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GNOME in the Year of the Monkey
An anonymous reader writes "GNOME Foundation's Tim Ney describes some of
the project's efforts marking the Lunar New
Year of the Monkey with a tip, "Never sit with your back to a lobbyist for proprietary software." GNOME is rapidly becoming popular
in developing countries and you can donate to
help."
Developers, Developers, Developers!!!!!
:(
We all know where this is going to lead
You can't expect to wield supreme executive power, just because some watery tart threw a sword at you
I'm a big fan of KDE, and a few years ago I found Gnome a little bit cumbersome to use on a daily basis (this is not troll... those days I didn't find KDE too special either).
However... recently, I've tried it once or twice, and man, how it has improved!
I always liked Gnome because of its GTK+ (C coding is great!).
I'm even considering switching to it, thanks to Dropline Gnome, a version especially crafted for Slackware. I'd like some opinions from its users (Dropline Gnome).... anyone around?
Strictly, the Chinese calendar is a lunisolar calendar, not a lunar calendar. I believe that lunisolar calendars have leap years whenever 12 months won't fit easily into one year. Hopefully this means Gnome will enjoy many leaps;)
This is where the serious fun begins.
GNOME Foundation's Tim Ney describes some of the project's efforts marking the Lunar New Year of the Monkey with a tip.
Huh? Year of The Monkey can only be good for Ximian Desktop.
GNOME's logo desn't look like a monkey's print anyway.
The IT section color scheme sucks.
I have NO idea why anyone would choose vi over EMACS. Perhaps it's time the supporters of VIM and BSD switched to supporting EMACS instead.
Also does anyone use Macs these days? I just got an Amiga and it is shhweeet. Decent pre-emptive multitasking and a real command line, not like a Mac where you have to install the Multifinder just to have more than one app running at once. Command line? Ha.
Anyway, I'm converted to Amigas and EMACS forever, I do hope the community gains control over its senses and switches to supporting just these two.
I must confess - I am an WinXP/2000 user. My Linux experience, currently is limited to Cygwin, which is more than enough for me.
;-)
But it isn't always like that - once per year, I try to install 2-3 distro's, and watch what will come out of it.
Usually everything goes smooth, until I have to choose - KDE or Gnome. And to be honest, while KDE isn't always feel comfortable for me, its A LOT easier to understand than Gnome, especially when you switch from Win.
The only positive point about Gnome over KDE, I occassionaly have in mind, is that it ran without any problem with VMWare, while KDE needed some tweaking (Slackware it was, probably.. Not sure)
But after a while, I usually remove partition(s) with linux(and swap) altogether.. That thing, yet not for me, for various (well known) reasons.
Now, mod me down for using WinXP
Dephine URL
How is GNOME becoming popular in developing countries when it's geared towards newer machines? I mean, you need at least 128M of RAM to run GNOME smoothly, and many systems in developing countries have 16, 32 and (just possibly) 64M of RAM. I would've thought they'd use IceWM or perhaps XFce.
This is the only problem I see for GNOME and KDE. Powerful and flexible as they are, they're so bulky and huge that they don't feel much faster than Windows XP. If we want to give people an incentive to switch, we want them to FEEL that their machines are faster under Linux. Instead, you can see on message boards around the Net first-timers stating that Linux is "slow" and "bloated" because of this.
I hope at some point KDE and GNOME developers really make headway into the bloat and performance, because otherwise it's not only unusable for any machine built earlier than 2001, but also doesn't give a good impression. Linux was always known as the speedy, svelte and lighweight OS - this image is being eroded.
I think that initially, Gnome did lag behind KDE in many areas. Qt had a lot of advantages over the old GTK. The big advantage that Gnome has is a much more open development model. Gnome is not only friendly to its users, but also its developers. This has encouraged Gnome to grow faster than KDE (and GTK faster than Qt). Right now, I'd place Gnome and KDE as being about equal to eachother. I switched completely to Gnome because I believe that Gnome will continue to surpass KDE.
Yeah - I use GNOME. Why you ask?
1. More consistentcy between apps due to the Human Interface Guidelines
2. Nicer interface layout. Better spacing, and I like the OS 9 style menu up the top, feels less like a windows clone, taking the best from both worlds. Also less flashly, more standard than KDE.
3. Options. Apart from Gconf, GNOME comes with far less options. KDE is nice, but trying to locate an option in the KDE Control Center is hell. GConf is a far better way to go.
4. Apps. GNOME/GTK2+ has all the apps I want. Gems like Rhythmbox and the GIMP when there is nothing that compares on KDE. Also the old standbys like Abiword, Bluefish and Gnumeric.
5. Lastly, the GNOME community! Sites like planet.gnome.org and gnomedesktop.org help GNOME rock just that much more.
1. More consistentcy between apps due to the Human Interface Guidelines
:)
This used to be a point in favor of KDE didn't it?
2. Nicer interface layout. Better spacing, and I like the OS 9 style menu up the top, feels less like a windows clone, taking the best from both worlds. Also less flashly, more standard than KDE.
The menubar isn't OS 9 style. KDE can do an OS9 style menubar up the top, GTK can't. OS9 style menubars are per-application, not for the desktop. The two are incomparible because they create a different user intereface style, one that focusses on the application more than the file.
(Disclaimer: I prefer Gnome-apps to KDE apps, but run ROX.)
Look out!
Note that desktop environment usability should not be judged on its similarity to another. If you've only ever used Windows, and you like the Windows interface, and you judge everything against Windows, KDE may seem more appealing. But that doesn't mean KDE (or GNOME) is better.
