From GNOME to KDE and Back Again

Slashdot's own Roblimo has an interesting introspective on what makes us so prone to liking one window manager over another. More than likely it's just the inherent laziness of most users that precludes change. "I used KDE as my primary desktop from 1996 through 2006, when I installed the GNOME version of Ubuntu and found that I liked it better than the KDE desktop I'd faced every morning for so many years. Last January, I got a new Dell Latitude D630 laptop and decided to install Kubuntu on it, but within a few weeks, I went back to GNOME. Does this mean GNOME is now a better desktop than KDE, or just that I have become so accustomed to GNOME that it's hard for me to give it up?"

Comments

KDE

[Anonymous Coward]

I installed Kubuntu as well and went back to Mandriva, Kubuntu has a long way to go.

Re:KDE

[tzanger]

Interesting. I came to Kubuntu from over 10 years on Slackware, and am thoroughly impressed. I am still trying to like the Debian way of doing things, but I have to say I do appreciate how most everything just works. Wireless, LVM, multiple displays, CD burning, printing, scanning... I'm impressed. I'm not sure what people are complaining about with Kubuntu, but then again I came late to the party. 7.04 -> 7.10.

Re:KDE

[MightyMartian]

I think my biggest problem with KDE is that it's everything I hate about Windows; cluttered, nonsensical and in a way, just plain ugly.

Re:KDE

[Anonymous Coward]

Trying to see how this is offtopic. KDE and Kubuntu is the topic right?

Re:KDE

[mrsteveman1]

KDE3 is cluttered because it's unorganized, not because it has features similar to Windows.

I'm not saying this is you in particular, but people spend far too much time trying to NOT be like Windows instead of just trying to do things well.

Re:KDE

[treeves]

It's not offtopic, but some mod didn't like it, was too lazy to comment, and preferred modding it Offtopic since there was no "-1, Disagree" option.

Re:KDE

[Anonymous Coward]

and probably the same doofus mod modded you flamebait! Har.

Re:KDE

[Anonymous Coward]

Insensitive clods!

Re:KDE

[pirhana]

I think it really depends on each one's case and requirement. In my case , I have switched to Kubuntu almost 3 years back from 5 years of redhat/centos/GNOME usage exclusively. But I am facing exactly the same 3 problems mentioned by the author in the article(wireless screw up by KNetworkmanager, Integration issue of thunderbird and adept_manager). But these may not be issue for someone who is not using wireless(or using a different card), not using thunderbird etc. But unlike the author I never feel like switching back to GNOME as I think Kubuntu is still the best distro when you consider everything. The plus side of Kubuntu, is more important/relevant to me than these issues. So it really comes down to what you are doing with your computer. Different people have different requirement and needs and its unlikely that they all will face the same bugs/issues.

Re:KDE

[mirshafie]

All this article really manages to do is to explain that different applications are different. Linux users should already know that, but strangely many of them seem not to, so I guess there's a place for an article like this. (For example, the thing about Blowfish, gedit and Kate being different text editors that suit different people.) I'm a KDE user now. It took me a long time to get accustomed to KDE. I tried many different desktops at a quite regular basis but ended up going back to GNOME. The reason then was because it is so plain and un-cluttered. This was important because I had primarily used Windows before and everything from the architecture of the OS to the applications were unfamiliar to me. The problem is that as I became more and more accustomed to Linux I also wanted more from it. And KDE simply has much more to offer. Take for example the menu you get when you right click on the title bar of a window. Most desktops/WMs give you some very basic options. KDE alone gives you advanced options and the possibility to always apply certain rules for a window. Of course this might scare you off if all you wanted to do was to Close or Minimize the window, but still there can be no argument about how powerful KDE is. I don't think KDE is nonsensical in any way (above post). All the KDE applications have a similar structure in the File menu; something I hope other desktops will copy. Everything is well structured, take for example the Configure Shortcuts option that almost every KDE application has. It is the most neatly integrated desktop that I've seen. The argument about default looks in distros and desktops is valid, but scary. I don't like KDE's default look or behaviour, but the point is that I can easily change it. This is true for GNOME and other Linux WMs aswell. If people do not want to use this power, then maybe the problem lies with them and not the desktop. You can't expect anybody to give you a perfect default look since we all like different things. The best you can ask for is tolerable defaults and easy configuration, which KDE does have. It is true as the article claims that we dislike change (because it means we have to learn new ways to do things that we need to do). I think this will be less of a problem for KDE in the future, since many KDE 4 applications are being ported to other Windows. Perhaps in the future people that are already accustomed to using Konqueror or Amarok under Windows will find the transition to the powerful but cluttered KDE much easier than a transition to GNOME. Finally further down in the thread some people express that there is no point in discussing what we like/dislike about this kind of software. Which is weird because computer interfaces will play an increasingly important role in the lives of millions of people for the next few decades. Of course we need to have this discussion.

