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KDE 3.2: A User's Perspective
Karma Sucks writes "In KDE 3.2 - A User's Perspective (mirror), W. Kendrick gives an incredible visual overview of some of the lesser known features of KDE. Together with a recent article on GNOME, it's become clear that the Linux desktop has all but surpassed proprietary alternatives."
has all but surpassed proprietary alternatives.
Comment 1: Haven't we been here for years, now? "Linux is almost ready", "We've all but surpassed windows", etc.
Comment 2: We won't have a desktop that can compete with windows until we still fix the stupid things that are inherent to x-windows WM's. All I want in life is to be able to cut-and-paste reliably between applications. Text, and pictures, mind you, and in a perfect world, spreadsheet data. You know what else would be nice? If it were faster - i.e. didn't have to go through unix sockets to do anything. Or if it didn't have to render all image files into bitmaps offscreen to display them.
No, we've still got a long way to go. I do really like a good gnome desktop running ximian, it's true, and it's getting better. But, sorry, we're no where near the "it just works" of apple / winxp.
~Will
sig?
I write in my journal
>Linux has been desktop-ready since 1991, it's just that the majority of users haven't been ready for it.
Thats a great attitude. "Its not confusing, you just don't understand it."
Do you also think that the mouse is a lazy's mans crutch?
Users are where they want to be. Software is the part that needs to go to the users, not the other way around.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
Really there isn't just one question to ask. You could ask any of the following.
1. The one that usually gets asked: "Will Windows users who switch find Linux easier to use than windows?" This is obviously a loaded question. making this the standard pretty much ensures that Windows come out ahead.
2. A little better: "If first time users are plunked down in front of a bunch of desktops, which one will they find easiest to use?" This is at least a fair comparison, but given that few users are first time users, the answer isn't very interesting (and I think OS X wins).
3. Better still: "After users have learned to use a bunch of different desktops, which one do they find easiest to use, and most useful?" This is a fair questions, and the answer actually matters. I use Windows, OS X, and Linux (Gnome usually) on a daily basis and I think Linux wins this one.
4. Best: "Which desktop combines a managable learning curve, and is most useful onced learned." This is really where Linux runs into problems. For some people the learning curve on Linux is still too steep. If they learned how to use it they would find it more useful, and even easier to use, but getting to that point is still too hard for some people.
Linux has been desktop-ready since 1991, it's just that the majority of users haven't been ready for it.
God, how I hate reading this. It's people like you with arrogant statements like your's above that give the OpenSource community a bad reputation.
Face it: What is revolutionary about GNU/Linux is its model of development and distributuion. Technically speaking, for a typical Joe User there is little or nothing new. Regarding the GUI, we mostly take the best (or what we perceive to be best) from other OS, like Windows, MacOS, Irix, AmigaOS etc. Nothing wrong with this approach, but it's not that the Linux GUI is constantly 5 years ahaed of what users can grasp.
Excellence: Moderate (mostly affected by comments on your karma)
Let me play the devil's advocate... I feel strongly about the opensource philosophy that someone would be able to label me a "zealot."
/etc/fstab, change all hda's to hde's, chroot to that partition, run lilo, and reboot. This would be a nightmare for someone that is not familiar with the details of linux.
However, I think there are some things that are still not "there yet" with linux. Here is something that happenned to me yesterday. I added a new disk on my dell optiplex, moved the primary IDE cable to secondary (long set of wrong experimentation to get the bios to recognize the disk). The windows (xp) side booted off fine and said new devices were added, blah blah...
The linux partition made me go crazy. It decided that the original hda is now hde (the disk was a SATA disk, so the ide cabling change shouldn't have messed the configuration badly). Anyway, the system "paniced" and the only way to get it back was to use a linux boot disk, run rescue, mount the partitions, edit
It is not just a question of "are windows users ready". It is a question of, "do things fail gracefully"? Or, "do simple things get reconfigured automatically in a decent manner?"
Same thing with CD/DVD burning. The options are a bit un-intuitive, and I couldn't get a DVD burned on linux to mount on any other system (though it is an ISO9660 -- may be a problem with the options I provided, but as a person that dragged a bunch of files and burned onto the DVD, I would expect that the program defaults are going to be decent).