For many of us, the Windows interface is not ideal. I might also question the quality of the SuSE GNOME environment, too, since they have long been a KDE based desktop (confession: I've never tried it). Try a GNOME-centric distribution (like Fedora) and try GNOME, you might find it more appealing.
Finally, GNOME's widgets can all be themed, did you only use the default? art.gnome.org hosts tons of widget, window and icon themes with which I could nearly convince you your environment was any number of other OSs.
There is no need to use a SlashDot sig for SEO...
The GNOME people have always been bold in trying out new strategies. After the gnome2 drive to simplify the UI and move away from featuritis it has come a long way. There are some exciting developments like dashboard, gstreamer and desktop integration bounty hunt. Watch out for 2.6!
WinXP is it's own punishment. I can swap out my motherboard, change my video card, and use a different hard drive, re-install Linux in 15 minutes, and never have to report to Gates Inc as to why the registry keys don't add up.
But I see your point. KDE is more like MS Windows, and you can even make it look and feel almost exactly the same, though most Windows users never figure out the "how", and most Linux users never justify the "why". Gnome is a little more light-weight though, and if it weren't for the smelly foot logo, I'd probably have stuck with it.
It doesn't surprise me that we've seen a lot of push for Gnome recently. They do have a better deal for a would-be developer. KDE's license is just too scary for those of us who wear protective tin-foil head gear.
For right now I need a more compelling reason to switch to Gnome. "Just 'cause," isn't good enough. I need solid reasons... That, and a quick primer on converting my e-mail archives out of KMail...
I was a KDE user for the first half of 2003 and then switched to Gnome to see what was up, and stayed with it until now. The main reason for me to switch was almost all of the apps I was using were using GTK+. Gnome 2.4 did everything KDE did, and it is faster and lighter. Nautilus was a bit weak before, but recent versions are pretty good. Gnome has a lot of nice things once you spend a little time learning it. It looks better than KDE. Try Gnome with Industrial window borders and Industrial controls (and any icon set). Its fast and nice looking. I could never get KDE to look good, and I've tried a lot of themes.
The ability to drag and drop just about anything is good. Try dragging and dropping a file from Nautilus into a Gnome file dialog. It switches to that file and its directory. That eliminates any complaints I have about the file dialog. Also, little things, like the theme configuration menu, you can drag and drop a theme onto it. You can drag and drop a file onto a program shortcut to execute the program with that file.
Gnome panels are pretty nice. All the little mini-apps you can add to them are cool (weather, mail checker, etc). The drawers are pretty nice, too.
And then there's the apps:
Gaim, Evolution, Rhythmbox, Totem, Gimp, etc.
KDE is great, but Gnome is great, too, and fits much better for me and has made my Linux experience much nicer.
BTW, I know I'm responding to a troll (the part about supporting a single GUI gave it away), but I'm sure someone is truthfully saying exactly what this guy is saying.
If you haven't, try the latest Gnome. And I'll try the next KDE release when it comes out of beta. I'm not committed to either, I'll use the one that works the best for me. Right now that one is Gnome.
...I've always found slashdot to be rather GNOME-hostile, with many vocal critics always bashing it rather nastily (especially in comparison to the more "integrated" KDE). I use GNOME, and I don't get the hang-ups over "integration" and "consistency". I care more about applications (My favourites are Evolution, Gaim, Galeon, XChat...all of them GTK apps), so even though I don't require GNOME to use them, it seems all of my favourite stuff uses GTK, so using the GTK-based GNOME is only natural.
"Backups are for wimps. Real men upload their data to an FTP site and have everyone else mirror it." -- Linus Torvalds
Heh, the theme you linked to prove your point was only uploaded today. Downloads per day at art.gnome.org is calculated over a very recent period. (Like maybe even 24 hours.) So popularity is nowhere close to indicating the most number of downloads.
GNOME users are not some homogeneous group. (Are the other desktop's users?) We come from Mac9, MacX, Win95, WinXP, KDE, Solaris, the command line, and others. So to define your "one interface" is perhaps not as simple as you seem to think it is.
Half of the real question about the quality of a desktop environment is how well it works for someone who has never used a computer before. (The other half being for someone who has.)
There is no need to use a SlashDot sig for SEO...
Right now, I'd place Gnome and KDE as being about equal to eachother. I switched completely to Gnome because I believe that Gnome will continue to surpass KDE.
Have you tried KDE 3.2 beta or rc? I'm currently running on KDE 3.2 rc, and I'm not all that sure whether Gnome will continue (or even start) surpassing KDE. The 3.2 preversions still have some bugs, but boy, is it snappy and sweet! This was the first time a Linux desktop passed winxp in point-and-drool usability.
Gnome is doing alright, I guess, but it still doesn't approach KDE. I'm waiting for Gnome 2.6, hoping it will be snappier (and less buggy) than 2.4. There are no reasons why Gnome wouldn't "win" KDE in the "end", with all the corporate support (at least in spirit, if not developer hours) and superior licensing (LGPL vs. GPL-or-pay-up), but meanwhile, KDE continues to Work Better (tm) and I will continue using it on my home desktop. I give every new version of Gnome a chance, trying to keep using it for a few weeks or so, but I always go back to KDE.
For starters, Konqueror just kills Nautilus. Does Nautilus have a shortage of developers or what is wrong with them? If Konqueror could just be ported to use GTK...
Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak