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eWeek Reviews Gnome 2.8 And KDE 3.3
prostoalex writes "eWeek Labs reviewed the latest editions of GNOME and KDE desktop environments, and for all the criteria that eWeek uses for evaluating the software products ranked 'good,' while usability, capability and reliability for both products ranked 'excellent.' The online version is missing the screenshots and ranking tables that the printed version has, but eWeek likes Evolution (for mail), Konqueror (for file management), Samba and Kopete. They dislike GConf (still complex and a hassle to use) on GNOME and KMail on KDE."
I haven't RTFAed yet, but Kmail is my favorite email app for commodity x86 hardware. Simple, clean, stable, fast, basically everything that evolution isn't.
Here are some GNOME and KDE screenshots.
You'd be looking for XFCE then.
XFCE is a powerful but lightweight UI for both older systems and 'power-user' implementations.
Both Gnome and KDE lead the way for moder UI implementations on *nixes and as such require modern hardware to go with them (in general).
Having said that, I've just installed KDE on a second user 1.7GHz Celeron M laptop with a piddling (by modern standards) 128MB ram and it positively flies! - No complaints here.
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
Apparently they don't like the fact that the down arrow scrolls through the message, instead of the message list. (In KMail, the left and right arrows are used to move through the message list.)
How are these any worse than a .kde or a .qt directory? Seriously.
...like I'm going to listen to eWeek.
I've got "MyYahoo" set as my homepage and their tech news stories are particularly disgusting. There was an exploit tool that was to be released under the GPL so the headline was " Open-Source Exploit Tool: 'Point, Click, Root' ". Mind you the tool attacks Windows and OSX machines, not Linux. But since it was released under the GPL, Open Source==Bad!
FUD! Just like when IDG reported the "double-free" CVS flaw in a story titled: "Search finds new holes in open source tool" (Notice, they reported this in July of 2004). After a little looking around I noticed that CERT released an advisory Feb. 2003!
Get your Unix fortune now!
I don't like KMail's html rendering. I have been using mozilla mail for over a year, and it renders beautifully. I have only had a couple of problem emails in the whole time I have used mozilla -- and those problems always were due to bad html.
just my $0.02
Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
I am starting to like the simplicity of Gnome these days. You may notice the menu insanity of KDE (eg konqueror 'other tabs' menu when you have websites with long titles...). But unfortunately neither completes me and I switch between the 2 all the time. Just to keep things even the thing I dislike about Gnome is it GUI slowness. A new kernel + staircase or nick's scheduler does help though. Strangely it is fine with plain nv drivers, but who the hell would use those.
I know you are psychotic, but please make an effort.
what linux needs is a desktop environment that uses a fast toolkit, and does what is needed without the extra bells and whistles.
For light desktops that aren't just pure IceWM or *box window management your best options are XFCE (which uses GTK+, but is still surprsingly light and fast), and E17 (if and when it eventually arrives) which uses pretty much all its own technology (of which there is a lot, and its all quite impressive).
Realistically E17 is stacking up to the "other" desktop given how much functionality the E Foundation Libraries offer. I'm not trying to dis IceWM or Fluxbox here, but realistically those are mostly Window Managers, while the new E is looking to have more of the "core libraries" approach of GNOME and KDE, providing its own widget toolkit and what have you. We're still to see whether people will actually pick it up and develop with it...
Finally you've got WindowMaker, which is a very nice window manager and integrates in with GNUStep to provide your widget toolkits and other core libraries. The downside here is that while Window Maker is great, the amount of developer uptake for GNUStep has been fairly limited, so you won't exactly see a lot of GNUStep apps.
There are some good options though, so don't go complaining too much.
Jedidiah.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
Another poster remarked that they're both bloated. Well, that's not entirely fair. Both use a very plug-and-play software development scheme, so there's really no need to install/use components that you don't want.
I'll agree that there are probably more layers than you'd ideally want for a desktop (eg: KDE -> Corba -> Underlying KDE stuff -> QT -> Xlib -> X11 client -> X11 protocol -> X server) but it's not horrible and most of the problem is caused by X11's design, which is very much a concept of layers on layers.
