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Why KDE Rules
diegocgteleline.es writes "Being a long time Gnome user and while talking with some non-KDE users, I realized that non-KDE users know few things about what are the "Good Things" of KDE. So I wrote an article about "Why KDE Rules" focused in KDE, with lots of screenshots and some texts - so all those non-KDE (or non-Linux) users can take a look at what KDE can offer to them, why KDE users use it and what they can expect about the future of the KDE platform if they choose to use it. Of course, this doesn't means that this was written to critize other desktops neither it means you should start Yet Another Gnome vs KDE flamewar..."
Can we please include a few opinion pieces about GNOME and OS X and have a real slug fest?
What's better, rain or sunshine?
Everyone has preferences, and Linux is all about choices. I'd rather see an occasional Gnome/KDE flamewar and have the choice to use whichever I prefer. Truth be known, I have both installed. I love Gnome's beautiful interface, and KDE's powerful apps for development. Depending on my task du jour is what I choose from my GDM login screen.
Of course, if you can't make up your mind, there's always blackbox, xfce, windowmaker, enlightenment, and 7.2 hojillion other choices for your X environment. Of course, no one ever complains that Windowmaker is better than XFCE. >83=
Evil Walrus >83=
oh yes, and just for the record: using Ubuntu at home and KDE (Knoppix) at work I have to state my preference for the less cluttered Gnome.
Let the trolling begin.
I'd have to disagree that KDE isn't a memory hog. I've been using Windowmaker more and more recently because my 512 MB of RAM is insufficient for, say filebrowsing with Konqueror and DVD ripping at the same time.
I've used KDE since ~'96 and I had absolutely no idea you could do all of that. The dcop stuff is amazing!
SYS 64738 NO CARRIER
My problem with KDE is that it never lets you forget you are using it. For example, when I click an icon, it starts bouncing. When I go to a KDE program, and press Help, I see About KDE along there with it. Also, it is quite cluttered and takes a long time to load. My last and final problem is that it encourages people to use the GUI rather than the terminal with configuration files which I think is a bad idea.
The same action in KDE will open 4 boxes:
- a dialog asking me which program I want to open the cd with
- a konqueror window displaying the contents of the cd
- an instance of kaffeine, playing the cd
Now, I know I could change all of this, but try as I might, it just doesn't work.In short, KDE may offer more, but GNOME just works (and audio-cd management is far from the only example that I have experienced).
I never much liked KDE, but this article does highlight some cool features. Time to give it another try, maybe.
Well you can do that too with GNOME after installing gDesklets... Actually you can get a mix of whatever you like like this or even this... dunno but I like what I can do with GNOME when it comes to desktop configuration...
Having a choice of various different interfaces to computers systems is a blessing, not a curse. Need to build a netsurfer box for Grandma, wife, or kids then use Gnome or KDE. Put together a server, no GUI needed. On my workstation, WindowMaker on the main box, shell access only on the other but X displays on the main box. Others do different tricks with different tools.
It's your box, your systems: Decide how the machines will be used and who will be using them, then pick the appropriate tools. Be glad -- and be thankful -- for the variety as it is a very good thing.
And for those who insist that "Linux" have only one standard interface, just remember "Linux" isn't a monolithic structure but a collection of tools from which you build what you want or need. If you are with a company worrying about providing support, build a distro and tell your customers that's what you support directly, everything else Linux-wise is base info support only and the customer is expected to know what to do for their distribution. Or tell them you only support such-and-such distributions directly, everything else is basic info only. There are many different ways to skin this particular dog.
Arguments over "which one rulz" are stupidly pointless unless it's a feature-by-feature comparison. The reference article would have done better to have done just that; a comparison of KDE vs. Gnome as concerns their features and tools. Are KDE and Gnome meant to address the same user groups? I'm not so sure and a good comparison of the two might have proven useful in deciding betwix the two. I am sure that having a choice between the two gives people flexibility via options.
