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Torvalds Says 'Use KDE'

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the and-then-the-name-calling dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Without tip-toeing around the matter, Linus Torvalds made his preference in the GNOME vs. KDE matter quite clear on the GNOME-usability list: "I personally just encourage people to switch to KDE. This 'users are idiots, and are confused by functionality' mentality of Gnome is a disease. If you think your users are idiots, only idiots will use it. I don't use Gnome, because in striving to be simple, it has long since reached the point where it simply doesn't do what I need it to do. Please, just tell people to use KDE." Also, "Gnome seems to be developed by interface nazis, where consistently the excuse for not doing something is not 'it's too complicated to do', but 'it would confuse users'.""

1 of 1,469 comments (clear)

  1. Propeller cap screwed on too tight? by feijai · · Score: 1, Troll
    As primarily a Mac user, I know rather little of the differences between KDE and Gnome. But Linus's call tells me all I need to know: Gnome is the better user interface.

    Unix developers are not known for their quality interfaces. man == help? A dozen incompatable widget sets from Athena through KDE? The ability to modify your window manager through endless flat files, yet no way to do drag-and-drop between applications in a consistent manner? Much less cut-and-paste.

    Coming from crappy-GUI-but-you-can-customize-it-all-you-like land, Linus is making the classic propeller-cap mistake: he thinks GUIs should have a myriad of options. Does he not realize that this is one of the primary reasons that Linux has failed in the userspace marketplace? Most computer users -- and by most I mean 98% -- do not wear propeller caps.

    For these 98% non-Linuses, a user interface needs to do three things properly:

    1. Be simple and intuitive.
    2. Be consistent.
    3. Be sufficient.

    Linus wants a #4 Be Customizable, but in my experience people who complain about that have never themselves succeeded in making a UI for which the first three are true. I have absolutely no doubt that Linus falls in that category. Sounds to me like he needs to go sit in a corner and let the real GUI designers do their work.