Alternatives to X really haven't gotten very far. I am unaware of any distros which use Berlin / Fiasco, for example. I've not even seen any announcements for it for some time, and am unsure if it's even under active development still.
Lighter-weight graphics drivers for X don't seem to have progressed well, either. GGI and KGI aren't nearly as well-developed as I'd have expected at this point. One can only assume that there just aren't many people who feel that particular itch.
The growing use of networking systems such as CORBA is also not helping much. CORBA is fairly bulky, and if you're running the processes on the same machine, then you really don't need the capacity to run objects on remote systems. I don't even know if those CORBA applications for GNOME or KDE even support a distributed environment of this kind. It's certainly not obvious as to how you'd go about creating one.
Also, CORBA implementations are not as interchangable as they should be. You can't just pick up an application that has ORBit in mind and use it with MICO, TAO or some other CORBA engine. This does start to get a little heavy, as it means that any software not designed for the CORBA engine your GUI is set up to use is going to have to have its own CORBA engine installed. That's plain ugly. It's also a design problem of CORBA, and NOT a problem with the design of Gnome or KDE.
Personally, I think the whole concept of the "desktop environment" is archaic. It stems from the time of the "paperless office", which never materialized. I think we should be looking to see what people actually want to do on their computer, because it's very clear that 80s/90s thinking was wrong on this point.
If the desktop metaphor is the wrong one to use, in the first place, then no implementation of that metaphor - however good it may be - will ever satisfy users. Since the metaphor is also almost wholly owned by certain corporations hostile to FOSS in the first place, changing the battleground would seem wiser than trying to compete in an area users might not even be wanting.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
The beautiful thing with Linux is that you can swap your X Window interface as easy as changing web browsers. More alternatives are definitely welcome.
KDE is nice and polished but I like Gnome's character...It's not so Windows like. I run the FVWM window manager on my MythTV box.
^^vv<><>BA
The complaints about gconf seemed pretty useless to me. What gconf is really about is providing a nice library to encapsulate preferences storage/updates. the Gconf editor is not meant to be something that you use on anything resembling a regular basis.
Declaring it difficult to use, compared to the alternative (your text editor of choice) seems a strong enough claim that it should have been backed up by more description.
-Mark
Check your /tmp directory--gconf and ORBit will create temporary directories named like that in ~ if /tmp is unwritable.
IceWM is still my favorite, it has all the basics, window management, task switching, task bar and application launcher. Then you get the Anti-aliased fonts support with gnome/kde hooks.
Gnome and KDE are more than just desktops, they include functionality for the OS, auto-mounting drives, smart interaction of programs with data sharing. They try to simpifily the whole interaction experience. You shouldnt have to work to get a task done. It should be a click away. This is why they include lots of applications, its easier when applications work with the desktop.
One thing KDE/GNOME has over MS Windows, no front priority windows (pop ups). Nothing pisses me off more than applications that have its status window pop up and take focus when I'm typing.
Typing code, and all the sudden you have some Dialog box in your face.
Gaim is really bad about this on windows, even with the option to turn off popup messages, the split second it pops on the screen takes focus.
I remember desktops before the taskbar, I'm not giving it up.
I've found that KDE is quite a bit more responsive than Gnome, especially running applications remotely, it's difficult to tell when KDE apps are remote but performance wasn't mentioned. Has this changed for the latest versions?
Deleted
I have HTML rendering disabled on kmail.
Make It Secret . Free JavaScript implementation of AES for your browser
>But I have faith in the KDE team, and I'm sure
;-)
>over time these things will be fixed/improved.
Expecially if you write down your wishlists at bugs.kde.org
I'll never understand the religious wars about these issues. It's technology, folks -- use whatever works for you.
Freedom is predicated on the availability of diverse choice; we need different philosophies and approaches.