About preferences. Some people prefer blondes, some like brunettes and I've heard rumors of some folks even liking red-haired types. Then there is the whole eye color thing, and then body shapes and breast sizes, etc. Oy, it quickly becomes complicated, but it's such a fine form of torture. Indeed, beautiful women are like fine art: If you have to own every piece that strikes your fancy, you are either very rich or very frustrated. But _having_a_choice_ amongst so many different makes and models ensures continued shopping bliss by keeping it interesting.
Start with GUIs, end with fine women; time to call Dr. Strangethoughts.
Happy New Year!
Everything in the Universe sucks: It's the law!
....Its so fucking over simplestic.. For example, when I go to save a file, i cant enter a text path...Noooo that would be too hard for the nubs...So, I have to click around FOREVER tell i find where I want it to go. This theme of over simpleness is displayed everywere in Gnome.
I've been a Gnome user since 1998 and used it exclusively. It's ok, gets the job done. Many people complain about not having enough options; these people obviously aren't familiar with gconf-editor.
Anyway, a few weeks ago I read how Linus Torvalds recommends KDE over any other desktop environment. Ok, so I decided to give it a real workout.
I grabbed all the packages and logged in. Not bad, real pretty. Lots of little eye candy that really shows polish. I went into the configuration editor and for hours played with all the settings. Impressive, lots of things to change here. I launched several applications, setup Kmail, played with Kopete. Mature apps, very nice.
Ok, now here's the bad part: I decided that I do indeed like KDE and would like to continue using it, however it's too damn slow for my system! I even turned off a lot of features that are CPU intensive, but simply dragging a window around the desktop is spotty. My machine isn't too bad; it's 1130MHz and 512MB, Geforece2. Running Gnome on this machine is really snappy.
So, for those of you with top of line machines, KDE looks promising. For those of us with medium to low end machines, I recommend sticking with Gnome for now.
A feature I like in KDE is the ability to give window-specific settings that stick to windows based on a variety of criteria, including window title and program-defined "role." You can then set pretty much any window action available, such as resize, location, always-on-top/bottom, maximized/minimized, put it in the taskbar or not, prevent stealing focus, etc. These settings can either be forced at all times, or just set as the default whenever that type of window opens.
For example, I want to make sure my IM away messages, as well as conversations with certain people, are always visible so I don't forget about them. I have them set to appear on every desktop and always-on-top by default, with only a click of a button on the title bar to toggle either option if I decide I don't want it. I also force certain apps like Thunderbird to always appear in a specific virtual desktop in order to keep things sorted, and I have many apps like Firefox open maximized because I almost always use them that way.
It's really quite an easy feature to use, too... It auto-detects the relevant window properties if you launch the settings dialog by right-clicking on a window title bar. All of the options are straightforward, so you can easily add settings to a window without having to muck around in some other program or control center to get it to do what you want. It's a pretty intuitive feature for a window manager/desktop to be able to recognize and treat different programs' windows differently, and KDE's implementation of the concept is spot on.
That's the main feature I would have added to his article. The one I like most that he covered is the kioslaves. Want to copy files over SSH? Just use sftp://[location] in konqueror and browse, drag and drop like normal. Want to save a file from a text program to a remote SSH location? put sftp://[location] into the "save as" dialog and save it directly from the application. Because the ioslaves are universal, you can expect to take advantage of them in the same way throughout pretty much all KDE apps.
OK, Leonidas, the jig's up. Nick off now, or I'll set Xerxes onto you. (-:
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Use FireFox as your window manager and set it to open absolutely everything in a new tab. Want a new window? Pfagh! "Let them use tabs!" (-:
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Try taking your hand off the mouse and hitting the oh-so-obvious Ctrl-L sequence.