Re:KDE

[mirshafie]

(I'm sorry for the post above, it was supposed to be divided into paragraphs. I'm posting it again since it's pretty much impossible to read my last post.)

All this article really manages to do is to explain that different applications are different. Linux users should already know that, but strangely many of them seem not to, so I guess there's a place for an article like this. (For example, the thing about Blowfish, gedit and Kate being different text editors that suit different people.)

I'm a KDE user now. It took me a long time to get accustomed to KDE. I tried many different desktops at a quite regular basis but ended up going back to GNOME. The reason then was because it is so plain and un-cluttered. This was important because I had primarily used Windows before and everything from the architecture of the OS to the applications were unfamiliar to me. The problem is that as I became more and more accustomed to Linux I also wanted more from it.

And KDE simply has much more to offer. Take for example the menu you get when you right click on the title bar of a window. Most desktops/WMs give you some very basic options. KDE alone gives you advanced options and the possibility to always apply certain rules for a window. Of course this might scare you off if all you wanted to do was to Close or Minimize the window, but still there can be no argument about how powerful KDE is.

I don't think KDE is nonsensical in any way (above post). All the KDE applications have a similar structure in the File menu; something I hope other desktops will copy. Everything is well structured, take for example the Configure Shortcuts option that almost every KDE application has. It is the most neatly integrated desktop that I've seen.

The argument about default looks in distros and desktops is valid, but scary. I don't like KDE's default look or behaviour, but the point is that I can easily change it. This is true for GNOME and other Linux WMs aswell. If people do not want to use this power, then maybe the problem lies with them and not the desktop. You can't expect anybody to give you a perfect default look since we all like different things. The best you can ask for is tolerable defaults and easy configuration, which KDE does have.

It is true as the article claims that we dislike change (because it means we have to learn new ways to do things that we need to do). I think this will be less of a problem for KDE in the future, since many KDE 4 applications are being ported to other Windows. Perhaps in the future people that are already accustomed to using Konqueror or Amarok under Windows will find the transition to the powerful but cluttered KDE much easier than a transition to GNOME.

Finally further down in the thread some people express that there is no point in discussing what we like/dislike about this kind of software. Which is weird because computer interfaces will play an increasingly important role in the lives of millions of people for the next few decades. Of course we need to have this discussion.

Re:KDE

[tzanger]

I'm not sure which wireless issues you guys are complaining about... I had my Thinkpad T30 wireless (off-brand Atheros chipset), T60 (Intel 3495?) and Toshiba (Intel 4965) wireless work right out of the box with Kubuntu 7.04 and 7.10. WPA, WEP and open networks. I was actually expecting a fight, as I had to do with Slackware, but nope... it literally just worked.

Re:KDE

[unforkable]

I'm no Gui specialist, but I would say Gnome is more civilized out-of-the-box.

Re:KDE

[Anonymous Coward]

"just plain ugly"
Yes, Gnome is beautiful. This too big widgets really rocks... ;>

Re:KDE

[ozmanjusri]

KDE3 is cluttered because it's unorganized,

KDE can be as anything you want it to be.

The distros are responsible for the clutter. Choose one which suits your level of organisation.

Re:KDE

[Amiralul]

I installed Kubuntu as well and went back to Slackware, Kubuntu has a long way to go.

Re:KDE

[kwilliam]

"cluttered, nonsensical and in a way, just plain ugly."

I am SICK of KDE vs. Gnome wars. WE GET IT! Many Gnome users don't understand KDE, and many KDE users don't understand Gnome. Thank godness many KDE and Gnome developers understand each other. That's why many of KDE4's new technologies (like Strigi and D-Bus) are not dependent on the KDE libs at all, but work equally well in any environment.

Re:KDE

[pirhana]

>I'm not sure which wireless issues you guys are complaining about...

