create closed source apps of my own, and to allow others to do the same (and because I wanted to learn X11 programming), I've created a library that partially implements 25 of Qt's classes. When I get the layout and style engines implemented, I will release the source under the LGPL. This isn't a high priority project, so don't hold your breath.

It's a fun project, and it won't comply 100% with Qt. The only area in which I'm diverging from Qt is the event model. I have done away with meta objects, and have adopted Java's interface/listener model for events. I find that to be a much better way to handle events.

Anyway, I'm not concerned about Troll Tech owning Qt. The GPL guarantees that Troll Tech can never take it away, but can just stop releasing new versions. If that ever happens, the community will carry on with the last GPL version. No biggie.

Re:Question on licensing

[damiam]

Yes, but it'll be GPL'd and not LGPL'd. That means that it can't be used for software under a non-GPL license (including proprietary and BSD).

Re:Yes

[Graspee_Leemoor]

Did you have another computer available ? Normally if linux seems to hand you can still telnet/ssh in and analyse the problem, then shut it down safely.

graspee

lets compare apps...

[mdew]

lets compare applications

Gnome/GTK vs KDE/QT

Web Browsing
Galeon
Galeon is better by default, it supports more since its based on Mozilla...and its fast. Konq's "tabs" are shitty, shitty when you compare galeon's tabs functions, and the speed shits all over konq.

Multi-media
Mplayer (gtk)
Nothing can touch this player, sure theres KDE frontends available, but the default is the GTK frontend, Arpi chose the better GUI toolkit.

IRC
Xchat
I've seen a few KDE IRC clients, they're either heavy bloated with shit (kvirc) or so featureless that its not usable.

News
Pan
Knode is trash, sorry to say, some attachments never quite work.

Email
Evolution
Kmail, see above...plus it cant thread my messages that well..Sure it looks like Outlook, big deal..Konq looks like IE.

Mame
gxmame or grustibus
You want ugly, QMamecat is *ugly*.

Music
xmms (gtk)
Noatun is so shitty, why do they bother even developing it? Using seperate tools for media playing, mplayer, and xmms for music...why is there a need for Noatun, there isnt. basically KDE try to make a KDE tool for everything, even if it sucks, even it crashes.



the only thing going for KDE is the actual desktop environment and Konq as a file manager, everything else is either gnome and/or GTK has the advantage. They simply offer better programs, more mature programs, less prone to crashing.

Re:lets compare apps...

[Roberto]

web browsing:

Tabs in galeon are better.But I find the browsing experience in konqueror very pleasant, and quicker.

Multimedia:
The default UI for mplayer is text. In order to get the GTK one, you need to build gmplayer, which is optional.

IRC
Xchat is the definition of loaded. KSirc is pretty barebones, yet I find it nice, qick and simple.

News:
Well, I dropped the ball here, since I wrote the newsreader of KDE 1.x and never got it to work right, so knode had to start late in the game ;-)

Music:

Try Juk. Simple, extremely functional.

Re:lets compare apps...

[Roberto]

I hardly ever run into a site that can't be used in konqueror. And since Apple is contributing the Safari patches, I would expect Konq to get even better.

About IRC programs... I find xchat's too loaded for me. But I am a simple IRC user. But what do you mean by bloated? Does KVirc use significantly more resources than XChat?

Juk is a specialized tool, it's meant for the guy with a bazillion directories full of music. For that job, it is very good.

If you want xmms, use xmms. The UI is completely unlike both KDE and GNOME anyway, and you can get a kicker applet to control it ;-)

Re:lets compare apps...

[twener]

> Specialised programs, for Specialised Jobs.

Like Rhythmbox? Better compare Juk to that.

Re:lets compare apps...

[Kourino]

In my experience, Konqueror's rendering times are faster than Galeon's. Other things aren't as fast. (And yes, somebody needs to fix Konqueror's tabs. Fast. :3 ) Galeon crashes a fair amount on my Debian system. GTK programs have a tendency to do that. Haven't run KDE stuff on that system much, so I can't compare.

I've only ever had one problem with advanced CSS or some such in Konqueror. (The shopping cart at HMV which is some drop-down thing.)

Konqueror looks like IE? What version of IE are you talking about? The Longhorn version that doesn't exist?

MAME? You mean that arcade emulator thing? That's not exactly a major, universal application ~_^

No offense, but I wouldn't make any judgements based on the preferences of the Mplayer maintainers, either.

XMMS will be disappearing for me as soon as I can replace it. Why? mp3 support at the moment is ... weird. The mpg123 plugin opens *almost* all my files, and gives horrible artifacts when it encounters stream errors. The libmad plugin handles stream errors very well, but some files crash it and it won't recognize all of them. (No matter how much I patch it, this hasn't gone away.) Since I haven't been able to get source material for all the stuff I have mp3s for yet, I can't just make Vorbis files out of these ... even if I did, there would be some artifacts (though MUCH less noticeable with libmad).

Also, I don't like XMMS' refusal to pick up on toolkit appearance. That's probably also a reason why "KDE try (sic) to make a KDE tool for everything" ... so that a user's apps all look alike, which historically has been one of the biggest complaints about Unix GUIs.

Re:lets compare apps...

[CronoCloud]

So you're the guy I should blame for KRN's weirdness. Like the fact that it seems to refuse to send posts if kmail is running. Or that it seems to disconnect from my news server on it's own and when I try to post, crashes.

It's the least trustworthy KDE 1 app I run. Then again when it does work, it works well. It isn't a bad app, just buggy.

Re:lets compare apps...

[Roberto]

You mean someone still uses it? I am shocked :-)

Sadly I can not help you with your problems. It would involve installing a KDE 1.1 development environment, and it would be kinda hard to work on an app I don't use :-(

Re:lets compare apps...

[CronoCloud]

I use it because I haven't gone to the trouble of finding, downloading and compiling a newsreader that will run fine on an R5900 box with only 32MB of RAM. That also explains the KDE 1.

As long as I'm not running Kmail and don't let it sit idle for too long, it works fine. I'm using KRN version 0.6.0 if that's of any interest.

I'm not expecting any help, I figured you moved on to more important things. I was just teasing you a little.

Re:lets compare apps...

[Roberto]

Yes, the idling is the biggest problem. KRN lacked lots of error checking on the network status (This was my first real C++ program, and my first network client :-). So, if the server dropped the connection, it basically locked.

Re:lets compare apps...

[CronoCloud]

Thanks for the informative explanation. I think the basic overall design of KRN was/is pretty good.

Re:lets compare apps...

[kardar]

I have both KDE and GNOME.

The thing I don't like about KDE is similar to the thing I don't like about Solaris. In Solaris, all your applications are "dt" something or "SUNW" something. But of course, it's proprietary. You expect that.

In KDE, to a lesser extent, it's "k" this, or "k" that. KDE is not so much an environment that allows you to organize and integrate, it is a complete environment that kind of works straight out the box.

On my second-hand Solaris box, it is significantly slower than CDE. But it is a complete environment.

GNOME is a more perfect union, in my opinion. It's more of a "roll your own" concept than KDE, which is just ready to go the minute you install it with everything you need.

I don't mind using KDE, but I like GNOME a lot better. The best thing to do is to keep it simple, and really question why it is that you use a computer, and what is it that you really want to use that computer for. I can totally understand why some people would prefer KDE. It depends on what you want.

Besides, the article is just an opinion. I would hesitate to listen to any individual who thinks that their opinion is so important that the world should view it as fact.

It's nice to have the power of being able to write articles for well-known websites, but I think that there are better uses for the written word than what we have witnessed here. GNOME is an excellent environment, and you can choose how much GNOME you want, a little, or a lot. KDE gets sort of pointless unless you are wrapped up inside its' holodeck.

I, for one stick with GNOME. But of course, that's just me. KDE might be right for you, and that's just the way it is. Try 'em both. Or perhaps you would prefer OS X?

Gnome VS Kde and Linux

[westyvw]

Right now, and I am telling you this becasue you are geeks. No MATTER what I do, KDE, GNOME, Redhat, Mandrake, Evil, and all the others..........THEY BREAK! I have broken every installation possible, except maybe Knoppix, but thats in a class by itself. When I setup a SERVER I dont give a damn about the GUI interface. I want stability. And thats what I get. Redhat 7.3 on my servers. Redhat 8 with no gui on my firewall seems to work OK but is a pain in the ass. The point is that NO xwindows system has got it down cold. I want a review of the Xwindows server that knows my vid card, knows my sound card, knows that I have hardware graphics etc. My redhat 8 using KDE has become broke at my work. Sound card is busy. Always busy. Windows doesnt complain only Linux. Configure till my ass is blue and its still refusing to play XMMS. WTF. More important then KDE or GNOME is that linux gets its act together. Yes I know a new X is out. Sorry to say this but windows slogan was "where do you want to go today" and Linux under a graphical interface is "What do you want to break toaday?"

Re:Gnome VS Kde and Linux

[Drakonian]

I know what you mean man - I consider myself a competent computer user - my job is a software developer afterall. But I cannot seem to get KDE or GNOME into a 100% working configuiration. Right now my problem is fonts. They look soooo ugly, and ones that I had been using all along (mscorefonts) have now started dissapearing in all my GTK based apps. I also can no longer get Mosfet's liquid to work with KDE. It is a nightmare to get all these things up and operational. I find it amazing that anyone ever does.

Re:Gnome VS Kde and Linux

[westyvw]

Thanks. I was hoping someone would get that I am having this and that break, and face it its annoying. Someone else said that they wondered why I would have an Xwindow on a server. I do, but I dont use it much, nor install anything on it. However I also run Linux on my work computer and on my laptop and I do use KDE and sometime Gnome and Enlightenment. So this is what I am talking about. I need a work computer to be stable and at the same time I need an interface that I can use to get work done. So thats what I end up breaking, not the servers. I am relativly new to Linux, but I have a fair background in UNIX. Hell, I can program in COBOL (dead I know but its what I learned in college). So its not like I am completely lost. But with so many things to configure when something goes wrong, I get lost at trying to solve the problem.

Need a new GUI paradigm

[Kirby-meister]

OS X goes for the simple desktop, Windows is becoming more menu-based but still keeps that hint of desktop, and the major GUI's for linux are cloning those desktops.

While it's nice Linux emulates these other OSes for "consistency" or such, why not develop a new "type" of GUI? Remove the desktop metaphor, the icons, the needless menues. Why not a simple GUI with no mouse where you cycle between things you want your computer to do? A circular node-based selection scheme, like the GameCube's OS except instead of moving around a cube you move around a sphere or circle, where the options are chosen by moving left or right in the circle and choosing things like "E-mail," "Write a paper," "Browse the Internet," "Write a spreadsheet," "Install something," or even "Have computer tune itself up" (so that it sounds easy to understand to a normal user, but it does all the stuff they don't care about like defragging the ol HD or updating virus protection - a technical support employee's dream - just name it something that makes it appealing for them to run it).

A friend of mine once said "If you could make something easier to use [than Windows], I'd buy it." Granted, he's not into computers, but the majority of people aren't "computer people" at all - they just want their computer to do what they paid $1000-2000 for it to do. And, being technical support for the freshmen in my hall, I can tell you that NOBODY who isn't into computers ever updates security packages, virus protection, or even software they're using, nor does anybody ever run defrag...

Re:Need a new GUI paradigm

[FooBarWidget]

Because that won't work. You can "innovate" as much as you want to, people simply won't switch.

Yeah, you can give people a whole different desktop methaphor, but average users don't WANT to learn! They demand things to Just Work(tm) and to work like they used too. Too many people are used to Windows; they will not use something that's even slightly different.
People are resistant to change, especially regarding to computers. If I put my mother behind a different desktop, she will NOT like it, no matter how "innovative" it is.

"Innovation" is only an argument for geeks. And since Slashdot is a geek community, of course posts about "innovation" gets modded up. But the average user don't care.

Re:Need a new GUI paradigm

[tempest303]

Ok, take a step back and think about this.

Would a bunch of spinning nodes around a shiny sphere be really easier than the WIMP metaphor, or would it just look more l33t? ;)

Also, why should there even be a "tune up my computer" button? Shouldn't the damn thing do that by itself? (Isn't this what cron was made for?)

Re:Need a new GUI paradigm

[niminimi]

Yeah.
Maybe a fbdev prog that takes over the screen
on ctrl-alt-del ...
sort of a bastard mix of Windows' alt-tab
window selection list on one hand and
login & xlock on the other.

Something that lets you login and switch
between apps.

Re:Need a new GUI paradigm

[squiggleslash]

Given this and your almost identical posting just before it were modded up as "insightful", as are all the "We must make it like Windows otherwise people will not switch" posts anyone makes, you jhave a cheek protesting that posts about innovation getting modded up.

Look, it's quite simple. If we make GNOME like Windows, then we have done absolutely nothing worthwhile whatsoever.

There already is an entire operating system that's identical to Windows. It's called Windows, and virtually everyone who buys a PC clone has a copy of it already.

They will never switch to an operating system that's identical to Windows in look and feel, but doesn't run the same software. The people who will switch to a different operating system are the people who do not like Windows, or like an alternative better.

I don't care about people who like Windows. They are well served in the marketplace, having half a dozen operating systems to choose from. These include Windows ME, Windows CE, Windows XP, Windows 2000 Server, and Windows XP Tablet Edition. These suit people who like Windows very well - they run on the same hardware as Windows, they support just about every hardware device you can get for a PC, then even run the same software.

And you get at least one of them for free when you buy a PC - the PC maker will actually buy a copy for you, and bundle it with the machine you buy. They'll even do it if you don't actually want Windows.

So WHY, WHY IN HELL'S NAME, would someone who likes Windows switch from it?

Linux's audience will always be people who do not, for whatever reason, consider Windows to be a better alternative. That means Linux has to be better than Windows, not a clone of it, in critical areas. In performance, hardware support, reliability (since W2K anyway) and software compatability, Windows is either Linux's equal or superior. That leaves you with people who prefer Linux because they like the way Linux works.

If you make Linux work like Windows, you destroy that advantage. Bye bye Linux.

Want to know why I switched to the Mac? Because, since OS X, it works better than Linux, or Windows. It was hard ideologically and financially, I'm a supporter of free software and I prefer my code with the right to tinker and the ability to support it, or be part of a group that supports it, if the original maker goes out of business, but I think Apple has come up with something that's clearly superior. And one of the reasons it's superior is because Steve Jobs doesn't think you have to emulate Microsoft's GUI to be successful.

Re:Need a new GUI paradigm

[TheMostBob]

No Foo - it wouldn't work because people don't think that way about their computers. Traveling around a cube or sphere or something is pretty, sure, but inherently nonlinear and time consuming. I'm all for a new breed of GUI, but one that takes account limited screen size---limited considering the thousands and thousands of files we like to browse---and one that provides random access to all the of the computer's functions and files. I imagine a search engine would be very integral in something like this, and maybe new input devices. Interesting problem.

Re:Need a new GUI paradigm

[FsG]

It's interesting that you suggest this because this idea has been bouncing around Microsoft headquarters for years, and this is actually the direction in which they are heading. MS's next major OS, code-named Longhorn, is expected to deliver exactly that. They refer to it as a "task-oriented UI" because you don't think about what program you want to run, but rather what you want to get done. It's actually an interesting concept, something people used to do quite a lot with menu systems back in DOS, and something Microsoft is planning to re-introduce. In a few years, we'll get to see whether it flies or not. :)

Re:Need a new GUI paradigm

[spitzak]

I think what Microsoft is doing and what the original poster is looking for is something more/different than "task-oriented UI". The original Mac/Lisa had a "task oriented UI" and it quickly became obvious that it does not match how people think. Despite the initial appearance to the contrary, people really do clearly understand and like the idea of "I am going to run MicroSoft Word and then edit these three papers with it, and I am going to run Photoshop and paint this picture with it" verses "I am going to work on these 4 documents". Part of the problem may be that this is the only way to market Photoshop and MicroSoft Word so people feel they are buying something worth money, but I feel it is more than that, that in fact the way the machines work today may actually match how human brains work. This despite the fact that all logic and my own feelings are that "task oriented" is better, but it looks like in the real world I have been proven wrong.

Re:Need a new GUI paradigm

[captaineo]

It's sort of like being in a machine shop, where you take the thing you're working on to a drill press, then to a table saw, and maybe then to a lathe. Your primary concern is where in the shop these tools are... vs. say repairing something really small at a workbench, where you think more about the item you're working on, and just grab whatever hand tool is needed at the moment.

I would say that theoretically, in the long term, a "workbench" approach is better than a "work shop" appraoch. The major practical issue with this today is the poor communication between major applications. (e.g. imagine if a texture you were painting in Photoshop showed up *immediately* on the model in your 3D software, with no need to save and re-load between changes - this would be a first step in moving towards a "workbench" - look at Maya's Paint Effects, for instance...)

Re:Need a new GUI paradigm

[captaineo]

(replying to add another example)

Say you are working on a comp in your compositing software, and you notice one of the objects in a 3D element is in the wrong place. Do you *really* want to open up Maya, fix the object, queue the scene for re-rendering, and re-load the new frames into the compositing system? Wouldn't it be easier if you could just "grab" the object and move it without leaving the compositor? The only reason we can't do this today is the extremely poor state of inter-app communication and automation. In the long term a fully-integrated environment is IMHO a much more ideal solution than separate applications.

The Direction of GNOME

[psr]

There has been a lot said about the usability of GNOME, and a lot of work done to make the user interface more consistant. However I think that it has mostly been a waste of time. The people who are writing the GNOME Human interface guidelines are forgetting that the majority of GNOME users are going to be UNIX/Linux users, and that to these people it is not necessarily atractive to use a desktop environment which tries simply to be a better Windowss than windows. Take for example key bindings. In the Unix world there have always been two different sets of keybindings that people use, emacs keys and vi keys. I think that it is fair to say that the majority of unix users spend a lot of thier time in either emacs or vi. Gnome used to try to emulate some of the emacs default keybindings, but now they all seem to have been replaced with windows keybindings.

Another good example is the "too many clocks" problem. A Sun sponsored ethnographic study into GNOME usability said that users were confused when trying to add a clock to a panel, because there was a multiplicity of clock applets. The people who write these things make a basic mistake of thinking that a windows user should be able to walk up to a UNIX machine, grab the mouse and go, and that makes for good user interface. Well its not true. The old MacOS is often cited as a good UI. The first time I tried to use it, I didn't have a clue what was going on. The menu bar at the top confused the hell out of me. That doesn't mean that it wasn't a good UI, it just means that it wasn't TWM or windows 3.11, which is what I was used to at the time. So I was pissed off when I upgraded my version of gnome and half the applets I used had gone!

Don't even get me started on window managers with maximise buttons!

Developers should remember who they are developing for, and give more precedence to unix traditions than to windows traditions. It is nice to be able to attract new users from other platforms, but it shouldn't be at the price of losing users on the current one. Users from MacOS or windows should have to learn how to use a new user interface. If theres nothing different then theres no point in changing.

Re:The Direction of GNOME

[perreira]

Most of the GNOME-Users NOW are Unix/Linux-Users. I want my mother to be able to use gnome, but without having to figure aout keybindings, menu-structures etc. for half a year. This does not mean, it has to be like windows, but to be intuitive.

The great thing of Linux is that is configurable. If you don't like some appearance, keybinding whatever, change it. But the default should be simple.

A big chance for GNOME and any other GUI is accessibility. GNOME has the ATK, which for sure needs improvement, but enabling users with some kind of impairment to use a computer is a chance for linux. Windows just sucks with these features. It has a Magnifying thing, it has keyboard mouse, but nearly no Software works with screen-readers, braille-terminals, etc. Linux can handle these...

And having a simple, straight-forward user-interface (KDE, GNOME, Whatever) which uses by default simple key-bindings, intuitive GUI and so helps ordinary people as well. If you want to have the key-bindings of [insert favorite editor], configure it that way. There has to be a default and in my opinion it should be neither VI or Emacs, it should be the thing most people (not UNIXers) know, and that is windows...

Re:The Direction of GNOME

[psr]

When people talk about an intuitive interface, they are mostly talking bollocks. There is a great quote that "The only intuitive interface is the nipple, after that it is all learnt" (I don't know who said it, but it is certainly true).

Part of my point was that there seems to be a drive in GNOME to remove configurability because it confuses people, which may be true in some cases, but in cases like the "too many clocks" example, it is possible that the user just doesn't understand a metaphor because it has never been explained and it is different from what they have seen before. An applet is a program, just like a webbrowser, only it resides in a specific part of the screen. It is seen as a good thing for there to be plenty of web browsers, so why shouldn't there be a choice of clock applets? There is of course no reason, and a user that understands what an applet is would have no problem in understanding that there is a choice of applets to perform a given task. It doesn't help that launchers and applets are mixed into the same panel, without any differentiation between them. An applet is a good metaphor, the confustion exists in how it is used in GNOME.

I think that configurability is basically a good thing, but it desktop environments should handle it better. A big preferences dialog full of cryptic names for rarely used options is bad UI, but the trick isn't to get rid of configurability, the aim should be to make it available in consistent and discoverable ways which aren't overwhelming.

Take for example, the GNOME panel. It is possible to change its colour, or make it transparent through a right click menu. However it looks ugly, because the applets inside it still use the defualt GTK theme. A much better UI would be to allow transparency to be handled in GTK themes, and allow themes to be applied through drag and drop. Then you could have a theme that made windows transparent in some pretty way, and then drag it onto the panel, so that the panel would become transparent, and all of the applets inside would inherit the theme. You could drag the same theme onto your terminals to make them transparent too, or any other application you wanted. That makes every application more configurable, but the configurability is implicit in the framework and consistent accross applications, rather than explicit through a menu hardcoded into the application.