Yes, I know it's about as intuitive as skinning a hedgehog -- remember the bit in the subject about "not a GNOMEhead" -- but so far I haven't seen anyone succeed in adding a clickety thing to do this.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
I'm a longtime KDE user. Some aspects of the system which I really like:
the ssh ioslave (fish://).. any KDE app I'm using can read and write to arbitrary SSH shells I have access to. Works anywhere. So I can use it in web forms to upload files to websites from remote ssh sites, or within kmail to attach files on remote machines, or with ksnapshot to save snapshots directly to my webhost, or with konqueror to browse filesystem HTML on remote machines.
I also use dcop functionality quite a bit. I have a fancy keyboard with special buttons. So I have all the music buttons bound to different actions using dcop (I use the 'hotkeys' app to do this). volume up, volume down, next, previous, play/pause, stop, mute, show-current-song, show/hide kmail, lock session, new konsole, new browser window pointing to homepage, new konqueror window pointing to home directory.. all are bound to convenient buttons using the command line DCOP client, and it was a synch to set up, since it allows you to investigate the interfaces at runtime, interactively.
Amarok is lovely. One little behavioural property I really like is how it allows me to quickly pick one-off songs to listen to. Changing the text in the search box updates your playlist dynamically. This means if I just type the title of a song, the playlist gets filtered down to just that song. Then, if I hit enter, amarok starts playing that song, and clears the search bar, which automatically resets the full playlist since there is no search query anymore. The method isn't foolproof, particularly for songs with common names, but it works 90% of the time for me, and the other 10% of the time I get a shortlist that will contain the song anyway, so it's still better than browsing manually.
KDE is just plain slick. Kudos to the developers. You guys are truly appreciated.
-Laxitive
This might sound like a flame posting, but altough I have to admit that KDE and Gnome are pretty and probably good desktop environments, I'm sad that they are killing many established Un*x philosophies that have been around for a while and proven themselves. I already noticed this 10 years ago, when KDE started to "reinvent the wheel" [tm] instead of providing proper frontends for established (console) applications, with things linke kppp or kinternet. KDE also has the ability to configure many aspects of your Xserver like keyboard ayout, resolution, fonts... - but only for KDE, if you sitch to another Window manager, those changes will not be reflected, they only affect your KDE session. KDE and Gnome both have the ability to browse different "filesystems" in Nautilus or Konqueror, like sshfs/fish, bluetooth devices etc., but again, this only works for KDE/Gnome application. This might be a nice abstraction, but we already got such thing, it's called the VFS layer inside the kernel. Why not provide a nice interface for mount and perhaps FUSE, which can do the same thing, but in a nice and consisting way that fits into the Unix way of life (Yes, I know that FUSE is not perfect yet). Why design every application with a GUI, despite the fact that people might want to use them in a script (without an X session), just like kitchenync or multisync? I'd like to get my device synced automatically upon hotplug/udev detection, but that would require a command line version, just like pilot-sync used to have.
Those DEs are also reinventing drive letters - not letters as such, but a directory structure that has the drives next to each other on the root. I know an OS who does this, and I think it has been proven a bad idea.
The fact that each job had its own tool, and that those tools could be combined in an easy way (pipes, script) is what made Unix/Linux so great - But KDE/Gnome are ignoring the facts, repeating the same mistakes Windows made. Poor Kernel, getting run over by these reinvented wheels (called KWheels and GWheels) over and over again :-(
Life is just nature's way of keeping meat fresh.
Of course, this doesn't means that this was written to critize other desktops neither it means you should start Yet Another Gnome vs KDE flamewar...
too late.
What ? Me, worry ?
...but all of that is old stuff. OS/2 WorkPlace Shell (the desktop environment that lived on top of Presentation Manager) from version 2.0 and onwards had all that too. It was CORBA based, using (D)SOM and could be controlled via REXX, just as DCOP can for KDE. Control and send messages to/from SOM-aware applications were just as easy.
So, what's my point... ranting on about a dead OS? My point is that people are continually re-inventing stuff. People live in seperate niches and recieve little imput from others. Issues and ideas ends up in flame-fests and silly meta-discussions. Component and message passing functionality should be part of the OS, not the Desktop Environment. Both KDE and Gnome use the Windows 3.1 angle, put a GUI with all its trimmings on top of an OS. Granted, Linux og UNIX is much much better suited than PC/MS-DOS, but it's architectually the same thing. Transport and low-level functionality into Linux and the trimmings and APIs into GNU standard tools. Then Desktop development can go back to building good user interfaces.