Its not just about the card or driver. Also about the GUI interface(knetworkmanager) which creates the problem . I am typing this from my DELL Latitude D620 on a wireless connection from my Linksys router. It works well if I use plain /etc/network/interfaces file. But it has frequent disconnection issues if I use knetworkmanager. Same goes with my wife's T60. Both running kubuntu gutsy only. You go through ubuntuforums and bug database and can see how many people have faced these issues. Again, still I consider kubuntu as the best linux distro for desktops(have tried so many of them).

Re:KDE

[fwarren]

I am a Slackware refugee myself. It is very much a your millage may vary situation.

When prefer the look of many GNOME apps, but there are just to many good KDE apps out there. K3b, Amarok and Konqueror being the ones I use the most. Since Slackware droped GNOME. It was pretty easy. Slackware with KDE, XFCE4 and Fluxbox. I tend to spend most of my time in Fluxbox.

I would just spend 3 days setting up my system. Install Slackware and all the WM's. Then go to linuxpackages and pick up everything there that I can use. Then download, compile and rundown missing libraries to build all the apps, dock apps, drivers and things that I like on my system. Then tweak the configuration on everything to make it work on my network and start up the way I like it. As I said, about 3 days. The system was how I liked it and much faster than Fedora. Things like VMware were a pain to set up, thus it the Slackware way.

Now days. I just install xubuntu, do an apt-get update/upgrade, apt-get install kubuntu-desktop fluxbox. A few more apt-gets to get all of my needed apps, dock apps,goodies and eyecandy. I am then left to download and configure by hand maybe 10 or 15 apps. All of which seem to do so without compliant and library hell (i.e. needs imlib1.2 but imlib1.2a to be installed). Then tweaking very few config files by hand.

Now setting up a new system MY WAY takes a few hours instead of a few days. As a bonus, the forums are very helpful. There is much more likely a tweek or info on how to work around a problem for Ubuntu than for any other distro. I have hot tried Fedora in the last 2 years. But the ubuntu based distros run almost as fast as slackware and much faster than Fedora. Not to mention Fedora making KDE a second class citizen. No contest.

If I want to play around, tinker, and tweak. Slackware is where I will go. Believe me, when RedHat drove me back to Slackware, I knew I had it better. But if I want a system 97% of the way to where I like it in just a few hours. Ubuntu/Xubuntu/Ubuntu is the way to go.

Re:KDE

[Goeland86]

The problem is that as I became more and more accustomed to Linux I also wanted more from it.

Yes. That was exactly my thought as I was reading this article. I've been using gentoo for five years (not that it matters, not saying one distro's better than the other), and I've tried various distros on my laptop just to see what worked, what was better, and finally just stuck to my primary setup. The main reason is, I expect my desktop/window manager to give me the means of being productive, and enough ways to configure it so that should my habits change, my desktop would as well.

And KDE simply has much more to offer. Take for example the menu you get when you right click on the title bar of a window. Most desktops/WMs give you some very basic options. KDE alone gives you advanced options and the possibility to always apply certain rules for a window. Of course this might scare you off if all you wanted to do was to Close or Minimize the window, but still there can be no argument about how powerful KDE is.

Unfortunately, that statement I can't agree with. I've been using E17 (which is still pre-alpha status, granted), and all the examples that you give, are easily available from a right click menu. KDE is not in any way superior to other WMs/desktops, it's different: KDE gives the user a certain amount of choices, and a layout to get to these choices. Gnome also has that kind of properties, but you have to dig deep within obscure configuration panels or files to find them, while Enlightenment (E16, the released version) gives you the same choices but in a completely different manner from KDE.

It is true as the article claims that we dislike change (because it means we have to learn new ways to do things that we need to do). I think this will be less of a problem for KDE in the future, since many KDE 4 applications are being ported to other Windows. Perhaps in the future people that are already accustomed to using Konqueror or Amarok under Windows will find the transition to the powerful but cluttered KDE much easier than a transition to GNOME.

Yes, people dislike change, and that's also one of the fundamental reasons that we're not going to see a whole lot of people actively switching from windows to linux anytime soon. Instead, we'll see the same kind of rate happening, but it'll become relatively constant. Linux is already in the headlines, and the war between MS's OOXML and ODF is making a HUGE fuss about open source in general. If we want to see more people switching to linux, make schools use it, make businesses use it and force users to migrate. We all know this isn't going to happen anytime soon, but this would be the only way to pull the linux conversion rate out of the single digits.
Now, the question does appear as flamebait: "Is GNOME better than KDE?" Well, no. They're meant for different audiences. I know some people who love KDE, others who swear by GNOME, and others yet who can't stay away from less well known WMs such as XFCE or Enlightenment.
What the article and argument should have been, would be "how do I find which environment best helps me do what I'm trying to accomplish, and with the least amount of complications?" We all know that Linux is the platform for those choices to sprout from, but the rest depends on users' tastes. And as my mom used to say "You can't discuss tastes."