The reason I think that GNOME should use either emacs or vi keybindings (no worse than Windows, not at all hard to learn, just different), is that user interfaces should be consistent, a text editor is essential in UNIX (thats not going to go away), and there is nothing in either GNOME or KDE which can rival those two.

I would like your mother to use GNOME too, but I'd rather she used it because it was better than what she is used to, than because it was as good, and you told her to.

Re:The Direction of GNOME

[Ruach]

Can not resist... must post... bye bye moderator points.

"In the Unix world there have always been two different sets of keybindings that people use, emacs keys and vi keys. I think that it is fair to say that the majority of unix users spend a lot of their time in either emacs or vi."

You make some good points, but I spend 99% of my computer time in Linux and almost never use vi(m) or emacs.

RANT MODE = 1
Use of vi or emacs may be true for many "UNIX" users, but a LOT of computer users out there first touched a C64, or an appleII or a dos (win included here) box and know that "CTRL-c" is copy and "CTRL-v" is paste and you can move the cursor with . . . (wait for it) the CURSOR control keys!
RANT MODE = 0

Ok, I feel better now. Thanks!

Re:The Direction of GNOME

[IamTheRealMike]

In the Unix world there have always been two different sets of keybindings that people use, emacs keys and vi keys. I think that it is fair to say that the majority of unix users spend a lot of thier time in either emacs or vi. Gnome used to try to emulate some of the emacs default keybindings, but now they all seem to have been replaced with windows keybindings.

If you're going to go on a flamewar, please do some research. Go to Desktop Preferences, Keyboard Shortcuts and then choose "Emacs" from the text editing shortcuts dropdown box. There you go, emacs keybindings.

Another good example is the "too many clocks" problem.

That was a brilliant example of all that was wrong with GNOME. Who on Gods green earth needs 4 different type of clock?

So I was pissed off when I upgraded my version of gnome and half the applets I used had gone!

What, just like when you upgraded from KDE1 to KDE2, virtually all your programs had to be ported or rewritten? If you really care about those applets, port them!

Don't even get me started on window managers with maximise buttons!

Huh? What is wrong with a maximise button? Every UI I've ever seen has one of these, and no the Mac way of expanding to some apparently random size is not good, it's a pain in the ass.

Developers should remember who they are developing for, and give more precedence to unix traditions than to windows traditions.

Yes, and the GNOME developers are developing for non-geeks. If you have a problem with that, go fork the old gnome1.4 codebase and continue loading it up with more clocks or something.

Re:The Direction of GNOME

[perreira]

I completely agree with that. I do not see any reason to not have multiple clocks (or whatever else)... GNOME right now is a mess when it comes to consistency. There used to be a lot of different ways to change appearences, you had to change themes for Window-managers, nautilus and other applications in their respective preferences, in 2.2 these options have disappeared. Now there is the approach to configure everything in a single place (at least, thats my impression, I have no clue about GNOME-development...) which is a good idea (alas, if it works...)

I think the main problem is the common development process. Somebody wants a funky feature like dropshadows for menus, does a quick hack, and then starts doing other things (OK, this is oversimplified). My impression of most of the Linux-Apps is that they were done by a bunch of people to solve their needs, improved by some other people until they ended up being able to read mail with the app and than people got distracted by programming other apps.

Most of the working and usable apps have the benefit of the benevolent dictator sitting behind, like Linus and others do for the kernel, who cares for overall integration. All the big gnome apps like Galeon seem to integrate quite well in an overall configuration scheme (although this scheme changes quite often, after doing an update I quite often had to delete my configuration and start with defaults again, because the app changed its conf-format...). The smaller ones all look like beeing in the state of "it works with developers computer" but not in a state for Joe User.

The problem of UIs is, that there is (almost) no overall project. Most of the UI consists of applications written by different people, mostly there is no coordination going on of how to implement things. So most of the applets do not fit in the scheme. KDE seems to to better in that, maybe because QT does not allow much confusion how to do things. GNOME allows a large variety of languages, of versions of GTK, ... which allows much more confusion (my impression, not based on facts)

Your comment on intuitive interfaces: most of "intuitive" interfaces are complete crap. But as Sun has done, you can improve usability by putting the people in front of the computer you are programming for and let them figure out how things work. That's the way good websites get done, that should be the way UIs should be done. Most people do not care about drop shadows or transparent mouse-arrows, but how to access files, write a text, do their work. So get Mothers and Grand-Parents and ask them how they would like the Text-Writing-Thing to look. And if they want a classic typewriter, give them a typewriter. But if your target audience is Geeks who prefer VI or emacs (like anyone on slashdot, including me), then give them VI or emacs.

A UI beeing intuitive means you do not have to read the manual to figure out how to do basic things. If you want to do something else, then RTFM. But this depends on your audience...

Re:The Direction of GNOME

[psr]

" If you're going to go on a flamewar, please do some research. Go to Desktop Preferences, Keyboard Shortcuts and then choose "Emacs" from the text editing shortcuts dropdown box. There you go, emacs keybindings."

Touche. I didn't realise that was there, thanks, you've made my day.

" That was a brilliant example of all that was wrong with GNOME. Who on Gods green earth needs 4 different type of clock?"

My point wasn't that all the available clock applets were good, or that anyone would need all of them (of course nobody would want more than one, as long as its the right one). My point was that users didn't understand how to add a clock to the panel because they didn't understand what an applet was. If you understand what an applet is, it is easy to go through "add applet" > "clocks" and choose one of them, no matter how many choices you are given. The problem wasn't that there were too many clocks (even if thats the users in the study maight have said), but that the idea of an applet wasn't clearly defined. If there was some visual distinction between launchers and Applets, GNOME would be much more usable, because it would be more consistent and discoverable.

" Huh? What is wrong with a maximise button? Every UI I've ever seen has one of these, and no the Mac way of expanding to some apparently random size is not good, it's a pain in the ass."

I'm guessing that every UI you've ever seen has a legacy as in a cooperative multitasking operating system, where it was impractical to actually use more than one application at one time. There are a lot of UI "features" that are actually cruft that no one is willing to ditch even though they are now irrelevent (like file open dialogs which duplicate file managers). I can see how people find maximise buttons useful under certain circumstances, but if you hit alt-tab every time you need to see something else, you might as well be on Windows 3.1. Fortunately a lot of applications which really might need all your attention now have propper full screen modes. If our hearts are pure, maybe we can eleminate the maximise button within our lifetimes, and windows will be as large as they need to be, and no larger.

" Yes, and the GNOME developers are developing for non-geeks. If you have a problem with that, go fork the old gnome1.4 codebase and continue loading it up with more clocks or something."

A good user interface is a good user interface whoever its designed for. All humans have basically the same needs. We know quite a lot about what makes for a good user interface, and GNOME has a chance to do it all, from a relatively blank canvas. Despite what some people have been saying recently, it is possible to make a UI that is usable by all, flexible and still consistent. It frustrates me to watch the GNOME project duplicate the bad bits of windows along with the good, and introduce inconsistancies with the few applications that were already standard on the UNIX desktop (even if those things are only defaults).

Wow, I didn't realise I was so opinionated about all this, I failed User Interface Design last semester :-)

Re:The Direction of GNOME

[psr]

I believe the process of watching people try to use prototypes is called ethnographics, and as I see it, it has a failing in that it is practically impossible to find someone in the west who hasn't used some sort of user interface. All you are going to see when watching someone try to use a GUI for the first time is simply going be what they have learnt from other GUIs, and that gives you the bad as well as the good.

A well designed UI that is different from what a user has used before will of course be harder to use for the first hour or so, but if it is consistent (and well documented) there is no reason that a user shouldn't be able to be more productive under something better after a little while.

I think the claims that the Sun study showed up poor usability, which has now been fixed are disingenuous, because GNOME isn't meant to be the desktop environment you used last.

Your mouse is not an intuitive interface, if you had never seen a mouse, never seen one on TV and never seen someone use one, you wouldn't expect it to move a pointer on your screen. But it is simple to learn just from touching one, and largely consistent accross almost every application you will ever use, so you don't think about it any more. That makes a mouse a good user interface.

Re:The Direction of GNOME

[perreira]

OK, so everybody used something before. If you would ask a caveman what he thinks is a good user interface and all he knows is "UGH, STICK IS GOOD", then give him a stick, although there might be better Interfaces for hitting other cavemans.

If you have something innovative, which does not resemble anything before, give it to your target audience and see, how they perform. I do not think that Sun put the people in front of GNOME for half an hour (if you read the study, it is somewhere on the GNOME website I think, they put them there for several hours) and used their first reactions. Usability study means letting people accomplish tasks for quite a time...

These Ethnographic studies are somewhat scientific, meaning you can trust at least half of it. If you for example ask people to change the mouse-accessebility features in GNOME, people ranging from noobs to professionals, and look at what they are looking at, you learn quite a lot of how people think things should be organized (and that putting mouse-settings in a tab in an applet for keyboard setting might not be brilliant...)

Saying that the sun study is bullocks just because it takes away some clocks and comes up with things you think are stupid is not fair. If most of the people think, a lot of clocks are confusing, then maybe it is for them... Why not hide this from them in "Add a clock" and put the appearance of the clocks (ie the different clocks) in a preferences dialog. There is no difference in functionality between all the clocks. All of them show the local time. They just look different.

The important thing is: give the user a FUNCTION not a LOOK. Changing the look of things should go to some preferences, not in a lot of Applets which do the same, but just look different.

desktops and beer

[zloppy303]

I geuss desktop-interfaces are like beer or cigarettes: the basic functionality is the same, but everyone has his favorite brand.

just my 2 cents...

[rant]
what is it with everyone wanting to have one interface on every computer? Isn't one of the pinciples of free software the principle of free choice?
[/rant]

Input methods

[MarkoNo5]

They leave out a lot of imho useful options, while there is an "input methods" menu item for every input box, which you can accidently set to "cyrillic" or "amharic" or ... and fsck up your input box. Yes, I can correct it, but a newbie can't. And yes, these things _do_ happen. A few weeks ago, my mom saw a secretary in a hospital who accidently lost a toolbar. She had to wait until the next day, when the tech guy was around. These things shouldn't be removable by default. Experienced users, the ones who use it, can turn the option on in a matter of seconds, but a lot of people who don't use it can't turn it off.

Re:Gnome's very problem

[vandel405]

Obviously we have some mods who are impressed by big words and are in awe of mensa. This comment is BS the guys is pulling your leg.

Because it's backed by RedHat and Sun.

[budgenator]

I switched from slackware to SuSE a long time ago. around SuSE 6.1, so I guess you could say I "grew up" on SuSE and of course because its a Germant Distro KDE was the window manager of choise. This was because the non North American's weren't as caught up in the debate over wether it was politicaly correct to use the non-open Qt libary and therefore spent more time polishing.

On my new SuSE 8.1 tho I notice that the KDE is slow, sometime drifting off into LALA land, and sometimes not coming back I've had actual screen freezes that required pulling the plug and rebooting. Now that I've got a cable broadband connect it's time to do some serious updateing.

Gnome on the other hand seems to work a lot better for me does slowdown occasionaly but hasn't actualy frozen yet,(a lot of the slow downs seem to come from Mozilla and not realy Gnome) I miss the more familar KDE interface Gnome is very spartan in comparison.

One advantage I've really noticed is that Gnome bassed app run a lot better in KDE than KDE app run in Gnome. A good running KDE is a pretty good desktop I've notice that the look and feel of Windows XP seems to be the same as KDE 3, and of course everything in the KDE. I've noticed that when I'm on the wife Windows XP I start to do someting, and have to stop myself because the software isn't in there.

Re:Because it's backed by RedHat and Sun.

[rseuhs]

I also run SuSE8.1 and didn't have stability problems with KDE 3.0

Anyway, you should try KDE 3.1, which fixed a lot of bugs and also includes a couple of speed improvements.

Re:Because it's backed by RedHat and Sun.

[Daengbo]

I've noticed that when I'm on the wife Windows XP I start to do someting, and have to stop myself because the software isn't in there.
Just a tip... When you're on your wife, it should be the hardware that's in there. Maybe you should try more foreplay, but don't worry, it happens to us all!

lets "debunk" those first screen shot aguments....

[makoffee]

KDE is just turning onto XP clone. Yeah the gnome file picker is lite, but alot of us like that. What else do you need to do in a file picker? Look at fester adams? Click on "My Desktop"? "My Network Places" Some of us don't need it sugar coated.

DUH Me thinks best UI is like whatever microsoft happens to be selling.

This guy sounds like a wank gnu newbee or a closet case ms lover.

Well.....

[Lucky_Pierre]

I prefer Window Maker, thank you very much!

http://www.windowmaker.org/

Does it really matter?

[pongo000]

A happy GNOME user myself, please someone...tell me it isn't so.

If you're happy with GNOME, why should it matter what anybody has to say about it? I've never understood the mentality that things in life are deemed "worthy" only if they're popular (pop songs, software, beer, etc.).

Re:Depends what you mean by Gnome...

[pp]

Well, RHAS 2.1 is a server OS, so the GNOME desktop probably does suck. Haven't tried it myself, but it should be equivalent of RH 7.2, where the desktop was usable but far from polished (not that it's perfect even now).

The advanced workstation product they're planning should be interesting, I'd assume it'll be the same "7.2" (for RHAS compatibility) with the 8.x "Bluecurve" desktop for both KDE and GNOME.

For scrolling, try shift-pageup/pagedown (which does an entire page at a time), of course having support for scrolling a line at a time like in konsole might be useful in some situations.

Innovation?

[FooBarWidget]

"or innovate and create something people will actually want to use."

But that is the problem. People don't WANT to learn something new!
"Average users" want things to just work. They want zero learning curve. They DEMAND things to work the like the way they used to.

"Innovation" will NOT make people switch.

Re:Innovation?

[squiggleslash]

Well, I guess that explains why Apple has 3% of the market. What Apple needs to do I guess, is switch over to making x86 PCs with Windows. Likewise the GNOME, KDE, and GNUStep people need to give up as Microsoft already sells what people want. As you say, nobody wants to learn anything new. It would seem to follow to me that there's no point in creating anything new either.

There's no point in cloning something that already exists, because by definition what you've produced will have no advantages over that that already exists.

There's no point, according to you, of innovating, or being creative, or producing something wonderful, because "people" will not use it, because "average users" do not want to learn it.

So fuck it. Let's all switch to Windows. Even us non-average users who appreciate intelligently designed, clear, and innovative, operating systems. Why should we have a choice when the average user doesn't want one?

Re:Innovation?

[BlackHawk]

• "Average users" want things to just work. They want zero learning curve. They DEMAND things to work the like the way they used to.

Your first sentence I agree with completely, and it is upheld by a myriad of studies and polls.

Your second statement, I also agree with completely, and anyone who's ever tried to use a software package for the purpose of getting work done (as opposed to being interested in the process of doing the work) would agree. I won't make any comment on whether someone who doesn't want to learn something new at the moment is a good thing or a bad thing.

Your third statement, however, doesn't follow. Although it could be considered true, I've found that it would be more accurate to say that they want things to work in a way that makes sense to them. They don't mind something new, so long as it makes at least as much sense to them as the previous software/procedure/policy did. The black art of creating an intuitive design (whether it be software, or anything) depends on understanding how most people would approach a subject, then catering to their dominant point of view. It also explains why you can't please everyone; there will always be POVs that are diametrically opposed to the dominant one.

Re:Innovation?

[FooBarWidget]

What *I* think is irrelevant. What "we", geeks, think, are irrelevant. The majority, average users, don't want to learn. And we don't have the power to force them to.

Re:Innovation?

[praedor]

No one is likely to come up with a "better" desktop design than the desktop. If that were really possible given the PC, then it would have happened...at Apple, M$, Linux, IBM, Sun, etc, etc. ALL desktops are similar because there are only so many ways to do it and do it RIGHT.

Fancy-shmancy-new-innovative GUI is crap if no one "gets it" right off. THE main thing people want from their PC is usability out of the chocks. The desktop as we know it is the end-all-be-all of keyboard and mouse GUI. Sorry, but that's a fact. We are ALL used to desktops (REAL desktops), file cabinets, trashcans, etc. They were extended to the PC screen because that is the easiest and most intuitive way to do it. You COPY the real world within the limits of a monitor, keyboard, and mouse, you do not come up with something different than what people know from the real world. If you do, you have turned using the device (the computer) into a major learning chore that goes against the very nature of our existence.

Sheesh. There are only so many ways to implement the PROVEN desktop model. People know it, people are comfortable with it, people LIKE it, people can use it from time 0.

Quit complaining about how the desktop model is soooooo non-innovative, derivative, and old-fashioned. If there was something better, it would EXIST. It doesn't. EVERY option to the desktop familiar to ALL of us requires much more RAM, many more CPU cycles, and has a LARGE learning curve. That wont do at all. Such is destined to failure because students, parents, business people, etc, want to get on their system and do useful stuff NOW. Not a week or so from now after they've retrained themselves to a new GUI/interface paradigm just to do the most rudimentary functions.

lame

[kEnder242]

When I first read the headline I didnt see what the big deal was about GNOME and LAME.

A command line encoder and xmms are good enough for me.

Whats next? kWHINE?

Provocative Article

[Yokaze]

Ignore the comparison with KDE for a moment. And the fact that he is pro-KDE. The article is written in such a way, that it provokes. This is the purpose of it. So that people discuss it.

He raises some valid "problems" of GNOME. Those problems are more metaphyiscal, so they might don't actually have to concern you.

He raises the valid question: "What does GNOME stand for?"

The whole project seem to lack consistency in its development process. The whole core parts have been totally replaced. (WM 3 times, Configuration once, FM once). The laudible idea of an "GNU Network Object Model Environment" has been dropped in favour of being a language agnostic desktop enviroment.

Those aren't real problems, but they are probably the reason for the deficiencies of the Gnome desktop in respect to UI consistency, which is the part KDE concentrated on. And meanwhile, KDE gained some language independency of its own.

Please note, that I didn't say that the GNOME Desktop is better or worse than the KDE. It primarily means, GNOME could be better than it currently is, when it had concentrated on their primary goal (Being GNOME).

In the authors admittently slightly provoking words:
"GNOME's higher purpose was forgotten somewhere along the line, after which it degenerated into a LAME Franken-GUI."

Re:Provocative Article

[0x0d0a]

The whole project seem to lack consistency in its development process. The whole core parts have been totally replaced. (WM 3 times, Configuration once, FM once). The laudible idea of an "GNU Network Object Model Environment" has been dropped in favour of being a language agnostic desktop enviroment.

Yeah, but the problem is that he ignores that KDE's done the same thing (KDE 1, 2, 3...) What happened to the old mail program, the old WM?

Re:Provocative Article

[Yokaze]

Actually the third sentence is the more important one.
AFAIK, KDE has realised its version of ActiveX/OLE envisioned from the early beginning. Where is the paradigm shift?

The WM has been replaced. True. Once. Instead of 3 times.

I wouldn't go as far as calling a mail program a core component. So the following is probably of no relevance:
As I've used GNOME at that time (0.x - 1.2x), I don not know the old mail program, but a googled kdenetwork-1.0 rpm suggests a program named kmail.
The current KDE has a program named kmail 1.5.

But as I noticed, I didn't followed the early development of KDE. I might be wrong here.

Finally a question: How would defiencies in the development process of KDE affect the validty of the authors criticism?
I don't think it would make it any less valid.

Re:Provocative Article

[Roberto]

What old mail program?

KDE has changed window managers, yes, but it has been an evolutionary path. In fact, the author of the new one was the same as the old one.

You didn't mention the real one which was change of the file manager. But it was changed for a new implementation of the same goals, not a wholly new thing with wholly new goals.

Re:The Grasp Speaketh

[twener]

> It's been a while since I checked out KDE

Which disqualifies your current comments about KDE.

Re:Yes

[BlackHawk-666]

My uptime/stbility with Linux is a perfect record so far (2.5 years of solid use at home, no crashes). I have bluescreened/execeptioned/GPFed/protection faulted/hung every version of Windows I have ever come across. I have a fucked memory socket on my PC at home - so I can only use 512MB of the 768MB that should fit. If I put the extra 256MB in, Linux works just fine, and Windows will boot, but as soon as I run DirectX WHAM, the machine freezes. That's probably because Linux doesn't ever get up enough speed to use the last 256MB RAM...but maybe not.

atleast it is better then windows

[sublime99]

From these two articles I personally thing the author is doing a big trolling here. Isn't the whole point of variety is picking what you like and using it? I run gnome 2.2 on my slackware box and I love it. I also have a powerful machine to enable eye-candy and other nice features that comes with nautilus and other programs in the gnome suite.
Nothing is perfect, so how does this article actually _help_ anyone. It just seems lik a waste of bandwidth. I know that KDE is more consistant in its look, but I still stick with gnome. Because frankly I can. If you want to run KDE run KDE. If you want to run ratpoison run that. It is your desktop you can do what you want and when you want.
If you don't like the state of some project instead of complaining about it and anaylzing more then the United States is with Iraq right now, join a group and help out. Something as simple as running the software will improve both. If any software crashes that is associated with gnome or kde. Each project has a database for bug reports. Just filling out one new bug report makes the software one step closer to perfection.

Complaining about things is less productive then doing something about it....

But it makes up in one huge way....

[SerpentMage]

While GNOME has its issues there are a couple of things. (ironic because last night at the LUGS Linux User Group Switzerland, we talked about this)

1) KDE looks nice, but it has X different messy icons, GNOME or in my case BlueCurve tries to keep things simple and consistent
2) Can I write a closed source program in KDE without having to pay QT 1500 USD? NOT LIKELY....

I like KDE, but because of the fact you have to pay big money to write closed source is a reason I always avoid KDE. It is not that I am going to write closed source myself, but when I consult client I have to lay down the options. These days that kind of cash is hard to get, for what is essentially only a set of API's!!! Which comes for free on most platforms....

Re:But it makes up in one huge way....

[infiniti99]

"OpenQT" ? I guess you're thinking of the Harmony project, in which the goal was to write a Free implementation of Qt back when Qt was not considered Free. This is no longer needed, as Qt is available as GPL now, and has been for many years.

No one is going to reimplement Qt just to have an LGPL/BSD license. The only people that need such a thing are commercial developers, who are the least likely to ever create such a free project in the first place.

Sorry commercial developer, pay your dues to Trolltech, so that in turn my KDE is made better. Thank you :)

Re:But it makes up in one huge way....

[Anonymous Coward]

2) Can I write a closed source program in KDE without having to pay QT 1500 USD? NOT LIKELY....

So you are basically saying that GNOME is better, because it encourages the production of closed-source software?

Oh! The irony.

Re:But it makes up in one huge way....

[10Ghz]

2) Can I write a closed source program in KDE without having to pay QT 1500 USD? NOT LIKELY....

So you insist that Trolltech must offer their product to you for free so you could write closed & proprietary software with it?

Before, GPL-fanatics whined because Qt was under QPL and not GPL. Now that is't GPL'ed, those same people whine because they cant use Qt for free to write closed-source software. They want to deny Trolltech the right to profit from their software, and in the same time, they insist on using the product for free to profit themselves. Hypocrisy. Plain and simple.

"Do as I say, not as I do!". That seems to be the core of their argument.

Re:But it makes up in one huge way....

[BlackHawk-666]

$1500 buys you 1 day of programming time at my company. I don't think I could write the entire QT toolkit in 1 day, so it's probably worth paying the licence fee.If your clients are having problems raising this sort of cash then they are going to have worse problems paying you a decent wage. I'd suggest getting better clients ;-)

Re:But it makes up in one huge way....

[sydb]

I read the post more like this: "I needed the ability to write closed source apps, I reviewed the options, KDE didn't allow this, so I picked Gnome."

He's not asking Trolltech to do anything, he doesn't need them to; Gnome gives him what he needs.

Re:But it makes up in one huge way....

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a bullshit argument. Do Windows developers have to pay Microsoft a licensing fee for every closed source MFC application they develop for a profit? No, of course not.

They only thing keeping KDE from being a viable option is the fact that you have to pay QT for the right to develop applications for it. Not a particularly good way to grow a powerful base of applications.

Re:But it makes up in one huge way....

[peter hoffman]

I think you have mixed up two groups of people here. By definition "GPL-fanatics" don't write closed-source software.

Re:But it makes up in one huge way....

[Espectr0]

2) Can I write a closed source program in KDE without having to pay QT 1500 USD? NOT LIKELY....

Can you write a closed source program with GPL software? NOT LIKELY...

Re:But it makes up in one huge way....

[nr]

Well I see myself as a GPL fanatic and I'm currently developing a closed-source profesional financial trading and technical-analysis application for trading equitys, futures, options and currencies for GNOME2/GTK2. An application which will be 100% closed-source and I will charge money for each copy of it. Ofcouse I have written alot of open-source software and participate in many open-source projects, have full commit/write access to the Gnome Project CVS repository for over 6 years.

GNOME is a good environment for writing closed-source application as there is no license fees like in the KDE world. Thats one of the reasons why I think Gnome will succeed and KDE fail.

Re:But it makes up in one huge way....

[jbolden]

I doubt trolltech would have any objections to signing an OEM contract with Sun or other Unix vendors.

Re:But it makes up in one huge way....

[rjamestaylor]

It's good to give people the benefit of the doubt. In this case, however, one has to suspend belief. On the issue of making a Closed Source application using Qt one does need to purchase the commercial license from Qt. However, the poster makes it sound as if he has to pay for the license each time a client project needs Qt and needs to be Closed Source. As a consultant you may need to spend money on tools; once I buy a tool, say Qt or MS Visual Studio, I can create programs for many clients off the one license. It's the Cost of doing business and it's tax deductable (CYTA). If the project is for my clients' use only--end of story. However, if I am creating a program on behalf of a client that the client intends to resell themselves, then they may need to buy a license also.

In either case the license payor is directly making money (or, intending to do so) from the payee's product. If a $1500 license breaks the budget of a project ment for commercial redistribution. . .it probably doesn't deserve much attention as a test case. Even if the resulting application is meant to be sold for $5 a license, it would be an insignificant project if it could not recoup a paltry $1500. As such I doubt seriously the consultant could be afforded (unless said consultant is working pro-bono). Even so, it is a toolset fee, not a per-application fee.

If the project is meant solely for internal use and the resulting application is built by a consultant but the company wants to maintain it then they will need their own license to Qt. If this is the ONLY project that requires Qt, that may be a steep bill (assuming a small project size; most projects are large enough to swallow such a small fee). In such a case one would consider alternative development toolsets. But how many companies need just ONE small project in which they intend to maintain the source code? I would venture a guess they don't have the sophistication to do so, anyway. Like I said: this test case is really insignificant.

Re:But it makes up in one huge way....

[essdodson]

hoorah for gpl... sorta like herpes, eh?

Re:But it makes up in one huge way....

[crdlb]

GTK+ is LGPL
It was made that so you could write closed source software.

Re:But it makes up in one huge way....

[small_dick]

>> 2) Can I write a closed source program in KDE
>> without having to pay QT 1500 USD? NOT LIKELY....

> So you insist that Trolltech must offer their
> product to you for free so you could write closed
> & proprietary software with it?

The original poster "insisted" no such thing. S/he is just making a point of fact that, if you wish to keep something private permanently, or just for several months, Gnome can do nothing about your effort, while TrollTech could potentially cause you legal problems, unless you pay them $1500 per developer seat.

It's important to note that this is more expensive than buying VC++ Pro and Windows2000 pro...together.

Re:But it makes up in one huge way....

[Drakonian]

Yes. You can use emacs and GCC to write a closed source program.

Re:But it makes up in one huge way....

[Glyndwr]

He's not whining, he's just stating his position. He can pay to write closed source Qt apps or he can write closed source GTK apps for free. He doesn't prefer Qt on any technical reasons so he chooses GTK. It's a business decision. Trolltech knew that people would do that when they chose Qt's licensing and that was a business decision too. I don't see any hypocrisy here.

Re:But it makes up in one huge way....

[jbolden]

There is lots of Sun software that you aren't licensed for without paying extra money that is bundled with the OS.

Re:But it makes up in one huge way....

[Feztaa]

Can you write a closed source program with GPL software? NOT LIKELY...

I ask you, kind sir, to cite the part of the GPL that states you are not able to write a closed source program with GPL'd tools and libs.

Re:But it makes up in one huge way....

[joshsnow]

2) Can I write a closed source program in KDE without having to pay QT 1500 USD? NOT LIKELY....
No, you probably couldn't. But that hasn't stopped Adobe , amongst others has it? Could it be that QT's flexibility, solid design, and ease of use make sound business sense to non-hobbyist developers? Could it be that these same qualities are what originally attracted the KDE developers?
Sun may back GNOME, but they've made so many bad judgement calls in the past that I wonder if GNOME wasn't just another...

Re:But it makes up in one huge way....

[SerpentMage]

Cost of doing business? The problem of QT is that I just do not need a SDK and I am away to the races. I need an IDE, etc.

And guess what I do buy IDE's. I use Visual SlickEdit. But it only costs 299 USD. So are you telling me QT is worth than the work that SlickEdit did? I do not think so and that is my problem.

Now about the project being having to be worth it? I happen to be a shareware author and that price is simply too steep to swallow.

Re:But it makes up in one huge way....

[SerpentMage]

Thank-you for pointing out the fact of VC++ and Windows 2000.

The way I see it is that is that I am a shareware author and small time developer. I can go the Windows route pay less for a larger market.... OR pay more for a smaller market using QT....

My end result though is that I use Linux with SlickEdit and GTK.... Which works really nicely on Windows as well.

Re:But it makes up in one huge way....

[SerpentMage]

Trolltech can do whatever they please. That was not my point. I am simply stating that at 1500 USD per developer this is not something that I as a "shareware", opensource, consultant is willing to use. Trolltech can demand all the money they want, but there is reality.

NOW, here is an interesting thing. Why is it that their SDK for handhelds happens to be 150 USD? COULD it be because 1500 USD is simply too high? MAYBE... And could it be maybe that some of the OEM vendors said, sure we will use QT as a library so long as you bring down your price. In other words my argument wins.... (Take a look at their website you will see that they price their libraries very differently depending on the platform...)

Re:But it makes up in one huge way....

[ADRA]

Like their C compiler, but you aren't "Running" it without a license ;-)

Re:But it makes up in one huge way....

[Roberto]

Make that "those who don't expect to make $1500 ever".

Qt doesn't have a per-project license.

Re:But it makes up in one huge way....

[Roberto]

Well, Borland got one that was cheap enough to include on $249 Kylix

Re:But it makes up in one huge way....

[nagora]

Well I see myself as a GPL fanatic and I'm currently developing a closed-source

Well, I can't help what you see yourself as but you don't sound like a GPL fanatic to me. I'M not a GPL fanatic but I would never go back to writing closed-source code again.

GNOME is a good environment for writing closed-source application as there is no license fees like in the KDE world.

I must admit that I'm surprised by this. How is GNOME a GNU project if this is allowed/easy? I don't have either GNOME or KDE installed anymore (I couldn't decide which was worse so I deleted both) so I've never looked at the details of their license but I assumed that GNOME is all GPL.

TWW

Re:But it makes up in one huge way....

[rjamestaylor]

You only do one shareware project??

Re:But it makes up in one huge way....

[jbolden]

Read the thread. The question was about commercial developers not wanting to have to go through a 3rd party to get licensed. I responded that Trolltech would be unlikely to have any problem having Sun sell trolltech QT licenses to commercial developers.

If I don't get it stop being vague and make the point.

Re:But it makes up in one huge way....

[einhverfr]

I ask you, kind sir, to cite the part of the GPL that states you are not able to write a closed source program with GPL'd tools and libs.

I can dig up the part about the libs.

Of course you can use GNU Emacs to write proprietary software if you want because use of the software is beyond the scope of the agreement (but distribution is not).

But the reason why we have the LGPL is so you can write libs without worrying about the linking issues with the GPL. But the GPL is vague on this matter and who knows where the real boundary is (LKM's for example?). Licenses are usually written so that people will consider it too risky to do a large number of things, but then it is too risky to pursue things into the gray areas because you don't want to weaken your license with a bad court decision.

Re:But it makes up in one huge way....

[jbolden]

Same thing if there is enough of a market for RedHat to care. So far there is a very small commercial Linux market.

Re:But it makes up in one huge way....

[Art Tatum]

Can I write a closed source program in KDE without having to pay QT 1500 USD? NOT LIKELY...

As a suggestion, you might want to consider Cocoa/GNUstep instead. It's LGPL'd, so you can certainly develop closed source with it, it's *far* superior to GNOME, KDE, .NOT, MFC, or anything else you will ever use, it's the most Rapid RAD system around, and your code is portable to various Unices including Mac OS X (with a Win32 backend in progress).

Disclaimer: Note that I'm a biased bigot; but many other people love these well-designed OO frameworks too; and I think more folks should check them out.

Re:But it makes up in one huge way....

[mcrbids]

2) Can I write a closed source program in KDE without having to pay QT 1500 USD? NOT LIKELY....

If you think $1,500 is big bucks, you haven't gotten your high school diploma, yet.

At a "good guy" development rate of $65/hour, that works out to about three days of development time. Can you come even close to replacing the functionality therein in three !@# days?

Given that any decent-sized project comprises at least weeks to months, is three days really that expensive?

Re:But it makes up in one huge way....

[nr]

Well, I can't help what you see yourself as but you don't sound like a GPL fanatic to me. I'M not a GPL fanatic but I would never go back to writing closed-source code again.

I dont know any other way to protect my investment and get return back for the effort put into this project. I would love to sell it as a pure open-source application, but even if I charge a small price compared to what these kind off applications do cost in the Windows world ($100 vs $1000-$5000) I fear my source-code would get pirated and spread over the internet.

I must admit that I'm surprised by this. How is GNOME a GNU project if this is allowed/easy? I don't have either GNOME or KDE installed anymore (I couldn't decide which was worse so I deleted both) so I've never looked at the details of their license but I assumed that GNOME is all GPL.

All libraries used for building applications are LGPL, and the enduser GNOME stuff is GPL.

Re:But it makes up in one huge way....

[nagora]

I would love to sell it as a pure open-source application, but even if I charge a small price compared to what these kind off applications do cost in the Windows world ($100 vs $1000-$5000) I fear my source-code would get pirated and spread over the internet.

I do my work as a consultant so I don't have the same issues as you do. But, why is the source being pirated any worse than the binary being pirated? I'm not necessarily saying that you should use the GPL but I do believe that a user has a right to have the source code for a program s/he has paid for. Users need and deserve protection from you getting run over by a bus or, as has happened with one of my favorite systems, being bought out by a competitor that simply drops the product in order to force the users to "upgrade" to the competitor's system.

Meanwhile, I don't know of a Windows program which can't be downloaded off the 'Net in binary form; so what protection have you as a programmer obtained while denying the users' the right to their software? Honest people will pay you and dishonest ones won't and source code won't change that.

TWW

Re:But it makes up in one huge way....

[3247]

I dont know any other way to protect my investment and get return back for the effort put into this project. I would love to sell it as a pure open-source application, but even if I charge a small price compared to what these kind off applications do cost in the Windows world ($100 vs $1000-$5000) I fear my source-code would get pirated and spread over the internet.

Excuse me? How can an Open Source software be "pirated and spread over the Internet"? Open Source is not only about having the source code (that's called Shared Source), it's also about being allowed to distribute it.

Re:But it makes up in one huge way....

[3247]

Can you write a closed source program with GPL software? NOT LIKELY...

All GNU compilers have an exception in their licence that allows you to write proprietary software.
GTK and many GNU libraries are not GPLed but come under the LGPL. As long as you link to them dynamically (which most people do anyway), there's nothing that prevents you from using it in proprietary programmes.

This is why GNOME will eventually ``win'' over KDE: Most commercial applications will be based on GTK and GNOME, not Qt and KDE. (That is, unless someone replaces the Qt library with an LGPL clone.)

Re:But it makes up in one huge way....

[Charles Kerr]

The Gnome/GTK+ libraries are LGPLed for exactly this reason.

Amusingly, last June, Nick Petreley used Gtk+ and GNOME's licensing as a rationale to explain why it was GNOME, not KDE, that would win the desktop war:

Nevertheless, I predict that GNOME/GTK will eventually usurp the lion's share of open-source desktops. It all comes down to money. In this case, the money depends upon software licensing.

On the other hand, he's also taken the exact opposite position by saying that Qt is what will make KDE beat gtk+/Gnome:

What I'm really betting on is the Trolltech (www.trolltech.com) GUI programming toolkit, Qt, upon which KDE is based. (Gnome is based upon GTK, aka the Gimp Toolkit).

Really, I was going to comment on Petreley's article, but while Googling I found he's already done a much better job than I could, from this article he wrote for the red herring in 1997:

News as a source of reliable trade information has gone to hell. Once focused on objective reporting of the facts, much of the media is now convinced that what you really want is news analysis. Unfortunately, news analysis is turning out to be nothing more than a reporter's opinion.

Re:But it makes up in one huge way....

[10Ghz]

1500 high? I don't think so. From what I have heard, the price is extremely reasonable when compared to it's competitors. While 1500USD is alot of money for a one man to spend on one piece of software, it's not much for a softwar-company. How many individual developers are there that write closed-source software for Linux? from what I can see, overwhelming majority of the software is under GPL, making the whining about Qt's license more or less pointless. TT forces the users to use license that majority of them wouls use regardless. Individual developers that write close-software for Linux is rather small group, and the bigger developement-houses can easily afford the 1500USD/developer.

Re:But it makes up in one huge way....

[10Ghz]

The way I see it is that is that I am a shareware author and small time developer. I can go the Windows route pay less for a larger market.... OR pay more for a smaller market using QT....

How so? Qt is Windows/Linux/Mac crossplatform. VC++ and Win2K are tied to... well, Windows.

Re:But it makes up in one huge way....

[nr]

Well, no. "Open Source" does not mean something is free to distribute. You can sell Open Source applications and charge per license/copy. If you pay $100 and get an CD with source and binaries, that does not mean you can give away the source to somebody else. I belive one can sell propitary open-source programs just like propitary closed-source programs. I guess you are thinking of GPL and BSD licenses, there are many other Open Source licenses which place additional restrictions on the user.

Gui its just faster

[wAVe130]

Ok currently I run windows as my main desktop. Every now and then I use linux and I have always preffered KDE over Gnome. Gnome is just too much of a pain to get what I want done. Where linux needs to change is that 90% of people use GUI's for a reason. there faster to get what you want. linux needs to get more away from this text mode crap. I don't like opening the terminal and having to type 4 commands just to get one app to open.
sorry for going off topic.

Re:Gui its just faster

[Lysol]

This depends on what you use a computer for. I don't think gui is so much more evolved than kbd. people fumble both the kbd and gui.

i watch countless people at my work try to find which browser window they want to use. for me, my browser is always on desktop 2 (alt-2) and then a quick click on a tab and i'm there. no shuffling.

one of the powers of *nix is the term mode. why do you have to have a gui to run a dns server or web server or app server? in fact, one of windows big problems is that they've tied the gui into the bowles of the os. there's no need for a gui on a server. in fact, this will probably hurt more than help.

90% of the people use gui's because 90% of the people are not admins or programmers. i use a gui pretty much exclusively because it enables me to use other things. a lot of these things are terms. some browsers. some graphics apps. some office apps.

resource-wise, any type of non-graphical apps will always run faster in a text/term mode just because of the overhead needed to display graphics and their text representations. os x is a beautiful os, but it's slow. however it functions and looks much better than win or lin.

anyway, in the coming years, for the server mostly, linux will start gaining ground because it's not tied to the gui. it's pretty well documented that it takes less people to admin more *nix boxes than the windows equivalent.
for desktop, kde/gnome will keep getting better and more people will adopt it. that's just how it is.

Re:What pray telll is wrong with Fvwm ?

[khuber]

Dude, upgrade your 386.

I used to think the same thing about bloat and used FVWM/WindowMaker/whatever, but I've had fewer headaches since switching to KDE a few years ago. I admit some KDE stuff is a bit dorky, but overall it is very well done.

-Kevin

open Netscape Communicator

[budgenator]

MY MY that disk must of came out of your historical archives to have had Netscape in it. Maybe you should try a disrto were Gnome and KDE weren't ALPHA releases and see if you can reproduce the crashes.

Actually, looking at what "lame" means, it's KDE.

[MickLinux]

I have two Linux computers -- one at work [Woody/Gnome], and one at home [Woody/KDE].

I've noticed that KDE is significantly slower on a faster machine, and both KDE and its apps crash tons [kprinter corrupts often, resulting in a lot of wasted ink, Kwrite, like Abiword, can't stand to run; kformula just doesn't work; kpaint works for about 30 seconds before a crash]; Gnome doesn't crash.

So as far as I can tell, it is KDE that is lame. I've heard that it is because KDE doesn't take advantage of the Xserver capabilities, nor the graphic card capability. But boy, it really is feature rich; but feature rich and slow is still lame, especially if the features actually working must wait till a later version.

That said, I can't get the sound working on either system -- but after reading a lot about it, I think that's really a Debian problem. As one website puts it, "ALSA is Debian is completely broken". [Beyond that bit of wisdom, they still weren't any help.]

All of which may make it sound like I don't like Linux or Debian. Quite the contrary, Debian/Gnome is excellent at what it can do.

KDE isn't; but it *is* more user friendly, and belongs in the home environment. It is marginally better than Windows {95, 98, 2000, ME, Expectorate} in a lot of ways.

I've found Gnome 1.4 to be the best of Gnome yet

[juahonen]

Gnome 2 lacks easy configuration options. I don't understand the Gnome developers who think I'll install an desktop environment which my wife could not configure herself. And if I do the configuration for her, I'll hear pretty rough words if I have to use some mystical registry editor to change settings.

I'm not using Gnome anymore. Haven't checked out 2.2, but propably will some day. The main reason for not using Gnome lies not in Gnome, but in application support. I've found KMail to be the best email agent out there. It's features surpass Balsa and Evolution. And Konqueror is a superior browser compared to Mozilla. It just seems LAME to me to run KDE applications from Gnome desktop. So that's why I use KDE.

But if anyone prefers Gnome to KDE, that's OK with me. I just hope Sun Microsystems will make an effort to better Gnome like Apple is doing for KDE.

They both have problems

[DeadSea]

I used Gnome for two years and then recently switched to KDE. Gnome had several bugs that I was tired of. The sidebars that I had would sometimes reinit themselves wrong when I restarted. This caused two or even three copies of each sidebar to come up sometimes. I upgraded to 2.0 and the number of desktops was stuck at 4 (I want 6) and many of the applets I really loved didn't work anymore (game, xmms, screenshooter).

So I'm giving KDE a try. It has problems too. The most annoying one to me is the way that it switches focus when I use my scrollwheel. It has options for what to do when clicking any of the mouse button (focus, raise, etc) but not the scrollwheel. When you scroll a window that is not focused and not on top, it gives focus to that window but does not raise it. This maybe wouldn't be bad, but then clicking on the window also does not raise it. You have to focus some other window then come back.

Another thing I don't like about KDE is that it is hard to add buttons to launch X (not KDE) applications to the sidebars. In gnome I could add a launcher easily. In KDE I have to add a non KDE app, it gives me a browse dialog. I don't know where my apps are, probably usr/bin/ or usr/local/bin, I don't want to hunt around, so I try to click on my terminal button so I can do a `which app`. The dialog has the sidebar. Doh.