//Cartoon
DCOP is about as much about configuring as Brave New World is about snowmobiles. You obviously didn't RTFA and also don't know anything about DCOP.
DCOP is simmilar to what is now 'dbus' (in fact the dbus idea is based off of it). It gives command line access to the APIs of an application during runtime, and can also be used to let applications communicate with each other across the system or even across the network.
This part also goes into technicalities like database backends (WTF)
Dude, this article it's ABOUT "technicalities".
Following this, the obligatory chastising of readers that use the wrong browser
No, it's not the "obligatory chastising". My thumbnails use PNG transpareny. And IE DOES NOT support png transparency. So, duh, I'm a troll because I recomend readers to use a browser than can render the page properly?
I'm sad that they are killing many established Un*x philosophies that have been around for a while and proven themselves.
I don't think they are. Actually, I think KDE, with DCOP, Kioslaves and KParts, is doing a good job of extending the Unix philosophies into the GUI space.
I already noticed this 10 years ago, when KDE started to "reinvent the wheel" [tm] instead of providing proper frontends for established (console) applications, with things linke kppp or kinternet.
I don't know about kinternet, but kppp *is* a front end to pppd, a console application.
KDE also has the ability to configure many aspects of your Xserver like keyboard ayout, resolution, fonts... - but only for KDE, if you sitch to another Window manager, those changes will not be reflected, they only affect your KDE session.
I think some would argue that's a feature, not a bug. I can see both sides.
KDE and Gnome both have the ability to browse different "filesystems" in Nautilus or Konqueror, like sshfs/fish, bluetooth devices etc., but again, this only works for KDE/Gnome application. This might be a nice abstraction, but we already got such thing, it's called the VFS layer inside the kernel. Why not provide a nice interface for mount and perhaps FUSE, which can do the same thing, but in a nice and consisting way that fits into the Unix way of life (Yes, I know that FUSE is not perfect yet).
And kioslaves have been around for several years, while FUSE is new. Until file systems are implemntable in userspace, doing something like them at the VFS level means kernel hacking, which is much harder and more error-prone. Given that the kernel did not support the required functionality, the KDE developers' only option was to build their infrastructure in at a higher level. But they followed the Unix philosophy and made it very modular and pluggable, so that all kioslaves are usable from every KDE application that uses files.
Why design every application with a GUI, despite the fact that people might want to use them in a script (without an X session), just like kitchenync or multisync? I'd like to get my device synced automatically upon hotplug/udev detection, but that would require a command line version, just like pilot-sync used to have.
In the first place, assuming you have a GUI, there's nothing preventing hotplug/udev from starting a GUI app to do the synching.
In the second place, you're complaining (and I think it's a legitimate gripe) about one particular application, and applying it to the whole desktop. I agree that the core functionality should be provided through a command-line interface.
Those DEs are also reinventing drive letters - not letters as such, but a directory structure that has the drives next to each other on the root.
This I haven't seen. Can you elaborate?
The fact that each job had its own tool, and that those tools could be combined in an easy way (pipes, script) is what made Unix/Linux so great
You really need to learn about DCOP.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
I say, give me something that will eat 10% of the resources and provide 5% of the functionality. Then give me 20 other somethings that do the same, but provide different functionality, and we'll have all of amaroK's functionality with only 10% of the resource commitment.
That's more or less my principle complaint against both KDE and Gnome: in order to get the hand full of features that could be useful, one has to add a bunch of stuff that at best isn't used and at worst gets in the way.
But, the good news is those 20 programs *do* exist, and I can use them. So long as no one is forcing me to use amaroK, I'm glad to see that it exists and that someone enjoys it.
In fact, it brings me great joy to know that both Gnome and KDE exist and that there are fans out there talking each other into using them.
First, people find them useful, and anything that improves people's lives (even in a very small way) is a good thing.
Second, they both help attract new users to free unix-like software, and give talented developers something fun to work on. Anything that makes linux and the BSD's more popular is good for those of us who love them.
Third, I'm happy that *both* gnome and kde exist, because so long as both maintain a large following developers will have no choice but to make projects able to run without requiring either. That's good news for those of us who prefer alternative environments. The day one wins is the day third party apps stop simply requiring libraries and start requiring that the winner be actually running.
From the web-page:
"Also, if you're using IE you must know that it's IE's failure that the page doesn't render correctly and why PNG transparency isn't handled as it should. Use firefox damnit, at least until IE 7 is released)"
And then this :
w3 HTML validator. Result: Failed validation, 7 errors
Please don't lecture us on proper HTML coding when your own webpage doesn't even validate.
Also the inclusion of Evolution and Ephiphany are just annoying. It would be much better if Evolution was replaced by Thunderbird and Ephiphany by Firefox. Installing GNOME you get Epiphany and also Mozilla (since Epiphany depends on it). I use Firefox and sometimes Lynx. So now I have 4 browsers. And I also use Thunderbird for mail, but then I got this monster called Evolution installed which I have no use for. I believe the GNU/Linux distro Ubuntu did the right thing, replaced Epiphany with Firefox and didn't include any mail appliactions in the standard install. And yes, I know there are various gnome2-lite meta-packages out there for various distros and operatingsystems.
KDE has never ever even been an option for me mainly due to my dislike of Qt. I just can't stand the way it's designed. It looks like 10 years old C++ code and design. C++ has since been standardized but the Qt developers don't seem to be able to keep up.
XFCE is small and fast and has everything you need. Not sure I like the file-browser, but I usually just open a terminal emulator and do whatever I need there anyway. I'm not 100% happy with XFCE but I've yet to find anything better. I used to run Fluxbox from time to time, but I came to the conclution it just didn't do it for me.
The author of this comment is missing something: KDE is not a Linux only desktop. Try forgetting about Linux completely and think Solaris or FreBSD - or even Windows, and read it again.
I was using KDE on Solaris a while back, and it was every bit as powerful as it is on my Linux boxes. And that is because KDE does not use all sorts of Linux only technologies.
This isn't the full picture, though. In many cases, KDE will use the enhanced options of your OS, and provide backups for other systems. A simple example: Monitoring directories and files for changes. Linux (and possibly others) have a system that does notifications from the filesystem when something changes. For systems that can't do this, there is a polling implementation.
And in other situations, KDE will use extra features of your system. X extensions like render comes to mind.
And you mention FUSE - this is actually the KDE IO system that is exported like filesystems. That's a very nice idea, but it sort of goes against the argument that KDE reinvents this wheel.
KPPP was for a very long time a frontend to a command line ppp tool. But this turned out to not be powerful enough to be useful. If you start doing these frontends (and I actually have), you very soon run into situations where the reporting from them is too simple. One example is that GUI apps have progressbars for long running "things" - almost no text app provides a hook for GUI frontends to provide this. And you *always* have to parse whatever text is output to the user and present this in a GUI - and you can bet on this text to be different between every single release, and that your application is running on 117 different distros that have 117 different versions of your backend app. This means you have to figure out what version of the backend app this currently is, and parse the right one.
Now, add the multiple OS problem from above. Either you have to make frontends to the very different commands on FreeBSD, Solaris, h-pukes, AIX, and others, or you start adding GNU software to the requirements list of your application. Personally I hate having to install all sorts of stuff, just to run a single application.
Making frontends to text apps is often mentioned as a good idea. But that is only by people who have not actually tried implementing and supporting one of these beasts. If it should really be done, we should start compiling all text apps as a static library, and make the text app a frontend too. Then it could potentially work - providing both the GUI and text app authors have influence on the backend library.
