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The Definite Desktop Environment Comparison
Gentu writes "OSNews posted a very long and interesting comparison between the most popular desktop environments today: Windows XP Luna, Mac OS X Aqua, BeOS/Zeta and Unix's KDE and Gnome. Some of the points in the article can be thought to be 'subjective', but overall many good points are made and it seems that there is room for improvement for all DEs."
If the dock were more customizable, the ability to have single-left-clickable appleting from the dock, and a few other minor gripes, I'd be happy. As it is, I hide the dock for as long as possible, unless I absolutely need it.
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
From the article:
The best usability I get is from Windows XP... The user environment does what I expect it to do at any time. 95% of the applications carry out user-interactivity actions exactly like another Windows app would do it... It is just the 'standard', we like it or not.
Ok, this bugs me. The author is basing usability on what he's used to, not necessarily what is most usable. I can't dispute the fact that Windows apps tend to be consistent -- consistency is one of the most important components of usability). But if something is consistently crappy, it's still crappy. Just because someone is trained on one interface and is used to it doesn't make it highly usable from an objective point of view.
It reminds me of a story about a lady who always cut the ends off of the ham before she baked it. One day her kid asked her why she did it. She answered, "because that's the way my mother always did it." She got curious about it though, so she called her mother. Her mother said that she cut off the ends of the ham because that's the way she used to do it. So the lady called her mother's mother, who told her that she cut off the ends of the ham because it wouldn't fit in the pan otherwise.
All that to say that just because you're used to something doesn't mean it is the best way to do it.
47% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
Uh huh. And that's why Windows apps still don't use layout management?
How many times have you seen:
+ Fixed sized text boxes that are 5 lines long.
+ Controls that extend off the edge of the window.
+ Fixed sized windows and dialog boxes.
And no, layout management in Windows Forms doesn't count. Docking is *terrible*. Controls Don't cooperate with each other causing docked and anchored controls to overlap each other.
I've used both extensively, and KDE wipes the floor with XP. You say I'm lying? Let's do a feature comparison then, shall we?
.NET style.
t ml
1. Which DE comes with tabbed browsing and popup window suppression in its web browser?
KDE
2. Which DE has a file manager that lets you right click on a directory and open up a terminal right in that directory?
KDE
3. Which DE has multiple desktop abilities out of the box?
KDE
4. Which DE comes with an office suite?
KDE
5. Which DE comes with a download manager?
KDE (3.1 comes with kget which integrates with konqueror)
6. Which DE comes with source code and its own professional IDE -- all for free?
KDE
7. Which DE pisses you off with product activation?
XP
'nuff said
Oh, and don't use Keramik, it sucks, use something like the new
Screenshot of my desktop:
http://www.insanebaboon.netfirms.com/desktop2.h
OK, I'm not here to advertise for KDE, and I am in no way affiliated with KDE. With that said, I love KDE 3.1
KDE 3 was nice, but it still lacked some things. With 3.1, I feel like I'm in a clean, visually appealing, fast(yes fast in X) desktop environment. Some people say that the visual appearance of a desktop environment is not important, but considering that I have to look at it for at least 1/2 of my day, I'd prefer it looked inviting. I'd like to hear what other people have to say about this or Gnome.
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"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."
-- George Orwell
what's up with them in windows?
combo boxes STILL suck.
the rows of tabs that flip and change position are the single most unnerving UI element ever conceived. you click one element and the entire geography of the context you're in flips. what was stable a millisecond ago is now reorded.
it's like a battle axe poised against the very wiring of your short term memory.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Microsoft would spend their money better if they applied GUI improments in uniform way. The most annoying feature of XP is that the new fatter start menu doesn't stay open when you move diagonally to the right and accidently touch a desktop pixel. This was copied from Macs a while ago for pull-down sub-menus but no one thought: "Hey we should do the same thing if the window opens up instead of down!" I typically have the menu close on me going to the run menu when I don't want to 8-click through to get to something like calc, paint, or cmd. Even Gnome keeps the menus open and doesn't force you to mouse orthogonally.
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice, in practice there is.
Did MS really write this OS?
Think, write, think, edit, think...then post.
UNIX-based systems have (what I consider) an elegant way of dealing with partitions. Every partition is 'grafted' onto the root tree.
Windows 2000 and XP can do a single root (with the exception of the floppy drive) if you're into that sort of thing. You can mount a drive anywhere on an NTFS partition. Use the Assign command in the DiskPart command-line utility, or in disk manager, right-click on the partition and pick Change Drive Letters and Paths. Most people are used to drive letters though, so you don't see this feature used very often.
It was far from Definitive. For the Unix side there should have been some light weight and middle wieght Window Managers such as:
Blackbox or Fluxbox
Window Maker
Enlightenment
Blackbox will do everything you need -- fast.
I am using KDE though because I like the in my face eye candy.
If a desktop is inseperable from the rest of the OS, there sould have been a catagory for baggage.
XP destop bring the following baggage that can not be left behind:
Spyware
Product activation
trojan EULA's for service packs
Religion is the main cause of atheism.