The choices for applets in KDE is very underwhelming. In gnome 1 I was able to put applets for gaim and xmms in my sidebar. They are unobtrusive there and available on all my desktops. It was wonderful. KDE doesn't have these.

Sure the KDE apps all look the same and act the same, but they are not powerful compared to other stuff. I always use Mozilla as my web browser, open office as my word processor, etc. The KDE stuff are nice, but not as full of features. As soon as you add in non-KDE apps, you lose much of this consistency.

Re:They both have problems

[LMCBoy]

In gnome 1 I was able to put applets for gaim and xmms in my sidebar. They are unobtrusive there and available on all my desktops. It was wonderful. KDE doesn't have these.

But it does have system tray applets for noatun and kopete (the KDE equivalents of the Gtk apps you mentioned). I agree it would be nice if there was enough KDE/Gnome compatibility to allow gtk applets to appear in kicker (and vice versa), but at this point, it's just not realistic. I don't think it can be counted as among the "problems with KDE", however...after all, I can't place a panel applet for noatun in my Gnome sidebar either. :)

Re:They both have problems

[tf23]

The most annoying one to me is the way that it switches focus when I use my scrollwheel.

I'll second that.

This maybe wouldn't be bad, but then clicking on the window also does not raise it. You have to focus some other window then come back.

Yeah, annoying isn't it? :)

I was able to put applets for gaim and xmms in my sidebar.

Couldn't you right click on the panel bar and do add->button? That's what I did. XMMS and gaim icons on all my desktops now.

I guess I've never taken the time to understood what the difference is between a button and an applet.

As soon as you add in non-KDE apps, you lose much of this consistency.

Yeah, but that's true for everything. Atleast the apps work when you're crossing to/from gnome or kde. It'd be a bummer if you couldn't run one's apps under the other!

Re:They both have problems

[Redline]

In gnome 1 I was able to put applets for gaim and xmms in my sidebar. They are unobtrusive there and available on all my desktops. It was wonderful. KDE doesn't have these.

Both GAIM (in nightly snapshots) and XMMS now have "dock plugins" that place themselves in the dock area. (KDE calls it "system tray", and GNOME calls it "notification area") The dock applet API is a freedesktop.org standard that both desktops are using. So KDE docklets work in GNOME 2.2 and GNOME docklets work in KDE 3.1.

Re:They both have problems

[Istealmymusic]

Before I reinstalled GAIM (from the FreeBSD ports system), I had the dock plugins you described. But due to high unstability (presumably because of library incompatablies, but it turned out to just be because its GNOME) I decided to wipe out all packages and start fresh. So I installed GAIM, it doesn't have the notification area thingy. And sometimes, the window bar is on the top; other times its on the left. I don't want it on the left, but I'm confused as to what happened. None of my configuration files changed, but using the newer version of GAIM has removed the icon. Any hints?

Re:They both have problems

[Arandir]

Another thing I don't like about KDE is that it is hard to add buttons to launch X (not KDE) applications to the sidebars.

Uh, just drag it over dude! If it's not on your menu, then run kappfinder and THEN drag it over. It's easy. It's simple.

Re:They both have problems

[Redline]

So I installed GAIM, it doesn't have the notification area thingy.

Firstly, you need to be running a nightly snapshot or CVS of gaim (the 0.60 series). I don't know what version is in FreeBSD ports, but you can grab the nightly from the GAIM download page. After it's installed, go into the plugins page of the GAIM settings, and toggle on the "tray icon" plugin. The status icon should appear immediately (if you have the system-tray/notification-area running).

And sometimes, the window bar is on the top; other times its on the left. I don't want it on the left, but I'm confused as to what happened. None of my configuration files changed, but using the newer version of GAIM has removed the icon. Any hints?

I'm not sure what you mean. Is it a window manager problem? In KDE, you can right click on the titlebar of a window and select "Save Window Settings", and kwin will map the window to the same size/location every time.

Re:They both have problems

[damiam]

In gnome, an applet is a special program that runs in the panel, like a clock or network monitor. The xmms applet puts buttons in the panel to stop, start, skip tracks, and so on.

How about...

[kars]

LAME as in Lewd Alliance of Midgets Everywhere..? :)

Hey!

[tortap-0]

That's GLAME to you mister.

I like it

[crimsontiger6]

I like it, but I'm a redhat newbie so maybe I'm just lame.

Re:Yes

[MartinG]

I couldn't break out of the locked session.

How do you know that XFree86 was not the problem?
or gdm or even some other GNOME component?

Could you still ping or ssh to the machine?

Re:Yes

[mickwd]

Perhaps it's just X that's hung, not the whole operating system.

Try killing X with Ctrl-Alt-Backspace.

I believe you need a single line in /etc/hosts to cure the problem - your machine needs to be able to look up the IP address associated with its own hostname.

Brilliant!

[DrMrLordX]

This is clearly mindless rambling, which makes it far more interesting than anything else posted in this thread. Mod the parent up! You sir, are a wonderful troll. ALL HAIL TROLLS.

Mod trolls up. Mod flame-baiters up. Mod off-topic morons up.

Re:Yes

[blibbleblobble]

"I cannot say that I can reproduce a blue screen on NT, nor a hangup"

Try installing a Philips Acoustic Edge soundcard in a dual-processor machine.

Slicker

[jabster]

Have you guys seen Slicker?

http://slicker.sourceforge.net/

-john

GNOME and Sawfish

[merriam]

I think GNOME needs something like Sawfish -- something with useful features rather than just a Microsoft clone. If the GNOME people have gone off Sawfish, that's a shame, because there's nothing else like it.

In my experience Sawfish versions 1.2 and 2.0 are not even ready for beta testing. They crash readily and badly. Don't try them unless you're interested in development.

Sawfish 1.0.1 is fairly solid, and no other free window manager I have heard of comes close in features. It makes it easy to work efficiently. For example, if you maximize, restore and close windows a lot, you can put "Maximize window toggle" and "Delete window safely" on keys easily. You can do the same with about 251 other functions including XMMS controls.

John Harper commits some user interface howlers like the fixed-size "Edit binding" window, but you'll find that sort of thing in all software. Refreshingly, he doesn't readily make assumptions about what features users don't need. Don't want 251 other functions? Don't use them. If you want a particular window manager feature, try Sawfish 1.0.1 first. It's more likely to be there than in any other window manager, and it will probably be easy to use.

The original developer of Sawfish has moved on to other things, and he isn't working on it at all.

The Sawfish list is busy, John Harper is there, and development seems to be going on.

large parts of Sawfish are written in LISP

Most of it is written in the author's own personal lisp dialect. One language per developer is a bad principle, but in this case it helped Sawfish become very useful quickly. You seem to suggest that Lisp is the problem. Does it make software hard to maintain?

Metacity is good for Windows users. It's a better default than Sawfish was with that ugly Crux theme and the settings it came with in the old gnome defaults. But it's a shame that there's no longer a modern, sophisticated and efficient window manager in the project.

Re:GNOME and Sawfish

[TheRaven64]

I think GNOME needs something like Sawfish -- something with useful features rather than just a Microsoft clone.

Finally, someone has said something sensible. A large number of people I've spoken to (geeks and non-geeks) have said that their next computer is going to be a Mac. Most of them have not actually bought Macs, because they are so expensive. Why do they like OS X?

It has the power of of a real OS. So does *BSD, and even Linux.

It has a powerful, yet easy to use UI. Ooops. Sorry but KDE/Gome on X doesn't come close to Aqua on Quartz Extreme. There are two main problems.

1. Open source developers, in general, do not like following UI guidelines (neither do commercial developers, but they have less choice).
2. X is aging. As a network-abstract way of putting pixels on the screen, it's great, but beyond that it just doesn't cut it anymore. Compare remote X with a Citrix or Apple remote desktop. It's painful. A remote windows display is usable over a modem, a remote X is just about usable over a 10Mbit LAN (as long as it's switched).

If the OSS community could throw away X (or at least relegate it to running legacy Apps) and agree on some kind of certification program (possibly on a peer review model) for apps that actually did conform to UI guidelines, then *NIX might be ready for the desktop. Apple have shown it can be done, OS X is ready for the desktop, and a far better thing for the OSS community to be copying from than Windows. A machine at x86 prices with Apple usability levels would popular. Even more so if it ran a version of wine that atually worked (the current versions are almost there), and was seemlessly integrated into the OS.

Re:GNOME and Sawfish

[steveha]

You seem to suggest that Lisp is the problem. Does it make software hard to maintain?

Not necessarily. However, it does limit the pool of people interested in maintaining it.

I could write a window manager in FORTH. I would love it. Would you be interested in trying to help me maintain it?

steveha

Re:GNOME and Sawfish

[YellowBook]

I think GNOME needs something like Sawfish -- something with useful features rather than just a Microsoft clone. If the GNOME people have gone off Sawfish, that's a shame, because there's nothing else like it.

I'm a long-time sawfish user, and have written several themes and small lisp modules for it. In my opinion, it's a very good thing to have a window manager that is extensible in a high-level language like lisp (rather than C or C++). However, in my opinion, it's also probably reasonable for this not to be the default WM.

In my experience Sawfish versions 1.2 and 2.0 are not even ready for beta testing. They crash readily and badly. Don't try them unless you're interested in development.

Stay away from anything labeled Sawfish-2.0 -- it's a prerelease of Sawfish 1.2 that RedHat made the mistake of releasing with RH8. I find Sawfish 1.2 quite usable, though it seems to have some problems with session-management. However,it seems to be in a bit of a transitional phase, as various features are moved out of the arena of graphically-configurable settings (in keeping with the Gnome 2 model of not including useless options) and purely into the realm of expert-user hack-the-sawfishrc-lisp-program-to-customize features. The documentation is trailing this development by quite a bit, unfortunately.

Metacity is good for Windows users. It's a better default than Sawfish was with that ugly Crux theme and the settings it came with in the old gnome defaults. But it's a shame that there's no longer a modern, sophisticated and efficient window manager in the project.

I used to hate Metacity with a passion, but lately, it's overcome its biggest flaws. Most Metacity themes adjust to fit the user's GTK theme flawlessly now, and you can also re-order the titlebar buttons in a way that is independent of the theme you're using. The only real flaw is that the MSW button order is still the default, so you have to change the button order using gconf-editor in order to get something sane (this is what HP has elsewhere derided as a 'fix-my-broken-app' preference). I'm even using Metacity right now, with RedHat's Bluecurve theme, just because my Sawfish setup needs some work before I can go back to it full-time. Mostly I don't even notice it except for some minor nits, and as far as I can tell, that's all Metacity is aiming for.

What I'm actually looking forward to with a bit of anticipation is Openbox 3. It's a total rewrite of OpenBox, and is/will be a fast, lightweight, ICCCM and EWMH compliant window manager with embedded Python scripting. Python is a good language for this kind of thing, and it's widespread in the GNOME development community in a way that lisp isn't. If it turns out as nicely as it promises to, Openbox 3 might make an excellent replacement for sawfish as the advanced, programmable WM for GNOME.

Re:GNOME and Sawfish

[steveha]

I don't care how many people commit fixes; I care how quickly features get added, whether by one hard-working coder or by a huge team. I care how fast bugs get fixed and features get added.

For me, Metacity just works. It isn't fancy but it doesn't need to be. It just works.

And the basic point is inarguable: there are fewer people out there who want to work in Rep than there are who want to work in C, and none of the paid GNOME developers seem to want to touch Sawfish.

steveha

Everyone is ignoring so much stuff!!

[Phantasmagoria]

The article in question is obviously nothing anyone should take seriously. It does not even pretend to be an honest comparison between two windowing environments; it's basically one person's rant about why he prefers one over the other. Good for him, but mentioning only KDE's good points and only Gnome's bad points isn't a useful comparison to anyone else.

I'm surpised at how poorly informed the people who discuss Gnome vs KDE are. No one has mentioned any of the new accomplishments both environments has achieved. It's still all "file selector" this and "configuration options" that. Dudes, I stopped fretting over thing like that years ago. There's plenty of other things that need focus for a good desktop environment, and are being worked on as we speak, but no one has mentioned them in any of the comments I've read.

Anyone here even know about the massive time spent on building a rich and powerful "accessibility toolkit" ATK? Or the very well thought out multimedia framework GStreamer that's currently in development. I've only seen a few mentions of the establishment and accomplishments of freedesktop.org - whose goal is to set standards (such as the HIG) which both Gnome and KDE can follow to achieve consistency and inoperatability. How about the universal adoption of Unicode (using UTF8) throughout so that proper internationalization is finally possible?

These are important things, and much more forward looking than all the nitpicking that's so prevalent in these discussions. These articles and the bickering that ensues are no better than "celebrity tells all" and "other celebrity makes rebuttal" shows on TV. Totally pointless - fun to watch sometimes - but pointless.

One thing I need to add: Most complaints about GConf that I've read are miss-informed. Yes, the closest approximation is the Windows registry. But it was created with the strengths of that registry in mind, and steps taken to get rid of the problems that the registry had. For example, ALL keys are documented. Which is easier? Hand editing a text file, or going down a list of fully documented options in a gui editor - toggling boolean keys, editing strings, etc.

I'm obviously a Gnome user. I know KDE has it's own list of accomplishments, but I don't know them well enough to list. My point is, why the hell are you choosing a desktop environment based on which has a better file selector? There is plenty more to look at.

Re:Everyone is ignoring so much stuff!!

[Anonymous Coward]

> Good for him, but mentioning only KDE's good
> points and only Gnome's bad points isn't a
> useful comparison to anyone else.

And the Good points in GNOME are ?

> I'm surpised at how poorly informed the people
> who discuss Gnome vs KDE are. No one has
> mentioned any of the new accomplishments both
> environments has achieved. It's still all "file
> selector" this and "configuration options" that.

Yes the minor issues for one are the biggest buggers for others.

> Anyone here even know about the massive time
> spent on building a rich and powerful
> "accessibility toolkit" ATK?

Yeah but SUN is primarily working and maintaining ATK the other GNOME developers still care for GNOME itself.

> Or the very well thought out multimedia
> framework GStreamer that's currently in
> development.

Exactly IN DEVELOPMENT that's what it is. I wonder if it's stable for anytime usage one day. Till yet I have more issues with GStreamer than with anything else.

> I've only seen a few mentions of the
> establishment and accomplishments of
> freedesktop.org - whose goal is to set standards
> (such as the HIG) which both Gnome and KDE can
> follow to achieve consistency and
> inoperatability.

You write about people being missinformed and you are missinformed on your own.

Freedesktop.org was set up by Havoc Pennington (GNOME) and was meant to be a discussion place to collect all the Window Standards and specifications on one place. Freedesktop.org is in my opinion NO place to collect new standards for. Who is this person that claims his standards are better than others. That's no serious place to discuss about these things. These so called new standards break a shitload of applications who don't support these GNOME decided standards. It's the same like soemone is comming up and set up a forum and webpage and says 'my page is the right source for HTML everything else is not the right place'. Freedesktop.org is just a discussion forum for either KDE and GNOME to suggest good solutions howto do things nothign else. No official authentic place for standardicing things. No committee of people that do the work nothing. Have you seen how many application totally broke up and behave strangely under GNOME these days ? like apps not doing fullscreen correctly and other things ? When you report these issues to bugzilla.gnome.org you get a reply telling you that the desired app is broken because it doesnt follow the specs defined on freedesktop.org. When I then go over to contact the person responsible for the app he replies 'fuck off i dont care for gnome or kde'. As long as there is no official comitee of people declaring real standards as long I'm not going to accept freedesktop.org as official place for standards.

> One thing I need to add: Most complaints about
> GConf that I've read are miss-informed. Yes, the
> closest approximation is the Windows registry.
> But it was created with the strengths of that
> registry in mind, and steps taken to get rid of
> the problems that the registry had.

The strenghts of Windows Registry IS Windows Regsitry and no poorly written wannabe immitation. Gconf caused more damage than anything good. I am able to count a lot of disadvantages about GConf but then it may sound like a rant in your eyes.

> For example, ALL keys are documented. Which is
> easier? Hand editing a text file, or going down
> a list of fully documented options in a gui
> editor - toggling boolean keys, editing strings,
> etc.

Yeah what an ideal world eh ? On my GNOME 2.2 CVS installation that I compiled last night only 1/10 of the keys are commented the others are not. And this from a standard GNOME only installation no addational applications.

Dude, seriously you are totally biassed. Get real and investigate real before writing so much shit that people tend to belive. By the way I'm a GNOME user myself.

Re:Everyone is ignoring so much stuff!!

[Phantasmagoria]

> And the Good points in GNOME are ?

Read the next few paragraphs in my original posting.

> Yes the minor issues for one are the biggest buggers for others

When did I say those were minor issues? My point was that it seemd all people cared about were these few issues, when there's plenty more things to consider as well.

> Exactly IN DEVELOPMENT that's what it is. I wonder if it's stable for anytime usage one day. Till yet I have more issues with GStreamer than with anything else.

You have just repeated what I said. Yes it is in development - it's a fact I thought to mention since no one has.

> The strenghts of Windows Registry IS Windows Regsitry and no poorly written wannabe immitation. Gconf caused more damage than anything good. I am able to count a lot of disadvantages about GConf but then it may sound like a rant in your eyes.

What? My posting had not a single piece of flaming. Yet you decline to offer these "disadvantages" claiming I will take it as a rant? Try me.

> Freedesktop.org is just a discussion forum for either KDE and GNOME to suggest good solutions howto do things nothign else.
> When I then go over to contact the person responsible for the app he replies 'fuck off i dont care for gnome or kde'.

That's right! You just repeated my words again. And people ignoring the HIG is no different from companies ignoring web standards or compiler standards and introducing extensions/incompatibilities. It happens. Don't use 'em if it causes problems.

> Yeah what an ideal world eh ? On my GNOME 2.2 CVS installation that I compiled last night only 1/10 of the keys are commented the others are not. And this from a standard GNOME only installation no addational applications.

Bugs! Please report to bugzilla, not slashdot. Thanks.

> Dude, seriously you are totally biassed.

What does that mean? That I prefer one over the other? Of course! I just looked at more things when making a decision, and I wished for more people here to do the same.

I have to agree

[Khan]

As a long time GNOME supporter and user, the latest incarnation has completely turned me away from it. I was a very happy Gnome v1.4 user and still run it at work. The problem now is that my favortite apps are starting to convert to v2.2 and soon I'll either have to run v2.2 or stay with obscurity in v1.4 My biggest gripe with v2 is Metacity. And yes, while you CAN switch WM's, Sawfish just doen't work the same as it did in v1.4 After not running KDE since the original v2, I have now returned to it with v3.1 I was truly impressed at how much has changed in it and the improvements are unreal. Sorry boys, but your choice of taking MY choices away in Gnome have caused you to lose yet another supporter.

Need both apps

[0x0d0a]

It's such a stupid argument, because *no* one can get along with just KDE apps, and it's a pain with just GNOME apps.

Kcheat and Licq are the best of their respective genres of software for Linux. You wanna use em, you're gonna get kde-libs.

However, GTK has the best AIM client (Gaim), all the best P2P clients (gtk-gnutella, lopster, ml_donkey_gui, dc_gui), the best audio app (xmms), the best system monitor (gkrellm), and the most powerful WM (sawfish, though I could see some people not needing said power).

Kde has a stupid naming scheme.

GNOME has a more-technically-user-oriented file browser (with bash-style tab completition) that sucks for ex-Windows users.

GNOME doesn't have DCOP, and hence script-based control of the UI.

KDE has more *crap* running at any given time, which I generally find makes for more fragility and a PITA to troubleshoot.

GNOME has GConf, which is a bad idea.

I *hate* KDE people flaming GNOME (particularly the vocal and generally completely wrong Mosfet), and I'll flame back when they do, but until you can totally ignore the other set of libraries and apps, people should calm the heck down. Neither environment can stand on its own yet.

Re:Need both apps

[ressu]

I would disagree with this, although i can see the point.

I tried, for a long time, to avoid both GNOME and KDE apps, just because i have an old computer, so i don't have that much of resources to run both. (both take up different resources =) So after i tried GNOME apps, i slowly started to lean in with GNOME desktop, adding components where needed. By this day, i haven't installed any KDE apps, while my GNOME arsenal is growing. This might be due to the nature of work i do on my machine, or it might be due to anti-KDE attitude (i'm not flaming it though =), but i still have no need for any KDE apps.

As for ICQ, AIM and the other IM clients, there is a simple solution for it Jabber, you don't need a million and one different apps running on your computer when you need just one.

Re:Need both apps

[finkployd]

As for ICQ, AIM and the other IM clients, there is a simple solution for it Jabber, you don't need a million and one different apps running on your computer when you need just one.

I prefer gaim simply because I do not like relying on a jabber server for my connectivity to other im networks. Also, having multiple identities on each network is a plus (ie my work aolim, my personal aolim, etc)

Try it, I have found it to be the best IM client in no matter if you are in KDE or GNOME

Finkployd

Re:Need both apps

[ressu]

Try it, I have found it to be the best IM client in no matter if you are in KDE or GNOME

Best is always a matter of opinion, i found gaim to be featureless for my needs.

As for Jabber, (once again, this is a matter of opinions) i like the fact that i can use jabber from my palm, or i can just work out any app i want to, and it has ICQ, AIM, IRC and (Name your preferred feature) built in, by making it use just the XMPP protocol.

Just want my edge-flipping

[Kaz Riprock]

I use linux. I have more skills than the average computer user, but I'm certainly not an elite GNOME hacker when it comes to getting what I want out of my desktop. I do almost everything from a terminal, except for a handful of apps that I launch from the toolbar (very similar to the way I use the quicklaunch bar in Win2K). But I avoid the "Start Menu" menu-inside-of-menu time lag as much as possible, prefering to open a new terminal and even start something backgrounded.

I loaded RH8 on my new home computer instead of RH7.3 which I was using at work.

I want my edge-flipping back. I want to go from view 1 to view 3 without going through view 2 and I want to click a box in the configuration tool to do this and not recode my interface. This was there for me in RH7.3. It is gone now. That is not user-friendly. When I upgrade a piece of software, I should get all the functionality of before, less of the bugs, and maybe some better things that weren't previously available.

This is not what happened in GNOME. I'm thinking about finding out what the latest KDE has to offer. Until then, I've sorta avoided booting into Linux for now.

It's really hurting my "work-at-home" situation...but I'm managing.

Three Simple Words:

[TheRaven64]

Consistent User Interface.

I don't care (much) what my desktop looks like (although I do like Aqua). Even if it looked as bad as Luna I could get used to using it, as long as all my applications behave in the same way. If I click on an 'Open' menu option, I want the same open dialog as if I click on any other 'Open' option, or at least have the same core appearence, with other application-specific sections. I want buttons that do the same things in different Apps to have the same icon. I do not want to have to think 'Is this a KDE app? Is it a gtk1 app? A gtk2 app? Oh, no this one is a motif-based app.' Windows manages this (more or less). OS X does this (even with X apps, to a very limited extent). X just fails. It was designed as a pixels-on-screens system, not as a full-fledged windowing system and this legacy is still with us. Adding 3 different widget sets, each with its own UI paradigm does not help matters.

You have a choice!

[samhalliday]

download and install blackbox, and no more shall you look at any other WM.

Begone with the hethan's toy which is the integrated desktop experience!..... uughh, shudder

make sure you get aterm with full transparency, a really cool picture in the background and all green text for that old phospher screen feel; aaaah.

Re:You have a choice!

[TheRaven64]

make sure you get aterm with full transparency

Sounds like a good idea. Oh wait, X doesn't support transparency. I suppose taking a grab of the root window and blending that with the term's background would work. Unless there are other windows behind the term... Oh well, I guess I'll just have to stick with an OS / Windowing system that does support transparency - Windows 2000.

Re:You have a choice!

[cowens]

Or better yet, use Fluxbox. It is a feature rich derivitive of Blackbox.

Re:You have a choice!

[maxwell demon]

make sure you get aterm with full transparency

Why are all people so keen on transparent *terms? Yes, it looks cool - but I tried it and switched back to normal background quite soon (i.e. after a few minutes). After all, the main purpose of the window is to work with it, not to look cool. And the transparent background just disturbs me when actually doing something with the window.

But then, I'm also the type of person who prefer web sites that look "old-fashioned" to web sites where you have to have a magnifying glass to read them, a bunch of plugins to access them, and a lot of imagination/experimentation to find out how to use them. Maybe those people who prefer "flashy" web sites (which are obviously quite a lot) are also the people who prefer transparent *term windows.

Re:You have a choice!

[damiam]

I'd rather have a opaque unix command prompt than a translucent useless Windows command prompt.

Re:You have a choice!

[TheRaven64]

Sorry, I believe I said xterm? It's the xterm from the XFree86 distribution, running bash. It is a unix command prompt.

Re:I've found Gnome 1.4 to be the best of Gnome ye

[Briteirosfootman]

I don't understand the Gnome developers who think I'll install an desktop environment which my wife could not configure herself.

I'd apply that comment to a lot more folks, specifically all of those non-technical and semi-technical *nix users who just need a functional graphical environment to do their jobs.

Choice is a wonderful thing, but only if you want a choice. What we need is a cross-platform standardized "baseline" environment that everyone can use for basic computing chores. I was convinced of this when I migrated a backup solution from HP-UX to Solaris. All 9 backup operators knew CDE, and that really flattened out their learning curve.

n00b Linux user comments...

[AtomicX]

I have to say that while the GNOME environment is fairly attractive and initially less daunting than KDE's GUI, there are many faults which once you scratch beneath the surface, put KDE in a far superior position:

• GNOME's utilities are generally VERY inflexible, the PPP Dialer is a good example, KDE's one is quick, easy to use and gets good results. GNOME's dialer is prettier but is missing many important options and simply doesn't work as well for any non-straightforward tasks
• GNOME's file explorer is a lot less useful than Konqueror. It looks pretty but once again, KDE's one is functionally superior.
• In many areas the GNOME GUI falls foul of one of Linux' biggest problems - It wasn't designed with end-users in mind. Sometimes you have to do things in illogical ways which can make the interface tiresome to use.
• KDE has a far larger userbase and as a result, it recieves far more extensions and updates from the community - we have a Catch 22 situation here from which GNOME cannot easily escape

Re:I've found Gnome 1.4 to be the best of Gnome ye

[juahonen]

I'd like it if programs were desktop environment agnostics, or generally would not care of your library infrastructure.

It would be nice to have usefull applications which you could use with any widget library, and the application would conform to the environment; use Gnome if it's available and running, use KDE if it's the one the user likes, or use anything that's there.

Now that we have choice of desktop, the OSS developers need to do the same applications for multiple widget libraries. All the basic applications exist for all the libraries. Developers' time is wasted to reinvent the application using some different set of libraries. But it doesn't need to be that way.

Don't take me wrong: I'm not asking anyone to invent a library which would guess which other library to use. This needs to go deeper than that if it's to succeed.

They both suck?

[SomeOtherGuy]

I can't say if the Gnome desktop is any better than the KDE desktop because I suck and have older (Pre GHZ) machines and can not find using either one of them very comfortable. (But Fluxbox works great thank you.) However, this may just be a coincidence -- but I do find that the programs I find myself using all of the time (grip, galeon, gimp, etc) have more of a gnome (gtk) feel than a kde (qt) feel.

In all fairness -- I have done most of my desktop environment testing based on the amount of seconds it takes from startx until I can be surfing the web or listening to mp3's. And the 10 seconds with fluxbox and galeon always seems better than the 1 minute+ with Gnome or KDE -- but then again they may be minimized if I wear to join the 2 GHZ club.

Booooooriiiiiiiing

[X-Nc]

Both GNOME and KDE suck wind. Arguing one over the other is like arguing wich is better, a broken leg or a broken arm.

CDE is even better than either of them. If you want something that really works look at Xfce. The current "production" version is xfce3 and it can do everything KDE & GNOME can do, and much more. It also is very nice on system resources. It runs as light as BlackBox or IceWM and is just as fast. And the development version of xfce4 will blow your mind. It'll make you cry it's so good.

The fact is that GNOME and KDE are, functionaly and from a usability standpoint, damn near identical. Under the hood they are vastly different but for a regular user they are interchangable. Bluecurve proved that.

Open Software Closing Door to Wider Use

[reallocate]

>> XML is human-readable

And so are C++, x86 assembly, and calculus. But why should someone need to learn them, or XML, to configure a desktop?

Software can be as open and free as you can make it, but it will remain closed to the real world so long as it comes with a "For Geeks Only" label.

Re:Open Software Closing Door to Wider Use

[bafu]

How does the above deserve a troll rating? At this point I'm mostly an agnostic on the XML vs. non-marked-up config file debate, but I thought the above post was the most succinct illustration in the thread of how "human-readable" is not just supposed to mean "can be comprehended by a human with programming experience".

Re:Open Software Closing Door to Wider Use

[Malcolm Scott]

why should someone need to learn them, or XML, to configure a desktop?

The end-user wouldn't need to learn anything other than how to use a tabbed dialog box to configure their desktop. The file format is only relevant to the programmers and any advanced user who wants to poke around in the files for whatever reason.

Re:Open Software Closing Door to Wider Use

[bigchris]

Why should you use a text editor at all for configuring the desktop???

Keybinding in KDE?

[Bob9113]

I use Gnome/Sawfish because I love the keybinding flexibility. I haven't found a way to get this much control over keybindings with KDE. There are some commands that can be bound, but they're pretty limited, and you are limited to one universal meta key.

Is there an easy way to get the same variety of commands and unlimited chord selection with KDE that I'm missing?

Re:Keybinding in KDE?

[SILIZIUMM]

Sure, in the control center, accessibility, keyboard shortcuts (I'm not really sure of the names since I use KDE in french). Take a look at this screenshot : http://pemessier.skreel.org/screenshots/keys.png

You know why he doesn't like Gnome?

[Quelain]

Nicholas Petreley is a raving loony creationist.

Of course he's not going to like anything involving Evolution. Or bonobos, or any other s^hXimian.

Re:You know why he doesn't like Gnome?

[mpost4]

That is not a good reason, I am a Christian and do belive in creationist. And I use gnome (Ximian) and evolution, I may not like the name, but that does not change the fact that the program is a good program.

Re:Similar feelings here

[rseuhs]

Tell me when the *KDE* application base isn't spread out over KDE 1, 2, and 3. I still can't find a newer version of Kcheat, buddy.

While there are sure a few niche-apps not available for KDE3, almost everything has been ported (or in case of former KDE2 apps recompiled).

This doesn't make the KDE application base spread out and you know it.

Pot, kettle, black

[A nonymous Coward]

First you brag GTK+ makes VERY efficient use of X.

Then you complain Give some concrete evidence (e.g. benchmarks) before making wild claims about performance.

Which is it?

I agree, they hide Xterm just like cmd.exe in Win

[hughk]

In the more recent versions of Windows, the terminal window (cmd.exe) is activated through two menu levels (until you change it), ie., open menu, click on accessories and thenopen the terminal session. Regrettably Redhat has decided to do the same with Gnome under RH 8.0. Ok, you make a short cut, but why hide the shell, this is after all Unix!!!!!

Re:Similar feelings here

[unborn]

This is FUD, KDE file dialogs have tab completion and even automatic shading of suggested completions

Re:Features above vs Features Below

[twener]

> Notice how on many distro's, nost configuration utilities are written in GTK+, even if they provide KDE as the main desktop.

Many? Mandrake, which else? Eager to hear them.

> The KDE project does not provide these things. Besides maybe the kernel configuration bits.

Nor does GNOME. Do the GNOME system setup tools offer anything that kdeadmin doesn't? It's the distributions' task to write setup tools for their individual distribution configuration.

> Gnome currently provides [..] a better word processor, (Abiword)

AFAIK the stable Abiword version still doesn't know tables. Really impressive.

> Redhat ships right now a distro that can do very well without a single QT app, something I cannot say for most others.

Why don't they do it then? Because half of their users use KDE? :-)

> Gnome also benefits from more usability testing than KDE, not the bug report kind, but real studies.

Testings are nice, but who fixes the issues? See the "Gnome 2.2 and HIG" thread above.

> there are 3 desktop entries there that use GTK which are ROX, XFCE and GNOME of course. so maybe the developers have spoken.

The users don't care about the diversity of the developers.

control-A

[squarooticus]

I want to know why the Gnome developers decided that control-A should "select all" instead of "move to beginning of line" like it does in almost every other (read: emacs editing command-compliant) X application. I can't seem to change it anywhere, even in gconf-editor.

These are the sorts of changes that make me, as an experienced Unix user, want to look elsewhere. I personally grow tired of the drive to "simplify, man!" and yearn for the days of configurable sawfish and a galeon with 1,000,000 options in the preferences dialog.

Anyone have any suggestions as to where I should look? I'm completely open.

Re: control-A

[Black Parrot]

> I want to know why the Gnome developers decided that control-A should "select all" instead of "move to beginning of line" like it does in almost every other (read: emacs editing command-compliant) X application.

\meetoo. I get tired of typing ctrl-w in an editable field and having my application window close.

Supposedly you can change it in ~/.gtkrc-2.0 by adding the line:

gtk-key-theme-name = "Emacs"

but parent widgets seem to catch it and interpret it as an accelerator instead.

I also HATE the standardization of the "OK/Cancel" buttons in reversed positions compared to all the other applications I use.

> I personally grow tired of the drive to "simplify, man!" and yearn for the days of configurable sawfish and a galeon with 1,000,000 options in the preferences dialog.

\meetoo!

> Anyone have any suggestions as to where I should look? I'm completely open.

Nope, but if I had time to take on another big hobby project I'd back up to the GNOME 1.4 sources and fork off a new desktop from there. I'd call it GNOME is Forked or something.

Re:control-A

[yokem_55]

Because in the windows world ctrl-a is select all, and as the vast majority of people that are seeking a simple, easy to use interface are coming from the windows world, they expect to have the same key shortcuts. As for fixing this, I don't know how gnome does this, but kde has a real slick key bindings dialog that lets you easily change key bindings accross all kde applications.

Re:control-A

[frantzdb]

I totally agree that having emacs-style keybindings is important to my use of GNOME, however I do have it set up that way right now. I beleive all you need to do is run gconf-editor, then go to /desktop/gnome/interface and set the gtk_key_theme to have a value of "Emacs".

I hope that helps.

--Ben

Re:control-A

[spitzak]

I also agree. But there are ways to fix this that don't involve "modes". For Ctrl+A I would have it go to the start of the line, and the *second* Ctrl+A does select-all. Goto start-of-line is enormousely more useful than select-all and we should not copy Windows in ways that reduce functionality, but there are many tricks you can do to be "compatable enough" to not confuse new users.

Using KDE or Windows I am really being killed by ^A,^E, and ^K not working. The movement keys like ^F,^B,^N,^P are not really necessary but it is extremely annoying that they bring up sometimes dangerous things like printing, they should either act like Emacs or do nothing. Check some Windows users, I think most use the menu to print and would never notice the loss of the ^P shortcut.

Personally I would like to see emacs bindings for ^A,B,D,E,F,K,N,P supported. There also appears to be demand for ^T and ^W, and maybe ^O. ^Q should not be supported as it is not user-friendly because it eats the next keystroke. ^S and ^R should only work if it is a real incremental search.

Conversly there is no reason not to have ^Z be undo, ^X be cut, ^C be copy, and ^V be paste. They don't interfere with important Emacs commands. Certainly "emacs mode" should not turn these off!

Hurting much worse is that Ctrl+P brings up the print dialog.

There are ways to fix t

Re:control-A

[Piquan]

Then please, tell me how to put Emacs keybindings into KDE! I have wrist problems, and much prefer to use C-b and C-f for backwards and forwards, instead of having to move to the cursor keys. I keep using Emacs keystrokes and having them not quite work right. I get so sick of non-Emacs keybindings, it's driving me to madness with KDE!

Re:control-A

[yokem_55]

Go to the control center, the accessibility section, select the "keyboard shortcuts" module. Then select the application shortcuts tab, and edit the shortcuts as you need to.

Re:control-A

[Piquan]

The list you pointed me at does not give me the ability to bind even basic motion and deletion commands:

• C-a, C-e: beginning/end of line
• M-f, M-b: Forward and backward word
• C-f, C-b, C-u, C-d: Forward, backward, up, down
• C-d: Delete character forward
• C-k: Delete to end of line
• Win-d, Win-Backspace: delete forward/backward word: Qt doesn't allow the Win key, and I use Win for my meta key.

Re:control-A

[IamTheRealMike]

What's so hard about doing basic research?

Desktop Preferences -> Keyboard Shortcuts -> Text Editing shortcuts -> Emacs

woop woop - Ctrl-A now goes to the beginning of the line.

Happy now?

Re:control-A

[squarooticus]

How about: "I tried the obvious thing and it didn't work," DICK? But there's more to the story:

What I found out was that galeon-snapshot appears to be the only program that doesn't respect the "Emacs" keybinding setting, and that was the only application I was testing, because it's the only one I give a shit about.

So you are in fact right, but you can still fuck off.

Re:control-A

[spitzak]

If you read my post you would see that I was suggesting a way to *make* there be one keybinding. The second press of Ctrl+A would act like Windows.

Since...

[triptolemeus]

Linux is taking over the world anyway, I personally wouldn't mind if we were left with at least choice, when it comes to desktops.

The world is big enough for the two to hang around.

Copy-and-paste job

[arturogatti]

This was copied-and-pasted from here. It was originally a reply to an article posted on ZDNet in October of 2000.

Re:Copy-and-paste job

[hysterion]

This was copied-and-pasted from here. It was originally a reply to an article posted on ZDNet in October of 2000.

Man! Astroturfer caught in full swing. Superb catch :-)

They listened to the usability experts

[hayden]

But the people they represent (lets face it, usability experts represent the average computer user. Experienced unix people either learn what they're given or make it like what they know) aren't the people that use linux! The first thing I do on installing a new version of KDE is make it how I want it to be. With the new release of GNOME I don't hav that option and so ditch it shortly after trying it.

Without the backers (ie unix geeks, the very people the latest release turns away), GNOME really doesn't stand a chance.

Re:They listened to the usability experts

[Fluffy the Cat]

But the people they represent (lets face it, usability experts represent the average computer user. Experienced unix people either learn what they're given or make it like what they know) aren't the people that use linux!

And the average computer user is never going to use Linux unless there's a desktop that they find easy to use.

Re:They listened to the usability experts

[pyros]

Bull. With very little effort I was able to make GNOME 2.2, on Red Hat 8.0.94, look absolutely nothing like the default [gnome.org or Red Hat] configuration. I've never had to use the gconf editor stuff to configure things. The preferences dialogs are very straight forward, themes are broken out into WM, gtk[2], and icon set. Configuring Nautilus look and feel) is super easy. You get a dialog of images/colors/patterns, and you drag an image/color/pattern to the part of the Nautilus UI you want it to apply to. You don't even have to know what the name of the component is.

You're used to KDE so you know how to configure it. I'm not used to KDE so I have trouble, but I don't assume that means I can't, just that I have to spend a little more time learning how.

GNOME is just as much loved by unix geeks (unless you want to believe Red Hat and Sun cater to windows/mac geeks) as KDE.

Like many others have already stated, just use what you like. THAT is the true beauty of linux.

Re:They listened to the usability experts

[DunbarTheInept]

All usability studies are flawed because they contain the implicit assumption that the needs of a user with only a week's exposure are identical to the needs of a user with years of exposure. That's not true, and it's one of the reasons I preferred the Unix way over the Windows way. The Windows way is to state that in order to gain the largest marketshare, you have to err on the side of the newbies even if that makes things painful for the experienced users. Too bad - making newbies like it is how you sell more copies. I used to prefer Gnome over KDE precisely because it was more configurable. Now that that's going away I'll have to reconsider.

There's only room for one LAME ...

[JMZorko]

... and this is it. How dare they proclaim GNOME as LAME, when GNOME clearly isn't *smile*.

This reminds me of something that happened at my last job. We were using LAME to encode MP3 frame headers so we could then stream them along to our super-funky P2P-erm, "bandwidth harvesting" system. When one of the marketing people asked us for some details about the tools we used, we said "Well, the MP3 encoder we use is LAME." "What?" he inquired. "Yes, we use the LAME MP3 encoder," we repeated. He said, "Well, couldn't you find a better one?" We explained it to him. He became flustered, saying "no customer is going to want to purchase our product if we use that! You guys need to find some Really Cool MP3 Encoder (RCME) or something, and quick!" We laughed. And laughed. And laughed :-)

Regards,

John

stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid!!!

[swordgeek]

OK, I like GNOME. I'm a Solaris admin, and it's a great desktop to use daily, vs. the horror of CDE.

This guy doesn't like GNOME? Fine! Go away! Use KDE! Use a command line, use CDE or Openwindows (in the Unix and Sun world), use whatever you want. I don't give a shit what you use, or why you don't like GNOME! Nobody else does either.

Somehow too much of the Linux community has turned into evangelical zealots, bent on conquering the world. At one point the Linux cry was that it was all about CHOICE! Now that they're gaining strength, it's all about CRUSHING THE EVIL MS EMPIRE. Drill one level down, and it's all about CRUSHING THE OTHER UNICES (Sun, HP, IBM, etc.). Beyond that, it moves to CRUSHING THE INFIDEL DISTROS which happen to be everything other than the one you use. Then we get to the level of CRUSHING ALL PRETENDERS TO THE ONE TRUE DESKTOP.

Well bugger it. Variation is good. Non-uniformity makes for healthy competition and robustness. Did this guy read about one of the root servers being changed away from BIND? Did he understand WHY they did that? (Hint: It wasn't because BIND was inferior)

This stupid squabbling is pointless. Articles like this shouldn't even be published by a supposedly newsworthy organisation.

Re:stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid!!!

[kingkade]

This stupid squabbling is pointless. Articles like this shouldn't even be published by a supposedly newsworthy organisation.

That's why it's here on Slashdot.

Re:stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid!!!

[TheLastUser]

Solaris, you must mean "Slow-laris", get it? 'Cause its SLOW. Hahaha, get it? You should use XYZ OS instead'cause its faster, the next greatest thing, an XYZ killer, better, safer, costs less, costs more, better editor, larger fibblebix. Oh, and I almost forgot, everyone else is using it. :-)

I used CDE once and then figured, if that's the best they have, I'll stick with openwin.

What I really want is GNU/Solaris too bad they don't make that, gotta build it myself.

Re:stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid!!!

[Istealmymusic]

On the contrary; this article is constructive criticism. The author doesn't make vague generalizations on why KDE > GNOME, he actually points out specific weeknesses. Which can be fixed. So take any comments on KDE's superiority which a grain of salt; it may do some things better, but it also does some things worse. Without articles like this, how can anything improve?

Re:stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid!!!

[swordgeek]

I disagree, for the most part.

He points out specific items which HE considers weaknesses of GNOME. Many of them are more things he doesn't like, rather than things that are really wrong with GNOME.

And while it's true that he does make some relevant and important points, they're overshadowed by the sophmoric tone of the article. Saying "GNOME sucks, and so it should be called LAME" is well...lame. Pathetic. Beavis-and-Butthead intelligence.

Understand that I'm not trying to be an apologist for GNOME. It does have flaws. It isn't perfect. It should be improved. The same is true for KDE and any other product on the planet for that matter. This article, even if it did bring up a few relevant points, did so in an entirely immature and nonconstructive manner. That's my big objection.