Anyway, the system I have is Mandrake 9.2, and 10.0 beta. DVD issues were with 9.2 version.
S
"After users have learned to use a bunch of different desktops, which one do they find easiest to use, and most useful?" This is a fair questions, and the answer actually matters. I use Windows, OS X, and Linux (Gnome usually) on a daily basis and I think Linux wins this one.
I think, while this may be the case, it's actually the applications we should look on. To me, a desktop on you computer is like the physical desktop at work: Sure, some come with nice drawers and others com with tables that can be lifted electrically, rather than by cranking. But it's the tools you use for work that matter, not how neatly they are sorted.
To me, any improvement on Gimp, OpenOffice, (etc) is more important than some new feature in KDE or Gnome. Because the desktop is just a way to get to the applications I do my work in.
Excellence: Moderate (mostly affected by comments on your karma)
I think the (valid, somewhat) point he makes is that Linux as such is a very viable desktop OS. However, most people don't want a desktop OS, they want to use what they know - MS Windows. People are trained to use Windows, and other desktops, while good alternatives, are still different.
I wish reviewers would choose a nice theme before making screenshots. Antialiased fonts have been available for at least a couple of years! I know, I know, this review is for showing off the functionality, not the looks, but newbies looking at it might get the wrong idea... Its definitely difficult for new users to grasp the level of configurability of the UI. My LUG did a "linux demo day" a while back, and one of the questions a visitor asked me was "all these desktops seem look different. what does linux look like by default"? I didn't have much luck telling him there wasn't one, and that it was distro and even version specific. So again, it would be nice if reviewers paid attention to these little things.
Key points being...
Until those things become standard across all distros, Linux taking over the desktop will be a sad joke.
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
Looking at those KDE screenshots reminds me a lot of this old cartoon.
Showing off pictures like this or this just shows that people don't quite get it -- it like they just managed to reinvent Windows 95 plus a couple extra features.
Meanwhile the modern Windows user is used to looking at stuff like this. Totally different user experience to what you see on 'last generation' desktops. (Of course, all the Windows users on slashdot turn off this fluff, but after watching a totally new user play around with XP a bit, you realize that "task-oriented" features are actually helpful.)
I'm not saying that KDE isn't a good "power user" desktop, but the proprietary folks keep raising the bar, and having a "Start Menu" isn't enough to cut it anymore.
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
When you can install an application with out spending hours or days tracking down various RPMs, wrestling with dependencies and conflicts, or having to update gtk2.0+-0.2.2.1 or some other "obscure" thing, then it'll be ready. It's fine for people who like to do this kind of thing, but all people in the "real world" want is to be able to install an application and have it work correctly the first time. When you can download a file and install it in one click... then linux will be ready for the average user's desktop. All the rest of this stuff is just eye candy. Pretty, but not what's really needed.
Insert witty
> People are trained to use Windows
Most people don't know how to use Windows. And what they do know can be directly applied to most windowmanagers for Linux today. They doubleclick an icon, use a start menu, click on the file menu or click toolbars, they enter data into text fields or use drop down boxes, click the X to close the window, resize windows. It's all the same really.
It's not what people want really though; it's what they *think* they want. They go into a computer store and say, "I need a computer to run MSWord or MSExcel." Instead, they should say, "I need to do wordprocessing or spreadsheets." Linux can accomplish these tasks quite admirably.
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
I've no idea why he has AA turned off (ok, some people don't like it in the 9-14pt range, but you've gotta be insane not to use at the higher pts), and kde supports any fonts that X does, i.e. TTF for example. Personally, I use the microsoft fonts (verdana etc) off my doze games rig, but the free bitstream vera ones are also very nice.
Combine that with the ugly colours, scheme and windeco, it looks like something from mid 90's.
If you want a good example of some kde styles, you've got plastik (included by default in 3.2), style and windeco
baghira, a mac clone
knifty, new, my current favourite
and of course, luna if you just luuurve the windows look.
Remember kids, it's all fun and games until someone commits wholesale galactic genocide.