For day-to-day work, I use KDE, though I prefer Thunderbird to KMail (or Evolution, which is overkill for my purposes). I've run Gnome quite a bit, too; my Opteron system has both Gnome and KDE installed, and I spend about 90% of my time in the latter. I can live with either one, though I prefer the customization available in KDE.
Gnome and KDE both have high overhead (disk space and processor use) as compared to XFCE, which is the GUI for my dusl 600MHz Pentium 3 and 300MHz Sun Ultra 10.
My Pentium 4 box dual-boots between Gentoo/KDE and Windows XP. I find XP limited in many (many) respects, but some things (games) just work better under Windows.
Competition is a good thing.
All about me
We've been hearing from the Gnome camp for a while? What is technically good and what is good for the user is not always the same thing. In fact, sometimes their quite different.
And I belive ALL feedback is important, even if you have to work to translate it into something useful.
99% of all users wont care about libraries or how they are supposed to use something. They've got babies, family, car payments and jobs to worry about.
Quack, quack.
I had never compiled and installed KDE from the source, it just felt too huge and complicated. But I gave it a shot this week and it turned to be a brainless exercise with konstruct. You just run this script and it automagically downloads, de-compresses, compiles and installs everything!!
:)
Three cheers to the KDE team
KMail (and therefore Kontact) does provide "sanitized" HTML mail support. The KMail docs claim that sanitized is the default, but it is an easy change regardless. The check box is located in: Configure KMail -> Security -> "Allow messages to load external references from the Internet". It seems they didn't look too hard for the option that is default anyway.
As far as the warnings before rendering HTML messages, this is just a question of how paranoid you'd like to be (or, how important the integrity of you system is). HTML parsers/renderers are very complex software, and therefore they may have bugs. Look to the recent JPEG exploits for bad bugs in seemingly innocent software. If there were a bug found in the HTML renderer used by your mailreader, reading email messages might present a threat to the security and integrity of your computer.
Like the documentation in KMail says "Displaying the HTML part makes the message look better, but at the same time increases the risk of security holes being exploited"
No, only the brainless secretaries at work like HTML mail, because it let's them send email with floral backgrounds and blinking text.
Most people just don't care enough to turn it off. Going through my email trash, about 95% of HTML email doesn't use any formatting at all, so the use of HTML is wasted.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
None of these options hold a candle to Rat Poison. Nothing is as simple or minimal as it.
Screen on a console surely. Why bother with all that nasty Xlib library overhead?
And then there's always just the console and ALT-F1 through ALT-F12 (what you don't use 12 virtual consoles?)
But really, who wants all that clunky overhead of actually loading a shell? Far too bloated I say.
Jedidiah.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
I run fluxbox. I use KDevelop and I launch it from a gnome-panel. Then I write a letter in KWord, and bring up gnome-terminal to edit something in /etc with SciTE.
This ability to choose is why I like the OS. There's nothing about KDE that precludes Gnome or vice-versa.
REM Old programmers don't die. They just GOSUB without RETURN.
Well, I thought that XP was a bit limiting until a fellow /.er pointed out the Windows XP Powertools. Now, with MS Virtual Desktops and the x-windows style mouse over focus stuff, and the cool alt_tab tool, I don't know what else KDR or Gnome could offer me...
I don't respond to AC's.
I have continually looked around at alternative e-mail clients to Kmail. Apart from Outlook, I have yet to find another mail client that has a key piece of functionality - the ability to clear out old messages from a mail folder automatically.
I read a lot of mailing lists - some such as Debian-User with several hundred messages a day. I filter each mailing list into its own folder, and then set purge dates on the folder to delete messages.
I tried evolution, thunderbird, balsa and a few others - none of them have this function. Why doesn't this lack of ability to clear unwanted mailing list messages worry anyone else?
You may want to read this essay about creating configuration files in $HOME. I'd appreciate any comments.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
I've been using debian with KDE for nearly 2 years on my PC at home but GNOME seems to be getting really cool. I really like the automount thingy they have and the interface seems simpler which is great since that my main machine now is an iBook.
I think when I get home (in about a year), I'll give ubuntu a spin.