Re:Yes

[jlrowe]

I cannot say that I can reproduce a blue screen on NT, nor a hangup. On my NT box at work I've never had a blue screen or a hang and it's been running since the millenium (mandatory shutdown for y2k). My other computer at home (more complex installation) might have had one blue screen this year --so few that I can't even remember.

I am a sysadmin for a large company, and we are running mostly Winnt 4.0 and Win2k on our client boxes. And I can tell you with certainty, I see plenty of blue screens. And when we get them, it is comparitively harder to recover than it would be with Linux.

In fact, when I get a crashed Windows box which has perhaps bad boot files or registry, what I do to recover is boot the PC with the Redhat Linux Based SuperRescue CD, copy the data files and whatever else to a network drive, re-image the machine, and copy the files back.

How hard is it to crahs NT/Win2k? Not hard really. For instance, we still have a fair amount of Token Ring network. If you boot with those drivers active and without the network cable attached the odds are decent for a bluescreen. If you pull the network cable out while running you can get the same. It is often enough that we have to make hardware profiles to handle it.

And I don't think it is the drivers, since we have a variety of network cards from different manufacturers and both laptop PCMCIA and ISA or PCI. I think it is a core problem with Windows.

And let's not blame it on Token Ring either, it has been around for many years. And Linux handles it correctly!!!!!

GFlame you!

[daemonc]

No, KFlame you!!!

GFlame!!!

KFlame!!!

GFlame!!!

KFlame!!!

GFlame!!!

KFlame!!!

GFlame!!!

KFlame!!!

I quit reading Slashdot...

Re:lets "debunk" those first screen shot aguments.

[ceplinboston]

KDE is just turning onto XP clone. Yeah the gnome file picker is lite, but alot of us like that. What else do you need to do in a file picker? Look at fester adams? Click on "My Desktop"? "My Network Places" Some of us don't need it sugar coated.

Actually, one the most interesting things in the Linux development is that Microsoft copies some GUI elements from KDE/Gnome (at least, they promised in the next version of Windows to create mutliple virtual desktops, which was feature of X win managers for years.

Re: Your very bad example

[ttfkam]

Old, obsolete, non-standard format:

FullScreen=true

Exciting, new, XML format:

<FullScreen>true</FullScreen>

That's a bit of a straw man argument don't you think? You're putting up a fragile target and then tearing it down. If I had a bunch of key/value pairs like that, why wouldn't I instead use:

<Config FullScreen="true"
ValidExample="true"
TerriblyBloated="false"
HumanReadable="true"/>

...and so on for hundreds of entries. AND(!) I can add hierarchy at any point if necessary whereas the key/value pair file must be completely reworked.

As for coding difficulty, using the DOM in C++, the code looks something like this:

DomParser doc("myconfig.xml");
Element* config = doc.get_root_node();
if (config->getAttribute("fullscreen")->get_value( ) == "true") {
// do something useful
}

Assuming you are using libxml++ of course. Personally I prefer using other programming languages, but the code is very similar no matter the language. Let me say that again because it's important: "The code is very similar no matter the language."

And with XML, you get i18n for free. Can your program read Cyrillic characters? What about Chinese characters? Does it handle accent marks correctly? Or are you using ASCII with no contingency for i18n? With XML, it's a no-brainer. If you don't need it, don't use it. If you do need it, it makes recoding much much faster. UTF-8 you say? That works in most cases, it's true, but it doesn't address the other issues of a config file.

With your own config file format, you must handle comments, multi-line values, conversions from this format to the next, incompatible version. All of these are easier when using an XML parser. But you're a 1337 coder. Don't let me stop you. If you like spending time on config files, go right ahead. I prefer to spend time on the rest of the application.

Re:Yes

[los furtive]

I'm not sure what version of Windows you are running, but unless it's nt/2k/xp I don't think it works with > 512megs of ram. I could be wrong on this, but I remember reading it in more than one place.

code correction

[ttfkam]

if (config->getAttribute("fullscreen")->get_value( ) == "true")

should be

if (config->get_attribute("FullScreen")->get_value ( ) == "true")

Re:Yes

[Jerry]

Ah, a troll.

Say, troll, did you switch to KDE and notice how stable the Mandrake desktop was while on the same hardware?

If you did get into a mouse/keyboard hang and couldn't get back to a command prompt then just hit the reset button and reboot. Being the smart person that you are you would have installed ext3 or ReiserFS and hitting reset wouldn't have caused any damage or loss at all.

I occasionally experience the kind of hang you are refering to. In my case it is caused by the r128 video driver switching out of accelerated mode incorrectly. FreeX86 has made considerable improvements to that driver and I expect those improvement to continue as folks submit bug reports. That's one of the costs of having to reverse engineering drivers because a monopolist has forced video card makers to keep their protocols secret or risk losing WinXX support.

The window managers are the issue for me.

[leereyno]

For me the issue with Gnome vs KDE has nothing to do with point and drool file managers or other idiot-friendly GUI based tools.

For me the entire issue is the window manager. KDE has a better window manager. It is more configurable and you can actually turn OFF the fucking bullshit animation that does nothing but make things slower.

If Gnome finally gets a decent window manager then I'll be as happy to use it as I am with KDE. Till then it can go jump.

Lee

Can we just get along?

[dance2die]

Can we [GNOME & KDE] just get along?

Sounds Like He Missed the Point

[Trolling4Dollars]

The only thing I got out of the article is that he doesn't seem to think that being flexible to multiple languages should be a priority. But he's wrong. While KDE has improved somewhat, it's not an environment that most true geeks would want to use. Let me make the point here that true geeks are artists in every sense of the word. With that said, look at it this way:

KDE = An environment for suits and worker bees
GNOME = An environment for truly creative spirits

The very "strength" of KDE, as Peterely would percieve it, is something that no true artist would be attracted to: Consistency. A really good visual artist uses many different colors, paints and media. A really great musician will play and compose for many different instruments. (Think Peter Gabriel vs. Michael Bolton. Who is the better musician?) A really great actor will have a lot of flexibility in their roles. (Think Olivier vs. Tom Hanks. Who is the greater actor?) The same can be said of the whole KDE vs. GNOME war. While KDE has added bindings to allow other languages to fit in, it wasn't part of the original design. It's about as creative as a suit assembling a Powerpoint presentation with canned media. GNOME, on the other hand has been the leader in creativity since it's design was one that was built for flexibility. It's a lot more like a professional video producer using Avid and original source materlial to put together a truly creative and original program.

No matter how much ground KDE gains on the "desktop", the truly creative coders will always gravitate towards GNOME. Remember... it's all about flexibility, originality and creatvity. Not... consistency.

Re:Sounds Like He Missed the Point

[t_hunger]

Wow... a creative spirit speaks up for Gnome.

What is the "artist" you are speaking about? Somebody creating art on a computer? A musician or graphic artist? Don't those usually prefer Apples, a system that is consistent more then any other? Those poeple want to concentrate on their work, not on their tool (the computer), I doubt that many will choose Linux (independent of wether it's running KDE or Gnome).

Your picture do not hold up either. Consistency is not about the number of colours that cited artist uses. It is about all brushes working the same way. What we have on Linux is one brush only working on mondays, one that can only be used to paint strokes from top to bottom and some brushes that break as soon as the artist touches them. I doubt any visual artist would want to use those tools! A musician might play many different instruments, but he expects all of them to behave consistently: To give the note he requests of them. A actor will expect his makeup to work for any role he is playing too (if he decides to need that particular piece of makeup to flesh out the character he is going to impersonate).

You are mistaking the computer to be the piece of art that gets created, not as the tool it is, helping to create art. Even those people programming as a hobby tend to not think that way about the complete system: They might think of themsleves as artists, working on a particularily beautiful piece of code. But so far I never meet anyone who included all the tools used to work on that code (compiler, editors, kernel, GUI system, etc.) to be part of the creation process.

Always tradeoffs.

[dmaxwell]

Sure QT licensing in inconvienient for some developers. It beats the hell of the ambiguity it used to have. On the other hand, I think Trolltech is a good rejoinder for licensing fanatics who have nothing better to do than whinge about the GPL. The GPL in this case PROTECTS a business model as well as the code.

Good Article

[swestbrook]

Much like the infamous Halloween documents of past years, it shows the Gnome developers where to really concentrate their efforts. The Halloween documents and other FUD from Microsoft has shown Linus where he needs to work on the Linux kernel -- this is much of the same thing. It is a cry to fix certain parts of Gnome that definitely needs to be improved and at the same time, might bring Gnome back to its original calling, to be a damn good interface for *nix users.

Decide already

[iamacat]

Either you want to make your data machine readable, or you want it human readable. In the first case, many efficient options are available, such as relational database, XDR, Java serialized options and so on. No need to waste your disk space and network bandwidth with text files. Think also about people implementing on your protocol on really constraint devices like J2ME cell phones, where you really don't have the luxary of a parser. If you go for human readable, think about the nature of the data and target audience and choose an optimal format based on that. For example, SMTP is easy enough that some people were faking e-mail by just telneting to port 25 and entering messages without any tool. Try this with XML! Now think about the effect on a programmer trying to send a simple e-mail message from his app.

If you go for XML, you are creating data that both machines and humans have to strain to understand.

Re:Decide already

[bigchris]

Actually, the very nature of text is great for configuration purposes. Not much can go wrong with a text editor (how many times have you had your vi session corrupt a file? I've never had this problem!!!). Now think about the complexity of using a database... yep, then you've got the Windows registry.

As for your assertion that XML is just creating data that both machines and humans have to strain to understand, I disagree. I can understand XML without a problem and the xml2 libraries that are available don't appear to have a problem either!

Another thing - constrained devices should use what is best for a constrained space. This does not necessarily mean that this is the best way for all devices!

Trendy XMl is bad

[tigersha]

I am quite a heave XML user. I think XMl is good for two reasons:

a) I will NEVER write a parser again. That is already enough reason to use XML. Just eliminating all the string digging makes it worthwhile.

b) I think a move to tree structures as opposed to everything-is-a-table is a good idea in general.

That said, one thing about XML that is irritating is when it gets used for things where it not good.

XSLT is a good example of this. A programming language in XML sytax? Why for chrissakes??!!

The problem with XML in a PL context is that it is not possible to build trees with multiple branches without complicated syntax. For instance, the following sort of thing is not possible:

if x ...
elseif y ...
elseif z ...
else ...
endif

Simply because a tag in XML can only have a start and en end and NOTHING in between, which leads to things such as XSLT's stupid CHOOSE tag.

Also, an example such as

5">

is dumb when if (x >5) then is su much easier.

Using XML syntax for a language just because is just plain dumb. Syntax matters. This (sadly) is one of the prime reasons LISP is dead. All the LISPers chout that "Yeah, but its easy to learn once you get used to it". Bullsh*t.

(if not (> x 2) (+ 4 y))

is NOT easier to read than

if x > 2 then return 4 + y

And for the same reason XSLT is a pain in the butt. But I digress....

Re:Trendy XMl is bad

[maw]

(if not (> x 2) (+ 4 y))

Well, it's obvious you never got used to it, for a few reasons.

One is that this is bogus syntax to begin with. Another is that, even if it were legit syntax, no lisp programmer would (fail to) indent like that.

You're not a troll, but you are an idiot.

GNOME and KDE for Microsoft Windows users

[Anonymous Coward]

Now GNOME and KDE are also available for MS Windows users.
The porting is done using Cygwin ( http://cygwin.com/xfree/ , the XWindows for MS Win32 )
Project are :-
1) CyGNOME at http://cygnome.sourceforge.net/
2) KDE-Cygwin at http://kde-cygwin.sourceforge.net/

Price does matter

[iamacat]

I tried to order BREW builder to develop a library for a rather big company where I work. Because of the 5K price tag, my purchase order was held up for more than half a year now, and the handset sits unused. On the other hand, Linux port was started the same day it was planed, right after downloading some ISOs off the net. If I had to write UI on it and choose between KDE and GNOME, get what I would do, regardless of technical merits? Well, what I would really do is write a Java app with non-UI code native. Or perhaps try TK.

On the other hand, say I want to write a shareware program with $25 registration fee. How much do you think is in my cookie jar to pay for what is mostly a hobby?

Of course, trolltech can charge all they want, but then they can not expect to be a standard for Linux users who occasionally run shareware and commercial programs (yeah, you can launch GNOME apps under KDE, but who is leeching now?). Perhaps if the fee was $150 per developer, it would be a different story.

Re:Similar feelings here

[Teancom]

Uh, huh. And the most common UNIX language is C. And it's what most GNOME programmers choose to use. And KDE doesn't cope with it.

So I imagined this?

Read "I can't reconfigure any keybinding in any app, as GNOME lets me do, due to the fact that KDE's approach is less flexible."

KControl->Regional & Accessability->Keyboard Shortcuts. Go to town.

*I* use the keyboard to move around the system. I want good tab completion (including partial). GTK provides this.

Right-click on the input field. Choose from a wide variety of ways to autocomplete, including a keyboard navigatable drop-down.

Umm....gee, you mean *exactly like the GNOME file selector*? Read as "I read KDE developer propaganda, but have *no* idea how GNOME works."

I say many, many Gnome dev's complaining about how crappy the File selector dialogue was in 1.x and even 2.0. As a result, there are many "standard" gnome apps (whatever that means) that coded up their own and thus *don't* get the benefit of any changes. That's what happens when your base infrastructure does not measure up.

One of the nicest things about KParts is how easy it is to use from a programmer's perspective. *Every* toolkit I can think of has a easy-to-use standard open/save dialog. The Mac had it back in '84, for chrissake. Has this guy ever written a line of software?

The file dialogue box is not a KPart, please try and keep up.

Yeah, *there's* a good way to ensure consistency. Keep changing the fucking file-picker each minor release. It was changed in the last major release. Just because KDE can't keep a single consistent interface doesn't mean that GNOME should fall to the same problems.

To parrot your particluar "style" of argument: "read: stagnant, inflexible, and one of the most complained about parts of earlier gnome releases"

What is this guy, *stupid*? All the higher-level GNOME widgets (see glade) are precisely consistent. That's what they're *there* for.

Glade is a way to *build* an interface, not a way to make sure that the resulting interface is consistent with other Gnome apps. I'm starting to doubt your ability to read and comprehend.

That's funny. I'm using sawfish as we speak. Perhaps that's because *GNOME* doesn't suffer from WM compatibility problems out the ass. The change was made because most users don't code in Lisp. The ones who *do*, like me, install sawfish. Not *that* complicated, except evidently for this guy. Also, if he doesn't like the simpler metacity WM, why the hell does he like the *ass simple* KDE window manager?

It's dead simple to run KDE with kwin, many people prefer windowmaker and kde. The fact that the language it's coded in affects your choice appalls me, but that's neither here nor there. And what, exactly, does KWin lack that makes it "ass simple"? I.e., what can your window manager do in Gnome that kwin + KDE can't do?

I.E. it is not also a web browser. No shit, friend. Some of us don't consider the pinnacle of a desktop to be cloning a dumb decision that was made by Microsoft *completely* for political convenience.

Odd, I didn't see him complaining about Nautilus's lack of web browsing, as much as pumping up konq's ability to have multiple panes with multiple different views, built in previews, customizability, etc. Could you please restrict yourself to attacking what he wrote, not what you are projecting on him?

Of course, KDE did *exactly* the same thing over its major releases, but apparently that doesn't count.

kfm *evolved* into konq, the only point that they even threw out major pieces of the code was during the transition to kparts. kwin is a direct descendant of the original window manager. KMail, the same. Konsole, the same. I could keep going... And his point is that Gnome has a very "oops we screwed up lets start again from scratch" mentality, that is not nearly as prevelant in KDE. The only thing even close that I can think of, is the current discussion on if and how to replace arts for kde4.

Tell me when the *KDE* application base isn't spread out over KDE 1, 2, and 3. I still can't find a newer version of Kcheat, buddy.

This was addressed already in another response, but basically, you can't name a major app that hasn't been ported, because there aren't any.

Read as "KDE sucks to code for in anything but C++ and reasonably supports only *one* file manager, WM, etc"

I use apps and code in PyKDE, it does not suck. There is *nothing* in KDE to keep you from running nautilus or kruiser or endeavor or.... Same with the window manager. As long as the window manager supports the *standard*, they'll work with KDE. On the other hand, there are major benefits to be gained by running the standard ones. Why (or how?) should that be different?

And where the hell did he pull multiple panels from? Just figured that he could toss a couple lies in there to flesh things out?

I'm sorry, you'll have to be more specific. What are you refering to here?

In conclusion, this is a pretty pathetic article. The author was wrong, showed bias, wasn't knowledgeable about what he was critiquing, and occasionally pulled stuff straight from his ass.

He was right in every instance where he made a definitive statement, told his bias upfront (*everyone* has bias, but now you *know* his), was more knowledgeable than you appear to be, and left his ass alone. You, on the other hand....

Re:YOU FUCKING MORON!

[gurumeditationerror]

And if your running linux hitting alt-ctrl-f1 will take you to a virtual console and you'll never have to look at all those damn utilities that can do everything you want done with a gui.

I just installed RH8.0...

[286]

I just installed RH8.0... so you guys are saying there two different windows managers!?!

but seriously folks... you talk to any ten Linux user about what would make a killer new GUI and you'll get ten different responses, half of which will be incompatible.

Any software in active development is bound to have problems. The question left up to the user is: are the problems big enough to warrant a switch or can I hold out till they get fixed. Sadly user become entrenched and just prefer to gripe about other alternatives.

Fill out a bug report!

GNOME 2.2 - tastes great!

[Netmonger]

I'm using Gnome 2.2 built over a Gentoo 2.4.19 based system and overall, my usuability rating is:

It works Great!

No crashes! Great apps! Great integration!!

I am speaking both from a power-user and developer standpoints. I reguarly write small apps myself - 'drawing' the interface Glade, and programming the backend with Perl.

Its a rapid development process, with the GUI stored in a simple text XML file.

Ive also done some GTK/Gnome development from from C as well, and I routinely hack away at packages I nab off 'Freshmeat.

Because the multi-language 'thing was emphasized from the start, the various APIs for these languages have all had time to mature. The GTK/Gnome API is easy to understand and work with from any language.

Back to the user perspective: In the past( > 1 year ago ) I DID have troubles with a good portion of Gnome apps - keeping the right libraries current 'and all that was a major pain.

But I still think it has always been more of a configuration management/build issue than the GNOME software - not to say this is ok - but I think that you just 'kinda 'had to know how to do it'.

Nowadays (and this is also very much in part due to the advanced build system *Portage* inherent in Gentoo) everything works great!

Im talkin Phoenix, Evolution, Sacrifice-under-WineX, Gnome-media stuff, GDM, XMAME, system monitor applets, Grip, Xmms, perfect fullscreen mode for apps, VNC, VMware, Gimp - they all work perfect.

StarOffice rounds out my system's productivity app-set - The really seriously only reason for windows nowadays is simply for gaming.

There are quality applications to fufill your average users needs.

Responding to what was said about the Gnome File Requester: well.. I like some of the features mentioned in the KDE version, but the Gnome version is a bit more advanced than what was shown - at least in 2.2 it is.

And I actually like the 'old Mac'style dropdown selector of directories above your present location! I use that all-the-time.

I wasnt aware that things were quite as chaotic with Gnome's direction internally as implied in the article but I DO see some points made - what really IS Gnome nowadays?

I hope that things arent that chaotic!!

However I am not at all happy with the idea of MONO. I think that might very well be suicide for the project - Microsoft CANNOT be trusted to keep things 'open'. Wasnt there just an article about them patenting everything converning .NET??

That not where I want to be tomorrow Miguel - forced to pay MS hefty licensing fees for a patent on some part of your technology you thought was 'open'?

Personally I say dump Mono..

Stay the course Gnome orginally had planned..

Bind C# to Gnome with an API like everything else - not the other way around.

And Kudos to the Gnome development team!

Keep up the excellent work!

KDE advocate advocates KDE! Yawn. Freedesktop.org.

[dwheeler]

Wow, a KDE advocate advocates KDE! That must be exciting!! Well, not really.

I prefer GNOME; its licensing scheme, basic goals, and many of its technical decisions have been overall quite good. The "few preferences" approach is grossly misunderstood. It's not that they're trying to eliminate the ability to set preferences... it's that they're trying to make sure that software "does the right thing" without needing to set preferences. The canonical example is the option that you need to set in order for the software function to work (e.g., emacs cut and paste). There's no need for an option to make the software work: it should work correctly ALL THE TIME. Is GNOME perfect? No. Nor is KDE.

Others prefer KDE. Fine, enjoy KDE.

Really, what needs to happen is standard setting so that applications work correctly no matter what environment the user chooses, and no matter what toolkit the developer chooses. Please support Freedesktop.org, who really represent the way forward.

US Civil War I

[yerricde]

Much of the confusion surrounding the "free" in "free software" arises from the same source as the 1800s conflict between the freedom of the slaves and the freedom of the slave owners.

Do distributed objects work?

[doom]

Well, things are a little dull here, so I thought I might raise a controversial issue.

Could it be that objects distributed across a network are a fundamentally bad idea for some reason?

Here the author makes the point that Gnome has never lived up to the promise of CORBA. Has anything ever lived up to that promise?

I've heard recently that the SOAP guys are changing the meaning of the acronym. O isn't for Object any more.

I don't know much about the issue myself -- though I guess I've still a bit of an OOP skeptic -- mostly I'm just an interested bystander.

Re:Do distributed objects work?

[21mhz]

Here the author makes the point that Gnome has never lived up to the promise of CORBA.