Sometimes reimplementing the wheel is actually a better choice.
The battle between KDE and GNOME is like the American political structure: Whoever wins... We lose.
Good point. I use KDE on my FreeBSD machine. Makes it possible to do just about anything I'd want to do on one of my Linux systems. Which is very nice indeed since I'm not that knowledgeable when it comes to FreeBSD, and this lets me get stuff done whilst learning more about it.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
I don't know about kinternet, but kppp *is* a front end to pppd, a console application.
Yes, but it does not honor the way the particular distribution launches a ppp connection. I know it is nearly impossible to support every distribution available, but that is why we need clean interfaces, on both sides.[Drive Letters]
This I haven't seen. Can you elaborate?
I've seen KDE desktops that show physical drives next to each other, just like Windows Explorer does. Of course everything is mapped to the mountpoint, but my complain is more of didactic nature: The desktops are leading people away from Unix paradigms, like "everything is mounted into a single tree". Instead, they are trying to look more and more like Windows, to appear "easier". But that implies that Unix paradigms are more difficult then Windows paradigms, which they are not.
In the first place, assuming you have a GUI, there's nothing preventing hotplug/udev from starting a GUI app to do the synching.
Yes, without me being logged in? How does udev (running as root) get a grip on my Xserver? Yes, I now that this is possible, just like SoftwareSuspend2 is launching my xlock, but these things have "HACK" written all over it.
Life is just nature's way of keeping meat fresh.
You are talking about the 'Devices' pane in Konqueror. Its job is to list all your filesystem devices.
If you are making a quick manual backup, or sending data to someone using a removable HD, then it doesn't make much sense to browse a traditional Unix tree to find the destination device. And its less Windows-like than it is Mac-like, basically just listing the contents of mtab.
If anything, traditional Unix is unnecessarily Windows-like in the way it handles disk volumes. Instead of one letter, you get four letters/numbers and the volume label assigned by the user is typically ignored. Under OS X, when I label a disk volume, the system must refer to it by that name (instead of drawing almost random device names in some kind of lottery, and see if THAT can't result in the wrong devices ending up at the wrong mountpoints).
Anyway if you prefer, just switch to the Root or Home panes. KDE keeps the Unix tree paradigm.
As for KDE apps used for system functions, I do share your concern. I recall that on the Amiga, most of the GUI utilities doubled as CLI tools (if you ran them from CLI, you had to use an extra option switch to get them to display the GUI).
I have used fvwm2, Enlightenment, Gnome (with all the assorted window managers they've managed to go through!
I agree with those who argue that a thousand window managers is probably more than most individuals need. (I'd like it, but then I'm nuts.) However, there are easily over a thousand classes of user, and it is very likely that some of these window managers will be better than others for those classes.
I would therefore like to see packaging groups to sport a wider range of window managers to allow people to make use of the richness of the GUI world for *nix. There is far more out there than most people realize.
(And what of the non-X11 folk? I'd like to see them supported more, too. Where's the RPMs and DEBs for Berlin? KGI? There was once even a GUI based on Postscript, which would probably be a godsend to anyone more interested in desktop publishing than in games - and such people do exist, though there are treatments these days.)
To me, the absurdity is that the sheer volume of options is being hidden in all of these flamewars, behind the illusion of a binary choice that nobody ever really makes. (Many who use Gnome will use KDE-based applications, and vice versa.)
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 founder of the KDE project agrees with you BTW. He wanted KDE to be a GUI not a Window Manager / Widget set. In other words what you see with OSX to Darwin or NT to cmd.exe not what you see with WindowMaker to Linux. Gnome of course was fundamentally designed to challenge KDE so...
As for the other comments they are implementation details. I tend to agree with you I like the idea of mounting VFSes rather than "browsing". But both Nautilus and Konq were browsers first so presumably the people who use these tools have the opposite opinion. As for command lines, piping, etc... both teams are run by Unix users I think they are doing the best they can to make everything command line driven with command line integration.