I actually like gnome because it's simple and looks neater than kde in spite of the fact I really missed some of the features of kde when I made that switch full time. But I can't stand looking at kde all day and I think of it like this: it's easier to add the stuff I want to gnome than it is to make kde look good. The 2.6 version, now that it's starting to move toward the "open" methods of handling things like mimetypes, is nearing the point I miss none of those kde features.
What I find odd is how many people talk about all the apps written for kde. Konqueror is the absolute worse web browser I've ever used (yes, even worse than NS3 on 1996 vintage hardware - hit a webpage with a 2000 line form field and see how many days it takes to render), the download manager for kde is a dog that hasn't been touched in years (important if you're on a dialup or need to move tasks between machines), there's no irfan-like porn (er, image) viewer, the newsreader absolutely sucks for binaries - about the only things that have any real refinement besides kate and the slick eye candy shell are the dialer and the file browser. Between d4x, pan, Evolution (yes, I prefer Evolution, thanks) and Galeon, gnome has a dynamite "web" interface. Throw in gedit and gqview and you got a pretty nice desktop (so long as you don't need an office app). About the only thing I find lacking in gnome is that damned file browser. Gnome with a file browser like konq would rock.
Oh yeah... the irony. I find gnome running koffice apps is still faster and easier to use than gnome using the OOo apps that the gnome folks are trying to "integrate." I swear I don't get why OOo gets so much press... god that thing sucks.
I've seen this repeated twice in this thread. I call bullshit. I had a system with a decent Via motherboard, Ati videocard and 1GHz AMD cpu and with 128MB of ram the thing ran like shit. Oh yeah, you could "use it" - so long as you only opened one app at a time. Anything beyond that you had about a 70% chance of the process just dying - no error message, no warning, nothing.
You can make blackbox or ice dance with 128mb, but a late model gnome or kde desktop with only 128mb ram is about one step above useless.
kmail has two killer bugs:
(a) It blocks while running filters! This is a royal pain if you want to use it with spamassassin, since it means the entire interface freezes for several seconds every time you download an email. This is especially painful if non-local tests are enabled in SA. If you have kmail set to download new mail periodically, it will randomly freeze up at the worst possible moment (for instance, while you're trying to compose a new email..).
(b) It blocks while checking GPG signatures! Even on a fairly fast computer, GPG signature checking can take a significant amount of time, and as with (a), you end up hurrying up and waiting instead of reading your email.
I've been trying out kmail recently, and I really like a lot of things about it, but these two bugs are making me seriously think about giving Thunderbird a shot.
Daniel
Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
I run applications, not desktops.
Something that many people seem to miss. You *CAN* run GNOME/KDE applications *WITHOUT* the corresponding desktop. Install *BOTH* GNOME and KDE and a lightweight Window Manager like BlackBox.
I have a Dell Dimension XPS, 450 mhz PIII, and 128 megs of RAM. It's over 5 years old. If my only options were Windows XP, or Linux with GNOME or KDE *DESKTOP*, the machine would now be sitting in the local landfill. The GNOME and KDE *DESKTOPS* are *PAINFULLY* slow on it.
Instead, I installed GNOME and KDE and BlackBox. I use BlackBox as my UI. I can still run KOffice (KMail, KSpread, etc) and useful GNOME apps like AbiWord, Gimp, gqview, etc, because the GNOME/KDE base libraries are installed.
In the next couple of years, MS will be bringing out Longhorn. Have you read the hardware requirements on it? Absolutely ridiculous. Instead of a contest to prove that Linux desktops can be just as fat and bloated as Windows, we should be working on a lean+mean GUI. When Longhorn comes out, businesses can have a choice between
- throwing out their old PCs and paying for brand new semi-mainframes to run Longhorn, or
- they can switch to a lean/mean Linux with useful applications, and not have to throw out all their current desktop hardware.
This will be our golden opportunity to push for a large switchover from Windows to linux. Please don't throw it away by dragging down linux's performance with useless eye-candy.
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user