They never meant to. The goal was to come up with some way to call objects beyond process and, theoretically, machine boundaries. Their choice of the existing, efficient protocol that is IIOP shows them as reasonable and forward-thinking architects (notably, the KDE developers chosen the other, "better" way).
But they never meant to implement the full CORBA spec, at times even choosing to develop their own, more lightweight and limited APIs than what the spec suggests.

Has anything ever lived up to that promise?

You probably need to look at some commercial ORB implementations.

Depends on your definition of "with"

[yerricde]

Can you write a closed source program with GPL software? NOT LIKELY...

Depends on whether your definition of "with" includes linking the GPL program with your program. Software created "with" Qt is linked to Qt. Software created "with" KDevelop, on the other hand, isn't necessarily linked to Qt. Actual example: Nintendo provides a GCC toolchain to official developers of proprietary GBA game software and can do so because GCC itself isn't linked into the proprietary program.

Re:Similar feelings here

[0x0d0a]

So I imagined this? [kde.org]

It's not listed on the KDE Language Bindings page, so I assume that the work is either not complete or not going anywhere.

KControl->Regional & Accessability->Keyboard Shortcuts. Go to town.

That lets you redefine common keystroks, not all of them, just as I said.

Right-click on the input field. Choose from a wide variety of ways to autocomplete, including a keyboard navigatable drop-down.

Which does not include normal ol' bash-style tab completion, which is what I asked for.

I say many, many Gnome dev's complaining about how crappy the File selector dialogue was in 1.x and even 2.0. As a result, there are many "standard" gnome apps (whatever that means) that coded up their own and thus *don't* get the benefit of any changes. That's what happens when your base infrastructure does not measure up.

Yes, some people didn't like it because it wasn't like Windows. I cut my teeth on the Mac OS, and don't have a problem with it. Furthermore, please name a few of these "standard" gnome apps that "coded up their own" open/save dialogs, because I certainly don't remember any.

The file dialogue box is not a KPart, please try and keep up.

Sorry -- you're right. He mentioned them in close proximity.

To parrot your particluar "style" of argument: "read: stagnant, inflexible, and one of the most complained about parts of earlier gnome releases"

He bitched that it hadn't changed, and I pointed out that it had. If that's your idea of "stagnant", I'm sorry. There's yet another version in the works.

Glade is a way to *build* an interface, not a way to make sure that the resulting interface is consistent with other Gnome apps. I'm starting to doubt your ability to read and comprehend.

And it has standard high-level GNOME widgets, like the GNOME Window, which *does* make for consistency.

It's dead simple to run KDE with kwin, many people prefer windowmaker and kde.

That's funny. An ex-roommate gave windowmaker up because of compatibility problems.

The fact that the language it's coded in affects your choice appalls me, but that's neither here nor there.

I don't give a rat's ass about the language it's coded in. I care about whether I can extend the goddamn thing to make things work *exactly* the way I like. For example, I like my thumb button to raise, focus, and start doing a drag on a given window, not passing an event through. AfterStep lets me hack up somethign vaguely correct. Sawfish lets me do it right. I like Window-Arrows to move me from viewport to viewport. I like using *viewports*, which means windows can lap from edge to edge. I like Window-Shift-Arrows to move me from viewport to viewport, keeping to raised window sticky. I like Window-Right-clicking a window to pop up a menu to let me screw with the window, and Window-Enter to remove the window frame and maximize (or restore) the window. Kwin doesn't let me have exactly this environment, so to me it's not good. I don't believe metacity does either. Sawfish does.

Odd, I didn't see him complaining about Nautilus's lack of web browsing, as much as pumping up konq's ability to have multiple panes with multiple different views, built in previews, customizability, etc. Could you please restrict yourself to attacking what he wrote, not what you are projecting on him?

I had to *guess* what features he meant, given that he did no more than allude to "missing features" through the whole damn article without specifying what he meant.

kfm *evolved* into konq, the only point that they even threw out major pieces of the code was during the transition to kparts.

So they salvaged some code.

kwin is a direct descendant of the original window manager.

I don't use kwin, but I know one person that uses KDE, and that doesn't seem to be his take.

KMail, the same.

Last I heard, it was getting thrown out in favor of KNode.

This was addressed already in another response, but basically, you can't name a major app that hasn't been ported, because there aren't any.

There are precisely two KDE apps I use or care about. licq and kcheat. Half of those are not ported.

Furthermore, most of the major GNOME stuff has (gasp) been ported to GTK/GNOME 2. Yes, it takes a bit. There was also a transition time for the major KDE apps. I didn't see the KDE people saying "what a mess we have" when KDE was in transition, but the fact that sodipodi is gtk1 and gimp is gtk2 *at the moment* seems to give them a wonderfully smug feeling.

I'm sorry, you'll have to be more specific. What are you refering to here?

He said that GNOME has had multiple panels. GNOME 1 came out, then GNOME 2 came out. They were *not* competing, though I guess one panel was made with gtk1-based widgets, and the other with gtk2-based widgets.

He was right in every instance where he made a definitive statement,

He made a hell of a lot of misleading ones.

told his bias upfront (*everyone* has bias, but now you *know* his), was more knowledgeable than you appear to be,

Because he likes KDE?

You, on the other hand....

Me? What about me? I wrote an article pointing out flaws in his article. I reacted to all this. You don't see *me* posting articles to LinuxWorld entitled "KDE 3.1 Sucks A Lot" or similar, as he did with GNOME 2.2.

Reads like it were from a corrupt politician.

[ChangeOnInstall]

This article sounds like it's coming from a corrupt politician: the author chooses to ignore all facts with controvert his point. This tactic is universally used by those who are attempting to lead an audience to a false conclusion. Drivel.

All I want to know

[SCHecklerX]

Is why I can't use drag/drop to dcc a file in xchat. GTK has a drop container, doesn't it? I know that sylpheed supports this (now if only it supported XDS without having to patch, I'd be a very happy person!)

All of the things going on about these wonderful environments, yet I can't intuitivly make anything interact with anything else...even within the same libraries. I mean, you can do this with the very lightweight XDnD libraries, right? Why do we need all of the bloat that is KDE or Gnome? What useful purpose does it serve? It annoys me quite a bit that when I run a simple KDE app that it launches all of that kdeinit stuff that doesn't seem to be providing much usefulness.

Sometimes I really do miss OS/2's WPS. The stuff just worked with no extra coding effort.

fighting over the best flavor of ice cream

[Anonymous Coward]

perhaps I am just odd, but I feel that if you have different window managers and environments alltogether that you should in fact be different for a reason... diversity. No, the real term not the PC one. What if you held a party and decided to play some Country music at it (you have a live band)? Across town you have another party that plays Metal along with others of various music types scattered about. Some may go (like they do with bar or club hopping) from one to the other. Yet should we not argue over who is best and thus waste energy best spent on improving each individual party? Of course we should NEVER adopt things that work at one party to ours as that would be just as much a sign of weakness as saying "excuse me" or "sorry" when running into someone. Actually, it might be better to just send people over to the other parties and crash the party for everyone who is enjoying it (and who may have just recently been or thinking of coming to your own party). Of course, as with politics we will shout down anyone who is annoyingly making sense by employing logic and reason.

More and more society is showing signs that it is nothing but a crowd of dirty, stingy children fighting over who's bright colored oversized pencil is the prettiest. What happens usually in such a situation is that violence errupts, dragging the innocent along with it... or the "enforcer" teacher steps in to kick the shit out of everyone causing trouble. Unfortunately, through either unavoidable circumstance or just plain old bad leadership many innocent will fall under the blanket punishment policy and the majority of the worst trouble causers go unpunished eventually leading to a "Red Carpet" treatment to the trouble causers.

Re:Yes

[0x0d0a]

Gnome sucks and Linux is not as stable as preachers claim.

Lovely, a KDE troll. Fortunately, your kind will be soon gone, as all the influential players in the expanding Linux world have already gone GNOME. The major KDE supporters -- SuSE and Mandrake -- are going out of business (at least in the US -- SuSE might survive overseas). Maybe if they had chosen a license that didn't force authors to write GPLed software (like LGPL), they would have had some business interest as well. I can write BSD-licensed GNOME software if I want to, but not BSD-licensed KDE-based software!

And with Gnome I can consistently reproduce crashing the system --the entire system.

If you're really crashing the kernel, it sure as hell isn't GNOME's fault.

I can't do it under KDE.

Then you're lucky, because your system is screwed up one way or another (either a kernel or hardware problem). it's not because of some amazing design in KDE.

On one computer that I have, I install Linux Mandrake (CD#1 only --typical).

Yeah, no kidding. You're using Mandrake, which is known for crummy GNOME support, just as RH is for their KDE environment.

Actually..

[mindstrm]

considering the GPL allows you to link to closed-source things that are "a standard part of the target platform"... ie: Sun libc, or whatnot....

one could argue, quite easily, that even though the closed application is linked against GPL libraries, that those olibraries are a standard part of, say, RedHat Linux, and therefore, you don't have to abide by the GPL to link against them.
And you would be right.

KDE and gnome both can bite (you)

[J Story]

I used to use kmail. And it suited my purposes almost perfectly. Then came the day that I updated the version of KDE, and for two days nothing depending on KDE would work, in particular kmail.

From that day, from the gnome desktop, I began to use Mozilla's email client. It isn't as fast as kmail, but neither does it rely on KDE -- or any particular window manager -- to be functional.Whatever the plusses of KDE-dependent applications, the big risk in counting on them is your downtime when KDE breaks.

So why am I back to KDE (albeit not to kmail?) "Always on Top". For some reason, the newer gnome does not allow you to keep one window on top while working with other windows.(Once in the habit of doing this, it is surprisingly annoying to lose the ability.) The configuration options also appear extremely limited.

KDE for all its flaws, and they are significant, is still more comfortable to work with. However, apps that don't depend on any specific Window manager, apps like Mozilla and OpenOffice, are more reliable in my view.

Yes you can

[elliotj]

Yes, you certainly can write closed source software with GPL software. The tools you use to create your software do not necessarily impose license restrictions.

Unless I'm mistaken, I can write a GTK+ application closed source so long as I'm not using any GPL'd code in my app. All I do is tell people who buy my product that they need to get the free GTK+ libraries in order to run it.

Your argument would be the equivalent of saying you can't write closed source software to run on Linux because Linux is GPL'd. That is simply not the case.

It isn't just for commercial apps...

[BitterOak]

I agree 100%! I hate the GPL when applied to libraries. Not so much because GPL'd code can't be used in commercial apps, but because not all open source developers want to release their code under the GPL.

There are many, including myself, who never release GPL code, and prefer to release open source code under a BSD-style license. (You are free to disagree and use your own choice of license for your own projects; there are merits to both types of license.)

The GPL/QPL license of Qt, completely shuts out developers of open-source software who choose to use a different type of open-source license. If it is free software, the developer generally can't afford to license the commercial version of Qt, and if you use the free version, you must release all your code under the GPL!

That's why the LGPL was invented. That way, the author of the library can still benefit from GPL-type protection for his/her work, but it doesn't coerce other open-source developers to adopt the same license.

The Qt license allows for GPL open-source developers, as well as commercial developers, but completely shuts out everyone else! That's why I hope Gnome improves and becomes the desktop of choice, even though there are many ways I prefer KDE to Gnome.

Re:It isn't just for commercial apps...

[inc_x]

The non-commerical Qt version comes with two licenses, the GPL and the QPL. The GPL allows you to write GPL applications, the QPL allows you to write applications under many other open source licenses. So you can license your application under e.g. a BSD license and still use Qt.

TrollTech has an annotated version of the QPL online, it's worth a read.

Re:It isn't just for commercial apps...

[BitterOak]

I just read the QPL license, and it seems to me to be in some ways less restrictive than GPL, but in other ways much more so. Certainly not nearly as open as LGPL.

It appears to have something of a viral nature (unlike BSD) in that if you develop code which links to their libraries, there are restrictions on how you license that code. Whether this is compatible with BSD or not isn't clear to me.

But most shocking is item 6c: "If the items are not available to the general public, and the initial developer of the Software requests a copy of the items, then you must supply one." If I understand correctly, that means that even if I develop my own personal application which links to the Qt libraries, even if I never intend to distribute it to anyone, I might still be required to send a copy of the source to Trolltech! This is shocking! The GPL has no such requirement. Fans of the GPL love to remind us that the GPL limits only redistribution of code. You are free to keep your own code to yourself. Not so with the QPL!

IANAL, so if I am misunderstanding something important, please let me know.

KDE 3.1 is much faster

[Karma Sucks]

Everybody already said it, just had to change the title.

Try KDE 3.1. It flies and is quite usable even on pathetic hardware.

Re:Yes

[Sunda666]

> Being the smart person that you are you would have installed ext3 or ReiserFS and hitting reset wouldn't have caused
> any damage or loss at all.

Man you are so wrong. If you hit reset while you have a reiserfs volume mounted (ext3 as well) you will likely end up losing
a handful of files (happened to me some times, stupid reset button, now its unplugged).

The proper thing to bail out of such a situation is to build your kernel with "Magic SysReq" and then hit
alt+printscreen+s,u,b to make it sync its buffers before rebooting.

Reiser and ext3 only journals metadata, folks, not data. Don't expect to not lose data by hitting the
damn reset button or in a sudden power outage. Use no-breaks and NEVER reset the box if the console hangs
or the kernel panics. Magic SysRQ is your best friend.

cheers

My experience

[dotgain]

Gnome (1.?) (redhat 6.0) -> Gnome 1.4 (liked it a little) -> Gnome 2.0 -> /usr/X11R6/bin/twm

Now [in Gnome2] even the (dismal) file requester takes about five seconds to draw up. I think Gnome is going the wrong way. It's only a good desktop for those that like to fire up a number of apps / windows, and then sit there looking at it / fire screenshots around the globe.

Apart from adding a bit of spiff, all I can find are features removed. I heard someone type 'gnome 2.2...now you can have transparency in the panel'. Well, 1.4 had that, 2.0 didn't.

I started using Gnome about three months after I started using Linux, about five years ago. I've been hoping it hasn't, but all I've seen (apart from a glimmer of hope in 1.4) is Gnome go to shit. I think I'm going to get the 1.4 source, maintain it myself and keep using that.

Not trolling, I'm genuinely disappointed that Gnome has given Linux a bad name, not because Gnome is Linux, but Joe Public who's used to a Windows system thinks that, he can't draw an abstraction between a desktop environment and an OS, and I think that's why a lot of people think Linux sucks. I also think adoption of Gnome by Sun is a bad move. Sure CDE sucks, but it runs.

Re:My experience

[Trolling4Dollars]

My feelings exactly. It seems to me that the major problem with KDE vs. GNOME vs. Windows XP vs. MacOS comes from the many different ways that people use computers. There is never going to be a "one size fits all" enviroment because there is always going to be something to bitch about with regards to how one feature or another is missing, gets in the way or isn't useful enough, etc... It's all going to depend on how a user uses their machine and the software.

For me GNOME is the best choice since it's easy to write for and has all the features I need to do what I do on my computers. KDE is less satisfying for me because it has more of an "office" or workplace feel, I can't stand C++ and the bindings for other languages are kludgy. I don't use computers to "get work done".

What do I do with my computers? I use computers to create art. My graphics are art, my music is art and my coding is art. That is why most technically saavy artists will always choose GNOME over KDE. It allows one to be so much more creative and original in every way. KDE limits you in some of the same ways that Windows does and holds a creative person back because it doesn't really make it easy to break the rules. All good artists always break the rules.

When I am at my day job, KDE, GNOME and Windows XP are fine because they allow me to do the less important stuff that makes money: administer the network and users where I work. Either environment gets the job done and therefore I have no preference.

The people who proclaim that any of the environments is superior over the other is making the typical mistake in assuming that everyone else works and thinks like they do. That assumption leads to the idea that everyone uses computers to do the same things. This just isn't true and is why there will always be multiple platforms AND turnkey systems.

Mac zoom box

[yerricde]

and no the Mac way of expanding to some apparently random size is not good, it's a pain in the ass.

A window's zoom box under Mac OS doesn't expand the window to a "random" size. It expands the window to the smallest size that holds the entire document or, failing that, expands the window to nearly fill the screen. It's precisely the same behavior as Ctrl+E on GIMP.

Discovering kappfinder?

[yerricde]

If it's not on your menu, then run kappfinder and THEN drag it over.

Then how does somebody discover kappfinder other than by asking Arandir? All features of a desktop environment should be easily to discover.

Re:Discovering kappfinder?

[yerricde]

So given the task "I want to add a shortcut on my kicker to an application named foo which does not have a menu entry in the OS distribution I use", how does a novice user reason from there to "Look in the settings menu and choose KAppfinder"? For instance, how does the user know that "KAppfinder" isn't a web interface to Freshmeat or something (logic: find the name of a KDE app based on keywords)?

Re:Discovering kappfinder?

[Arandir]

Well, you could use your intuition to figure out that "Settings -> Menu Updating Tool" probably updates the menu.

Re:Discovering kappfinder?

[twener]

> For instance, how does the user know that "KAppfinder" isn't a web interface to Freshmeat

Because its description (enabled by default IIRC) is "Menu Updating Tool".

My personal gripe with the Gnome file selector

[Glyndwr]

Now, don't get me wrong. I love Gnome, have used it for years (although I am typing this on OSX), and never got on with KDE. I think the article is a big bunch of trolling hooey. But... Many moons ago, I ran the Ximian Gnome packages, probably Gnome 1.0 or possibly 1.2. The File Selector back then had a fourth button at the top of it, next to new folder / delete file / rename file buttons. This button took you to ~ when you clicked it. Where has this bloody button gone? I remember reading that it was a Ximian patch to the file selector, and presumably it never made it into the upstream sources. When I left Ximian (the day I switched to Debian testing), I lost that button forever and I still miss it. It seems like such an obvious thing to me. Bah! Humbug!

GNUStep

[Kourino]

I love Window Maker ^_^

I've noticed nobody ever says anything interesting about GNUStep. I'm slowly starting to look into this myself ... source-level compatibilty with Mac OS X. Seems potentially interesting.

Re:GNUStep

[Art Tatum]

GNUstep has been making, and continues to make, a great deal of progress. There is a constant stream of serious development being done in CVS. We have Interface Builder and Project Builder clones, EOF and WebObjects work-alikes, a Java bridge, Ruby and Smalltalk environments, IRC client, Mail client, Console app, CD Burner, Media player, games, a Workspace clone, a lot of other apps.

AND you get a first-class OO development framework that blows away the crap spewed forth by GNOME and KDE.

You'd certainly be welcome as a member of the growing tight-knit community and/or as a developer. Try Aaron Hillegass' book for a good gentle introduction to the Cocoa/Objective-C idiom.

Re:Actually, looking at what "lame" means, it's KD

[Karma Sucks]

If the X server isn't set right, it's Woody that's the problem not KDE.

Re:Yes

[twener]

> The major KDE supporters -- SuSE and Mandrake -- are going out of business

The old lies and FUD.

> I can write BSD-licensed GNOME software if I want to, but not BSD-licensed KDE-based software!

Strange - how is it then possible that Kicker, the KDE panel, is licensed under BSD license?

Why it is a ridiculous attitude

[bonch]

Why is it a ridiculous attitude? Tell you what, you go away and design this killer GUI, and come back when you've got it all figured out. If it's good, I'm sure somebody will be enthusiastic enough to help you.

I'm going to let everyone in on a little secret:

Most movie reviewers aren't movie makers.

I know, I know. You're thinking, "How could somebody criticize something without being able to go out and make something better all by themselves?" But, it's true.

In fact, there are those who--horror of horrors--hold opinions about music (if you hate Limp Bizkit, why don't you go out and make something better?), games (if you hate Halo, why don't you go out amd make something better?), operating systems (if you hate MacOS, why don't you go out and make something better?), websites (if you hate Fark, why don't you go out and make something better), religion (if you don't like Scientology, why don't you go out and make something better?), and much, much more. In fact, recent studies have shown that people hold opinions about most everything they come across in their lives. All without being able to make better equivalents themselves!

Sorry, but while you were whinging on Slashdot tigert, jimmac, everaldo and tackat were busy making GNOME and KDE pretty. By all means go and help them, but I find the latest GTK2/GNOME2 apps much better looking than their equivalents on Windows or the Mac.

I'll continue my "whinging" because I hold opinions. I'm sorry you can't stand to read them.

Re:Yes

[massive-cow]

Hmmm... yes and no.

The point to a journalled filesystem/transaction manager is to maintain data *consistency* by having disk operations happen atomically.

That way, if the power gets cut in the middle of a file operation, your file won't be half borked.

It *does* protect your data on basic operations aslong as all of the data is in one place.

Ofcourse, we really should be using atomic/transactional for ALL application data storage: data loss and consistency due to power failures and other things would more or less be a thing of the past.

Mandrake is *not* "based on" Redhat!

[aquarian]

Mandrake may have gotten its start by bringing KDE to Redhat, but it has had little to do with Redhat since about version 5 (and now Mandrake's at version 9). Just because a distribution uses rpm packages doesn't mean it's Redhat based. Mandrake has all its own administration tools, and even its own package manager that's sort of an apt-rpm hybrid (urpmi). It has left Redhat far behind with respect to this, as well as in installation and configuration, where Redhat is still playing catch-up in many ways. So don't equate Mandrake with Redhat. It's certainly no more Redhat than Caldera or Suse are, both of which started as modified Redhat too, but neither of which have much in common with it anymore.

Re:Mandrake is *not* "based on" Redhat!

[@madeus]

I think your basic point is valid - I've been using Linux for ~8 years now so most of my perceptions are colored by seeing these distributions evolve.

Though, as a statement in it's own right, it is fair to say that Mandrake is actually 'based on' Red Hat.

So don't equate Mandrake with Redhat.

Well erm I didn't....

PS: Please learn to split sentences into paragraphs, I'm not being a grammer natzi, it's just very frustrating to see people not bother and you happen to be the second or third follow up poster not to use single return in your post.

Re:Yes

[0x0d0a]

Strange - how is it then possible that Kicker, the KDE panel, is licensed under BSD license?

It's not. It's GPL.

I am stupid!

[Roberto]

I thought this was an answer to MY post :-P

I am very sorry.

Re:Yes

[ElGuapoGolf]

>The major KDE supporters -- SuSE and Mandrake >-- are going out of business (at least in the US -- >SuSE might survive overseas).

Really? Lord knows Mandrake has had it's share of trouble, but I haven't heard anything about SuSE having any trouble. In fact, AFAIK, IBM supports them and RH equally, as well they should.

>If you're really crashing the kernel, it sure as hell >isn't GNOME's fault.

I know that GNOME used to do some funky stuff under XFree 3.x on my old system... back when GNOME was cool and KDE was lumbering along in it's 1.x incarnation. I had to use KDE to prevent video corruption, and when 2.x came out there was no looking back. KDE never did, and never has, exhibited the same video corruption that GNOME did.

Re: Your very bad example

[ttfkam]

Okay, let's compare:

keyvalue.conf

FullScreen = true
EasyForUsersToRead = true
EasyToEdit = true
EasyToParse = true
SupportsNonTrivialConfigurations = false

conf.xml

<Config
FullScreen = "true"
EasyForUsersToRead = "true"
EasyToEdit = "true"
EasyToParse = "true"
SupportsNonTrivialConfigurations = "true"
/>

You're telling me that your users cannot handle the added complexity? I'm sorry, but if someone is technically astute enough to use a text editor and modify a config file by hand, they can handle the trivial extra complexity associated with XML.

The users you describe that can't handle it are using the GUI anyway because *all* configuration files scare them.

CORBA

[axxackall]

CORBA is Web-services done right -- it simply doesn't do it over port 80

Wrong. What is the port number doesn't really matter. How the protocol is organized matters. CORBA originally has been designed with two problems:

• Syncronous communication - asyncronous (fire and forget) messaging is still in dreams of real-life CORBA developers;
• Tight coupling - both client and server has to really have the same knowledge about the shared (passed, called) object;

CORBA might be not a bad choice for prototyping at earlier days of GNOME, but today it must begone. I think it must be replaced by SOAP. So, let's wait for MONO becoming stable, then let's get rid off gnorba and then let's compare GNOME with then's KDE.

Re:CORBA

[alext]

1. The poster means that CORBA isn't restricted to port 80.

2. Asynchronous communication has been supported since CORBA 1.2 with "oneway" messages and the CORBA event service.

3. I have no idea what "same knowledge" refers to in this context, unless you mean interface definition, in which case there is no difference between CORBA and SOAP/WSDL.

Re:CORBA

[t_hunger]

Please read the docs on SOAP. It is a SIMPLE Object Activation Protocol. CORBA is not that simple, but then it has way more features. It's the usual balance between having one System that can do much and anotherone that does much less. Guess which one usually is more simple to use. And please don't judge CORBA by it's C bindings... OO in C is really ugly to start with, adding location transparency does not really help to make it more beautiful.

Your points are not true either, please read the CORBA specs before making such false claims.

And finally I want to mention an additional advantage of CORBA: It does *NOT* use port 80 and does *NOT* tunnel through all kinds of firewalls easily. Firewalls are build to stop people from doing stupid things, they are a good thing. If you need to access something through your firewall and you are not allowed to, go and ask your system administrator. He ususally has some very good reasons for what he is doing and will open the ports you need if there are no reasons not to.

Re:Yes

[einhverfr]

My uptime/stbility with Linux is a perfect record so far (2.5 years of solid use at home, no crashes). I have bluescreened/execeptioned/GPFed/protection faulted/hung every version of Windows I have ever come across

GPF's don't belong here-- I am sure that you, like I, have caused many Linux programs to segfault (the Linux equivalent of IPF and GPF in Windows 9x).

But I have experienced far fewer hangs and kernel-mode errors on Linux. In fact I have never had a kernel panic, and have only truly locked up my system a few times after I installed NVidia drivers (one screen saver causes this, and I have an Athlon 800 MHz).

I have a fucked memory socket on my PC at home - so I can only use 512MB of the 768MB that should fit. If I put the extra 256MB in, Linux works just fine, and Windows will boot, but as soon as I run DirectX WHAM, the machine freezes. That's probably because Linux doesn't ever get up enough speed to use the last 256MB RAM...but maybe not.

That is strange-- maybe there is some sort of error handling for this sort of issue. I would think that the disk buffers would hit it quickly.

SHOW ME A SINGLE PROGRAM THAT IS SUCCESSFUL BECAUS

[shredwheat]

Just about any of the "iApps" from macintosh are pretty popular and really give the users just the basics.

My experience

[Erwos]

Perhaps I missed something, but I've not had any problems with my GNOME2 desktop except for:
1. The file picker dialogue. Yes, I agree, it sucks. I've heard it's being overhauled, so I can wait on it. It's not _that_ bad.
2. Menu editing. This should be much, much easier than it currently is. I pray that GNOME 2.2 fixes this, because it's the biggest complaint I've heard so far in my LUG.

As for this "lack of configurability", I use metacity, and I think it's fine. What exactly am I supposed to be changing to seriously enhance my productivity that I can't already do now? A few more options (window placement!) would be great, yes, but seeing as I'm paying $0 for metacity, I can wait.

The article was a troll. I've got no problem with KDE, and use it sometimes, but I personally prefer GNOME. I think that trying to claim either one is horrible or even significantly better than the other is just stupid. Both have strengths and weaknesses.

-Erwos

Wrong

[Penguin Follower]

I'm not sure what version of Windows you are running, but unless it's nt/2k/xp I don't think it works with > 512megs of ram. I could be wrong on this, but I remember reading it in more than one place

You can run Win9x on more than 512MB of ram. (Notice I said can and not should ;) heh) The problem with more than 512MB of ram was getting "out of memory" messages when you clearly had plenty of RAM. See Here for the MS article on this problem.

(Summary): You can only have 512MB maximum at install time. Afterwards, you add a line to your system.ini file, under [vcache]:

[vcache]
MaxFileCache = 524288

That sets the maximum cache to 512MB. Then you can install the rest of your RAM.

Not quite...

[BrokenHalo]

The actual point of my original post was that I see no reason why Gnome and KDE should not coexist happily.

My little aside about the naming scheme (notice smiley?) was just that: an aside. I also said quite clearly that KDE does not suck. My feeling about the naming scheme is that it is unnecessarily gauche, but the fact that that is my feeling has no bearing on the fact that KDE's apps generally work pretty well.

Similarly, I don't expect everybody (or anybody, for that matter) to share my opinions about KDE's ugly icons. There's plenty of room for both environments, and having a choice is good for everyone.

Re:Yes

[twener]

Please, at least check your facts when you're pointed to being wrong. From kdebase/kicker/core/main.cpp:
KAboutData aboutData(appname.data(), I18N_NOOP("KDE Panel")
, KAboutData::License_BSD

Lost ever since Gnome2!

[crusher-1]

I'm an end user, don't know how to code. It have been using Linux for about 4 years. I first got a look at Linux when a friend gave me a RedHat 5.2 disk. Of course the default desktop/WM was Gnome. I seemed ok, I had to learn to use it but I knew this before I even installed the OS. Ok, so now I'm going to try to "get into" Linux. I go down and buy Corel Linux becuase I've heard (at the time) that is was the most "user" friendly. So, I tinker and buy a big book about Corel Linux - I have the choice of many desktops and try them all. I find my self split between KDE and Gnome, but spend most of my time with Gnome because "It made sense to me"!

So, I get a little frustrated with Corel because I find out the the Deb way of doing things is more oriented to the Unix knowledgable and I'm in learning mode big time and am getting nowwhere. So, I get Mandrake - a KDE centric distro. I still had a functioning and useful Gnome interface and would often use both. I like many things about Gnome. It had some very nice programs/applets and I found them both useful and cogent. However, being a drone from the Windows world I found that I could figure things out in KDE a little better. I learned more about the way Linux worked and how to get things done in all aspects from configuring Nvidia drivers and installing games, to using word processors, to tweak/customizing my Desktop to do what I wanted to. This was in the days of Gnome 1.2 and when 1.4 came out I upgrade because I was hoping that it would be a bit better - and all in all it was.

Now, I get tired of Mandrake and decide to try SuSE 7.1. I learn that this is where the "division" between the KDE and Gnome camps becomes evident. In SuSE 7.1 Gnome worked as well as any other distro I used. But I noticed that there were a plethora of updates and refinements for KDE while Gnome only occasionally had new updates and fixes. So, I became KDE centric myself. It seemed to me that the level of development was going at a faster pace and tended to be more in line with my expectation about what I wanted from a desktop.

Well, as time went by, I became more and more disenchanted with Gnome. It seemed to become more obtuse and far less intuitive as time went by. Then the Eazel debacle and Nautilus. Frankly, I hate it. Nautilus is a pain for me. I also became quite upset with all the hype around Eazel and Nautilus especially since the main stream marketeers and "Industry" (read end-user/corporate centric) publications and advertisers were touting this as the Linux "desktop" break-in killer app. I never bought it and when Eazel folded and brought all the negative press about "Linux will never be mainstream" statements that cited Eazel and Nautilus as proof of this I was extremely unhappy - as a Linux advocate I felt this did more damage than good and honestly wish Eazel had never happened.

So, I tried Ximians desktop. It was far better IMHO than anything I tried from Gnome.org. Many of the things I tried from Gnome.org seemed broken, at least the Ximians product had a high degree of funtionality. The only thing that bothered me about Ximian was it tended to take over in situations I didn't want it to. I also gave up in Gnome because I personally didn't find the "help" and "howtos" to very useful. The documentation for an end-user is next to useless IMHO. All I get is instructions about how to turn on features. Trouble shooting is not mentioned very often and configuration of the deeper aspect of Gnome is lacking to say the least - unless you want to go straight to coding - no middle ground. It's either how to set the view or developers pages that focus on contibuting to the Gnome project.

Ok, so now Gnome 2 is due out. I've been waiting with my fingers crossed for a while. I always like the "look" of Gnome. It's elegant and smooth. I just never like the fact that they made it so hard for someone as myself to get things done under the hood. KDE allowed me to do this and many that I've talked to prefer KDE as end-user.

I don't want a Windblows clone. However, certain aspect of a gui are fairly universal. What I find in Gnome to is that it is less than easy to use. It is broken - I learned to understand Sawfish. I was very disappointed when Sawfish with Gnome was broken. At first I thought it was because I used SuSE, but after searching the developers forums I came to the conclusion that Sawfish was indeed broken as evident by many of the devs statements regarding this.

Nautilus and MetaCity are very unfriendly as far as I'm concerned. I can't get the damn thing to work most of the time. I tried to get Sawfish2 to work but no luck. I have given up on Gnome for the time being. I spend too much time trying to get it to work rather then just "doing work". I have become very comfortable and fond of KDE. But a problem still exists for me. Choice! Yes choice. I may choose not to use Gnome, but I would rather make that decision because I found a WM I like to use based on how one works in deference to the other - not because the other works poorly or in some cases not at all. Sure, KDE is far from perfect but I can spend more time doing the things I need to rather than trying to figure out why one is not working or giving me messages like the help files don't have a program to view them and then no information on how to set this up or any other workaround.

Gnome being in the state it is at present isn't an option for me. Many of the apps are great, e.g. Grip - fast, easy, effective, and the same can be said for GnomeMeeting, Galeon, Evolution, etc. But, the desktop itself isn't cutting it IMHO.
Theres seems to be an underlying consensus that those at the Gnome development camp are in a quandry of sorts. I was surprised to say the least when I heard that the Gnome developers contacted those at the KDE camp to work in interoperablitly and common interface issues. Not that this is a good or bad Idea, but given the rivalry of the past few couple of years I was taken aback.

I would really like to see Gnome come back to the full and well rounded Desktop that both gurus and end-users could be comfortable with - at present, unless your very well versed in code and config Gnome is essentially the least attractive option IMHO

No, flame intended - If you Like Gnome use it becuase for me that's what Linux is all about - Choice and Functionality.

Re:KDE fonts suck

[twener]

KDE has anti-aliased fonts for much longer than Gnome (since Qt 2.2) and uses the same libraries which render the fonts than Gnome. KDE doesn't suck here with freetype 2.1.4rc2 and byte code interpreter enabled.

Re:GNOME vs KDE

[twener]

> KDE makes no such claims of 'it works when we ship it'

Of course it works, there is no such thing in KDE's release history that this has to be emphasized every time.

> and doesn't mention Solaris under the 'distro' section.

Is Solaris a distro or an own operating system? See http://promo.kde.org/kde_systems.php if you want to see Solaris being listed.

> When they get around to supporting more than Linux, then I'll give a damn.

Solaris and BSD are supported. There are KDE developers developing on these platforms.

http://freebsd.kde.org/
http://mail.kde.org/mai lman/listinfo/kde-nonlinux
http://mail.kde.org/ma ilman/listinfo/kde-solaris
http://fink.sourceforg e.net/pdb/section.php/kde

Posting from Miguel de Icaza

[twener]

See this posting from Miguel de Icaza which Havoc Pennington hopes will not appear on Slashdot:

Miguel de Icaza: Reading today's Slashdot comments, you can see that our desktop is falling behind stability-wise and feature wise to KDE. [..] I probably mentioned this before, but when I went to Mexico in December to the facility where we launched gnome, they had all switched to KDE3.

Re:Posting from Miguel de Icaza

[pair-a-noyd]

reading the entire message on the link you posted shows how he feels about /.ers

After seeing that he feels /. folks are such low-lifes you can be damn sure that I'll NEVER use Gnome..

BUH-BYE beaner, go choke on a taco....
Got to go, I have a date to remove the (unused anyway) install of Gnome from my box. I had it there just in case, but oh well....

Re:Posting from Miguel de Icaza

[mill]

Waaah! I suggest you look in the archives of the KDE mailing list and you will find the exact same sentiment towards slashdotters. And frankly on the whole they are right on. /mill

Re:Depends what you mean by Gnome...

[haggar]

I know shoft-pageup/pagedown works, but for log reading and such, line-by-line is more hlepful, as you can see the context more clearly.

KDE 3.1 rox!

[pair-a-noyd]

Gnome sucks, it's for wet diapered weenies and girly-bois..
I mean really, use Gnome you might as well use winbloz..

Get the Texstar KDE 3.1 and enjoy! My friends all use older versions (boner machines) and they are jealous because mine just looks way too nice and is oh so slick..

Thanks to Texstar!!

Re:KDE 3.1 rox!

[pair-a-noyd]

Buttnugget. It's obvious that you haven't seen KDE 3.1
It's a total rework. Everything is revamped and configurable. It looks excellent.

I just screwed with Gnome yesterday and I hate it. What a stupid ass package. I guess you have to be DRUNK ON TEQUILLA to enjoy it...

Re:Yes

[0x0d0a]

I did check it. It's either wrong in the source, or RH's packages are wrong, because the package license field in kdeaddons-kicker reads "GPL". I'd be inclined to say the package, except that I know that kdelibs are GPL, which makes it illegal to write non-GPLed software based on them. So unless the kicker team has an entirely illegal piece of software *and* my package info is wrong, it's GPL-licensed.

Re:Yes

[bigchris]

The thing here is that if you get a segfault, and you've compiled in debugging symbols then you can get gdb to do a backtrace and send it to the developer who can then try to work out the problem. I'm unsure HOW you do that in Windows.

The right tool for the job?

[maxwell demon]

Just wondering if anyone has ever considered .Xdefaults syntax.

It's an existing syntax (used for lots of X programs), and has IMHO more flexibility for configuration than XML (and definitively more than Win3.11 .INI) - how do you code the analog of "foo*bar.baz: abc" or even "*bar.baz: abc" in XML?

And it's for sure more readable as well.

Re: Your very bad example

[MonkeyDluffy]

xml shuts out the user.

If you cannot understand a XML config file, you probably shouldn't be editing a non-XML config file anyway.

-MDL

"Lame" is lame

[Halloween Jack]

Let's try to come up with a term of contempt that isn't being used by every script kiddie in Poughkeepsie. Hmm, should probably replace "script kiddie" too.

Imperfect tests are better than no tests.

[jotaeleemeese]

The period of time when people decide to use something or not is during those intitial 15 minutes you so much deride.

Provide 15 minutes that are a joy to experience and you have got a new user that will be willing to learn later because he has not been ostracized by the assumptions of the designers.

Provide 15 minutes in which you can't get anything done as a newbie and you have lost an user which will very difficult to turn around to support you in the future.

The decission to concentrate in newbies taking into account that OS projects do not normally have the luxury of usability tests is a decision that is wise and that will pay in the long run.

I like CDE

[jotaeleemeese]

And ape I am not, although primate I am, Sir. But you are one too. Do you fancy a banana?

10Ghz? You write more like 60Hz

[jotaeleemeese]

With GNOME you can write commercial applications without paying anybody a dime (you have to open the source).

With KDE (Via Trolltech's Qt) you have to pay to do the same.

Now Mr. 1Hz, which part of freedom don't you understand?

Re:Similar feelings here

[el_chicano]

I don't give a rat's ass about the language it's coded in. I care about whether I can extend the goddamn thing to make things work *exactly* the way I like. For example, I like my thumb button to raise, focus, and start doing a drag on a given window, not passing an event through. AfterStep lets me hack up somethign vaguely correct. Sawfish lets me do it right.

Yeah, Sawfish is pretty cool. I mainly used it for VNC sessions to an old DeadRat server I was given. Trying to upgrade (i.e., going beyond RPM versions) broke something due to some dependency related stuff.

I don't understand why Sawfish has to have all these different, independent parts which all update at different, irregular intervals, some or all of said upgrades may or may not be needed to get the next version of Sawfish to compile. The author of Sawfish also chose to create his own compiled guile-like language, rep, instead of using guile which I found rather odd.

Finally I just gave up and switched to blackbox. That has the upside of freeing up lots of RAM because while Sawfish itself is small, the GNOME infrastructure adds at lot of overhead to the whole thing, which is silly when all you want to do is run a VNC session. I just checked and running blackbox I have 80M free RAM, when in Sawfish I would be hitting swap. Time to add some more Apache and MySQL processes!

For desktop use I tend to prefer KDE, mainly because I use Mandrake. KDE and Mandrake 9.0 are a wonderful combination, but me using KDE is not about QT being like Windows, I used OS/2 when Win95 was vaporware. I started with Slackware 2/3, but after getting Mandrake 6 (which was approaching user friendliness with lots of apps), I switched and never looked back.

Sure there are a few features/bugs (the stupid Web-URL thingy that keeps popping up) but no potential showstoppers other than having to recompile the kernel on my Dell at work. Sure I could have learned to turn off that annoying Web-URL by now but I guess I am not as freakishly compulsive about my configuration as you are.

My advice? Take a chill pill, dude! :->

I was on the fence...

[strombrg]

...about reading this article. Give the sensationalistic journalism a hit? Nah, rather not. But I'd like to have the knowledge about the warts of such a nice system.

In the end I clicked the link. And it didn't render correctly in galeon. So I decided to ignore the article afterall.

Re:I was on the fence...

[Trolling4Dollars]

Poetry... Pure poetry.

Re:Yes

[BlackHawk-666]

Windows can also have debug symbols compiled in, and if you have a development environment installed it will give you the option to debug using that environment when protection faults occur. Mostly however that is just plain irritating - since no-one ships commercial products with debug code, you would only be able to see a disassembly instead of the code itself. Also, the requirement for having an expensive development environment installed takes it out of the hands of most people. Linux just does this better.

Re:lets "debunk" those first screen shot aguments.

[t_hunger]

It's allways the same and I'm getting so tiered of this:

Apple invents something. OSS/free software community ignores it.

Microsoft reinvents the same thing (usually poorly) a couple of years later. OSS/free software community claims that it kills productivity, that it is bloat or insecure. If nobody finds some good argument then it is claimed to be eye-candy only and "Some of us don't need it sugar coated." Anyone claiming otherwise is called names like "wank gnu newbee or a closet case ms lover" to quote some of the better:-)

About one year later somebody hacks something similar together (be it a new windowmanager, X Extension, network tool, application, whatever), and suddenly everybody agrees that it is the best thing since sliced bread and way better then everything that was ever available

We had that with desktop environmants (the command line is so much better!). Yes, it is for those of us that remember all the commandline options from all programs they've ever used. I for one prefer the CLI for everything I do regulary and a GUI for all the stuff I do so rarely that I keep forgetting the details on how to do it in CLI-mode. And yes, Linux only has poor reimplementations of Apple's ideas as far as desktop environmants are concerned.

Then there were transparent windows ("eye candy" turned into "looks so cool").

Next will be rendevous (zero administration network configuration) and vector based GUIs (just look at all the hype about some really simple SVG lib we recently had here on /.).

GNOME vs KDE inner workings

[sploxx]

First of all: I'm a gnome user, don't hurt me :)

I may be totally wrong, but isn't KDE still based on the libqt which is containing (like the "big bad M$" does it) everything from simple containers to UI widgets?
I think this is KDE's Achilles' heel. And, on the other side, it's GNOMEs "problem" to grew, also.
It is very hard for someone outside of the KDE world to use anything KDE provides. I think there is NO program which uses KDE libs but is actually a gnome program. KDEs libraries are breaching abstraction layers at too many points.
But there are several programs which use libraries originating from the GNOME project, libraries such as libxml. There are also console programs using libxml, but they don't require a whole UI enabled libqt... (an argument for the embedded market).
I think if KDE would restructure their libraries a bit and open them for other uses out of KDE, a merger of both worlds is still possible.