Re:KDE

[Amiralul]

Maybe I did the mistake of trying a beta Kubuntu. It dissapointed me: ugly fonts, Firefox 3 forgot sometimes to process the CSS, freezed when I logged out, installing NVIDIA was harder than on Slackware, unable to run .rmvb files with MPlayer or VLC, no RealMedia in repositories, ugly, ugly fonts. In Slackware, nothing freezes, I got all the stuff I want from SlackBuilds.org (maybe you should try it instead of LinxPackages) or Slacky.eu (a very good alternative to LinuxPackages). It's true, the time needed to set up a Slackware machine is high, one or two days (I like compilng the very last kernel, this way my Sony Ericsson W810i is seen as an USB Mass Storage Device and I can opy on/from it pictures and music like it were an USB flas stick), but if you draw a line, it's worth it.

Re:KDE

[fwarren]

Feisty was good. Gustsy was a dog. Hardy is excellent and it is only just beta at this point.

It is a matter of knowing your resources. http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu:Gutsy Is the quickest way to get things like nvidia set up correctly. It is pretty much only an apt-get install nvidia-kernel-common nvidia-glx-new . And it looks like for hardy apt-get install helix-player will install real player.

Make sure you have enabled the universal repositories. Also http://www.medibuntu.org/ and http://www.getdeb.net/ are a good source of apps.

Re:KDE

[tzanger]

Weird, I have had *no* issues with knetworkmanager and wireless networks. Cafes, airports, friend's houses, hotels... all just worked.

That's the beauty of open source...

[bagboy]

Choices! I find myself alternating every so often, but really prefer KDE (v4 is looking good).

Re:That's the beauty of open source...

[pato101]

I feel much more comfortable with Gnome. I admit Konqueror is far more powerful than Nautilus but I tend to use the CLI for non trivial tasks, however- Nautilus scripts do the trick for me as well.
I've tried KDE-4 from Ubuntu repos and it is unusable. Probably because Ubuntu repos are broken or something alike. I expect KDE-4 at Hardy be just OK.
Nevertheless, what I've seen is that the KDE-4 philosophy is closer to Gnome's than KDE-3 used to be, and I like that. I like minimal^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H medium-size desktop environment. Perhaps I end up switching to KDE-4 when I install Hardy; who knows...

Re:That's the beauty of open source...

[Daengbo]

Some people prefer one thing over another. This whole article should be marked as flamebait. Roblimo's next accomplishment will be to describe how he has tried Emacs but always goes back to Vi. Rob, do you just like to stir up trouble? Meh.

Re:That's the beauty of open source...

[mini me]

I haven't used either in a couple of years now that I've switched to OS X, but at the time I preferred KDE because the applications worked together through DCOP interfaces to provide one cohesive system. Gnome applications, on the other hand, acted as separate entities and had to duplicate a lot of functionality found in other applications I already had on my system. Hopefully this situation has been improved.

Re:That's the beauty of open source...

[K. S. Kyosuke]

I thought that Konqueror service menus are the equivalent of Nautilus actions? (I'm just making sure that you know about these, if that is the reason why you moved to Gnome. ;-))

Re:That's the beauty of open source...

[Daengbo]

OK. Now that I've read that entire article, I want to ammend my statement. The next Roblimo contribution doesn't need to be Vi vs. Emacs: he's already covered Kate vs. Gedit and Thunderbird vs. KMail. He even went so far as to drop into why he prefers Linux over Macs and Windows machines. Talk about trying to get 5 flamewars going at once ....

Re:That's the beauty of open source...

[Debug0x2a]

Generally I feel more comfortable with gnome, but I find that alot of new converts prefer KDE because it seems to them to be closer to the windows GUI. I personally have been using xfce on Ubuntu 7.10 because I'm not a huge fan of the flashy extras, and I may even just see about going to fluxbox.

Re:That's the beauty of open source...

[Naughty Bob]

This whole article should be marked as flamebait.

Does that mean we can't talk about this stuff?

Sure, there will be some people who, coming from a different timezone and so freed from the need to be civil, start acting all shouty- that's why we have moderation. But I appreciate this as a record of one man's experience, and as an opportunity to talk about why one interface works for some, and others for others.

I have Ubuntu (my main workstation), Mac OS Tiger (for my photographer girlfriend), and Win XP (for when I have no other option) machines at home.

Each has their good points, and maybe discussing them will somehow show us where we need to be headed next, regardless of our preferences.

I find especially insightful the suggestion that 'we like what we know', though for me, I made the switch from XP to Linux 2+ years ago because 'Familiarity breeds contempt'. There are some things I miss, but I usually - eventually - find that there's a way to do what I want, and that my initial frustration was borne of my lifetime's worth of Windows expertise.

My GF finds her MacBook Pro to be a massively capable machine, but hell hath no fury like a woman who, in the face of an impending deadline, can't figure out how to do something simple, something that would have taken 5 seconds on XP. Her first reaction is always 'what a stupid fucking way to do that'. The next time, she just does it, and is happy to acknowledge that it's not so much a 'stupid fucking way', but a different way to that which she is used.

Re:That's the beauty of open source...

[Daengbo]

Well Bob,

I may have a shorter fuse than you since I've been reading KDE vs. Gnome flamewars since Gnome first appeared. At least all the "KDE's not really free (even when GPL'd)" trolls have died down.

Enough of the articles spin out of control into Gnone vs. KDE or Ubuntu vs. Kubuntu that we don't need a special article for it.

Re:That's the beauty of open source...

[Anonymous Coward]

Guhgnome has a *lack* of choices. Everything is hidden, it fires up crap I don't want or need etcetcetc

anonymity to protect from fanatics

Re:That's the beauty of open source...

[Naughty Bob]

Fair enough. I think both Gnome and KDE have their share of good and bad points, and I can see why different types of user would better suit either one. Though I go for Gnome, I envy the slick default looks of KDE 4, and distrust the new-found motives of Gnome founder Anakin de Icaza.

But the beauty of Linux is that I, and a bunch of like-minded fellows can compile or even write my own version, with none of the perceived compromises.

Re:That's the beauty of open source...

[dlZ]

I use Gnome on my main desktop, but I really like xfce on pretty much every other machine. It's not very flashy, but I always found it an easy to use desktop. I still do most things with the CLI, and a GUI that doesn't get in the way is nice. Most of the time I just have a ton of ssh sessions going into other machines, and the GUI just makes hopping between them easier (normally about 3-4 shells, and I usually have screen running on the machines I'm ssh'd into.)

Re:That's the beauty of open source...

[virgil_disgr4ce]

Interesting... i have to admit, I'm curious what task you might be referring to in OS X.

Re:That's the beauty of open source...

[Naughty Bob]

It was something ridiculously simple to do with printing at the required scale- I wasn't saying that Mac OS didn't have a great way of doing it, but that my GF, almost blinded by her knowledge of how to do the same task in XP, couldn't figure out how to get the result she wanted.

(When she asked for my help, there was 5 minutes left, and I just saved her document as a pdf and printed that. Next time, I'm sure she'll leave more time and learn the required actions.)

Re:That's the beauty of open source...

[ozmanjusri]

Choices! I find myself alternating every so often

Choice, yes.

I always install KDE, Gnome and XFCE. If I'm doing office/business stuff, I'll use KDE, games or graphics Gnome while admin or development is done in XFCE. I can't really justify those choices, but they work for me.

Re:That's the beauty of open source...

[scragz]

When I used KDE I really liked being able to script all the applications through DCOP. Aside from not really having time to play around with all that any more, the main reason I ended up switching to GNOME was that KDE was really buggy then. I still remember liking Konqueror a bunch and Kmail. Heck, most of the applications were designed well, and super-customizable, they would just crash all the time.

Nothing beats Konqueror as a file manager with being able to use the network URLs (I can't remember what they call it). It is still the best Linux FTP client I've seen. Put it in vertical split mode, put your local dir on the left and you can just type your FTP address in the URL bar on the right. I think you can even bookmark the pairs. I don't remember if it would link them so you change directories in both of them at the same time; most Windows clients can't even manage that (except FTP Voyager).

I remember one other thing that bugged me was Firefox not fitting in with everything else. There was a bunch of buzz about a Qt port with a good amount of work done on it but they must have gotten bored 70% of the way through.

Re:That's the beauty of open source...

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember one other thing that bugged me was Firefox not fitting in with everything else. There was a bunch of buzz about a Qt port with a good amount of work done on it but they must have gotten bored 70% of the way through. Personally, I'm liking Konqueror as a web browser more and more, but some things are still lacking when compared to Firefox + extensions - ad blocking just doesn't work as well as with AdBlock+ and Filterset.G updater, and Firebug is godsend if one does any kind of web development. Fortunately, if you don't like inconsistencies WRT look and feel/integration, you can just install this (applies your current QT style to GTK applications, works well with most styles) and this (a wrapper script that enables KDE file dialogs in GTK apps).

Re:That's the beauty of open source...

[WgT2]

...I tend to use the CLI for non trivial tasks...

Then how can you stand it when Gnome's GUI doesn't incorporate standard commandline (CLI) shortcuts, such as ^u, when you want to clear to the beginning of the text dialog?!? or ^k when you want to clear to the end of the text dialog?

The ^u functionality is present everywhere I've tried it (so far) in KDE and I just cannot understand why Gnome, owing its heritage to the CLI, does not incorporate that functionality.

It is the sum of little things like this that equate to a completely dissatisfying experience when using Gnome; it just takes the fun out of using *Nix, which absolutely owes its heritage to the CLI.

Examples:

• Open a session of Bash, type some text, then ^u (Ctrl+u). What happens to the text?
• In the same shell, type 10 characters of text, then ^b five times, then ^k. What happens to the text?
• Now, open Nautilus, create a new folder and, in the dialog to name it, try the two text manipulation steps above. What happens? (spoiler: nothing, the text is not manipulated)
• Open Konqueror, and try the same. What happens? (spoiler: it behaves like the commandline)

Here's where I first notices this huge deficiency:

• Lock your Gnome session, such that you need to provide your password. Mistype your password... you could clear that mistyped password with ^u... if you were on the CLI... or in KDE.

It wasn't until I learned the major shortcuts on the CLI AND just how pervasive they are, such as at the password prompt when logging in, that I really saw how friendly to users, at least those with knowledge of these things, KDE absolute is and Gnome is not.

Re:That's the beauty of open source...

[Fred_A]

I feel much more comfortable with Gnome. I admit Konqueror is far more powerful than Nautilus but I tend to use the CLI for non trivial tasks, however- Nautilus scripts do the trick for me as well. From users around me, I find that it's mostly a matter of taste and of habit. I tend to like both, which after all do pretty much the same thing except that Kwin makes it easy to bind "toggle window to top/bottom" to mouse3 when clicking on the border which I find convenient. I don't like Metacity much, I wish Gnome would have stuck with SawFish (I know you can change the window manager in Gnome, it's not designed to be easy though). So all in all I usually stick with KDE. In *ubuntu, I usually install Ubuntu and then kubuntu on top of that.
FWIW I didn't have any of the problems listed in the article though. My laptop's wireless works fine even though it's intel) and email is managed by thunderbird (I suppose it doesn't help the original author much of course)...

I've tried KDE-4 from Ubuntu repos and it is unusable. Probably because Ubuntu repos are broken or something alike. I expect KDE-4 at Hardy be just OK. That's more because KDE 4 isn't useable. KDE 4 is there so that :
- users can see what it looks like and poke at it a bit (although they aren't supposed to actually *use* it
- programmers can port their apps

KDE 4.1 should start to be useable in real life. In the mean time, stick to 3.whatever your distro ships.

Re:That's the beauty of open source...

[Fred_A]

Those are the standard Emacs shortcuts and are often supported by text manipulation programs or text editing fields. I seem to remember that there is a toggle somewhere to enable them in Gnome. Presumably in the preferences somewhere or possibly in that large XML file that holds the "advanced preferences stupid users shouldn't mess with" (editable with that tool the name of which I have forgotten).

Re:That's the beauty of open source...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Mac OS Tiger (for my photographer girlfriend)"

What is she wearing?

Re:That's the beauty of open source...

[kakalaky]

For those that actually want to know: Use gconf-editor and change the /desktop/gnome/interface/gtk_key_theme key to Emacs.

Re:That's the beauty of open source...

[ryanov]

I really object to this. You should never release something that is unreleasable. It should have been KDE4pre1 or KDE 3.99.x or something. When KDE4 was released, I started to run it briefly. I saw an announcement and I figured "let me check this out." It was basically unusable. I said to myself "holy shit, this is the new release? Who did QA on this thing?" Now I've since heard that the plan is to get people to look at KDE4 by almost tricking them into thinking it was a release, rather than calling it a testing/proving release which it really is. I don't see how that serves anyone.

Re:That's the beauty of open source...

[Moduz]

Try blackbox... that is a windows manager worthy of an award.

Re:That's the beauty of open source...

[pato101]

no, it is not the reason. However, I didn't know about them and I appreciate your pointer. Thank you very much.

Re:That's the beauty of open source...

[Risen888]

And I object to this. KDE 4 is most certainly not "unreleasable," I've been using it exclusively for over a month. Yes, there are bugs. Yes, there are still missing features and missing apps, most of which I've just patched over with KDE 3 apps. And it should really be noted that the spots where there is missing functionality, those applications and technologies do exist if you're willing to check out and test the latest code, but they're not ready for Joe Luser yet, so they're not included yet.

But what's here now is solid and usable. And buggy and a work in progress. And so far ahead of any other desktop in existence today, free software or not, that in my opinion it's worth the growing pains just to watch this amazing leap forward happen before my eyes. If you disagree, you disagree. People are still writing to KDE 3, it's not going to be abandoned for years, and if you still want to see the latest and greatest, almost all of the KDE 4 applications can be installed over the KDE 3 desktop.

Re:That's the beauty of open source...

[lekikui]

Well, it's just another floating WM with shiny graphics, really. No better than Gnome in that respect. If I wanted anything that, I'd be running Enlightenment, which has also managed to produce similar shininess on shoestring hardware. Seriously, have the KDE guys even seen E17? It's been about as shiny as any of the KDE4 screenshots I've seen for ages.

As it is, I run Quark or LWM, not some bloated floating window manager.

Re:That's the beauty of open source...

[jhol13]

As others said, those are Emacs shortcuts, not *nix.

As an example, what should ctrl-c do? Behave like it does in every GUI application or behave like it does in terminal?
Or, closer to Emacs, what should ctrl-a do? (beginning of line v.s. select all)

BTW, ctrl-k should work (as "expected").

I think the old heritage should go, the "new" consistent shortcuts should take over.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_of_keyboard_shortcuts.
http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/2.0/input-keyboard.html#standard-shortcuts

Re:That's the beauty of open source...

[tholomyes]

The ^u functionality is present everywhere I've tried it (so far) in KDE and I just cannot understand why Gnome, owing its heritage to the CLI, does not incorporate that functionality.

That's one of the things I like about OS X, too; at least in the Apple-developed apps where I've tried it, the CLI shortcuts work.

Re:That's the beauty of open source...

[corigo]

When I first loaded GNOME, 10 years after last using it, I was truly shocked that I could see absolutely NO, zero, none, changes. I kicked it's wheels for a few days, then just like the 10 years ago, I switched to KDE and found it so much more useful that I would never have looked back...

But that's not why I'm posting here... since the door is opened to looking at what are some of the values in the 3 common OSs, i.e. Windows, OS X, and LINUX (again I am user of all of them), I want to point out to this group why it is that I can't give up my Windows system....

Some of us out here in the wilds (currently living and working in Vietnam) need to work in multiple languages. Not 1 language now, and another language later, but multiple languages. This is where Windows beats those other 2 hands down! Not by using any Windows features, but by using Keyboard drivers. There is a lovely free open source Vietnamese keyboard driver, called Unikey, that makes this all possible for me. A quick Ctrl+Key stroke and I am now typing in another language without changing my OS language or settings (which I don't want to do anyway). Another quick Ctrl+Key stroke and I am back to typing in English (or whatever my default language is). Neither LINUX or OS X can do this for me and it is the single barrier that keeps me from switching permanently, because literally every single day I need to type in Vietnamese, but work in English.

Every time I bring this up to LINUXers I hear that this is the wrong way to do things, e.g Keyboard drivers. I guess they just don't understand the concept of multi-lingualism. This isn't about I am an English speaker, or I am a French speaker, etc. This is about I am a "XXX" speaker that must also work in "YYY" language.

Re:That's the beauty of open source...

[Risen888]

Okay, so you're not the target demographic. I get it.

Re:That's the beauty of open source...

[WgT2]

Thanks for the tip; it's good to know that is available... not that I can test it at this time. But, I'll remember it as necessary.

I, therefore, need to find out if such a change would work for me while using Firefox under KDE... That would be cool by me.... It's just that gconf, by itself is not installed... any more.

Re:That's the beauty of open source...

[kakalaky]

Just add the following to ~/.gtkrc-2.0 or create it if it doesn't exist and firefox will use emacs key bindings:

gtk-key-theme-name = "Emacs"

Re:That's the beauty of open source...

[WgT2]

You're right, '*Nix shortcuts' isn't accurate but 'default *Nix shortcuts' is. So, thanks for defecting from the meat of the post: the usability of the Gnome interface.

BTW, ctrl-k should work (as "expected").

'Should work'? I tested it before posting. Did you BOTHER to test it before 'shoulding' on your post?

Even if it did, compared to ctrl-u ctrl-k is almost never used in GUI dialogs: that would be but a pittance of support from the Gnome designers... even if were something like GTK's fault.

Re:That's the beauty of open source...

[WgT2]

Thank you very much for the tip: it actually works under KDE.

Now, I wonder, is there a Windows equivalent?

Re:That's the beauty of open source...

[jhol13]

I cannot test as my Gnome is Fedora 6. I consider it too ancient to matter. The other machine has XFCE (Xubuntu) so that was out of the question, too.

I thought that in your example ctrl-b was the culprit. Apparently I was wrong.

Sorry.

Re:That's the beauty of open source...

[kakalaky]

Use XKeymacs. You can find it here: http://www.cam.hi-ho.ne.jp/oishi/indexen.html

Re:That's the beauty of open source...

[ryanov]

And I don't argue with it being available. I do argue with calling it 4.0. If it's not finished, how is it release quality? I mean, I'm running Kubuntu, so it could be the packaging of their release of it, but there were major things missing (can't recall which as I've gone back to 3.0 for now).

Re:That's the beauty of open source...

[WgT2]

I won't be able to check it out until Monday or so.

Once I do I'll update you on my experience.

Thanks again.

Re:That's the beauty of open source...

[WgT2]

No problem.

So, Fedora 6? Isn't that less than 1 1/2 years old - assuming a 6 month Fedora release cycle?

If I haven't thrown them out yet, I'm sure I could boot up an old live CD and find the same behaviors.

kakalaky (another poster) gave the following hack:

Just add the following to ~/.gtkrc-2.0 or create it if it doesn't exist and firefox will use emacs key bindings:
gtk-key-theme-name = "Emacs"

which works fine for GTK-based programs, well, at least for Firefox, in KDE. But, it's not easy to remember and requires changing that value on every box I run KDE on.

I already have to deal with changing the keyboard layout to Dvorak on every box I touch: I just don't want another change to remember.

Finally, even if the KDE team didn't mean this, I think it's apropos: the GUI should be a complement to the command line and not a complete divorce from it. That being said, I guess Gnome could be said to do that - if your command line used to be MSDOS. :)

Here we go again

[El Lobo]

Nothing is "better" than nothing... I like "Lost", you like "Heroes"... None of them is perfect. The same is true with any OS/Tool/Religion, whatever... Keep your taste for yourself, man and let other use what they want.

Re:Here we go again

[wanderingknight]

Says the guy who's got a sig that mocks Mac users.

Re:Here we go again

[Anonymous Coward]

lost is shit!

Re:Here we go again

[Anonymous Crowhead]

As long as we all agree that Captain Picard used Emacs while he spread all measures of awesome throughout the galaxy. That is in stark contrast to Kirk, who used Vi to compose love notes to alien whores in his quest to spread space AIDS to as many planets as he possibly could before being canceled.

Re:Here we go again

[Azuma Hazuki]

Sorry, but sometimes some things *are* better than others, even to the point that they go beyond the "right tool for the right job"/"can't argue with taste" argument. Three years ago I would have said the same thing, but since then, Gnome has mutated into an unholy, shambling, crawling mess of God knows what. There is only one other desktop I've seen that has so little functionality for so much bloat: Windows XP's Luna. Yes, I went there.

Worse, Gnome has reinvented the triangular wheel; pull up GConf and tell me that doesn't look at least superficially like the Windows registry. Yes, there *are* corresponding flat text or XML files, but the fact that I need to know that says that GConfEditor is unintuitive and weak. KControl is probably just as messy internally, but I have never, ever needed to check this to verify; it exposes tremendous amounts of the DE's look and feel, perhaps *too* much for a beginner, to the user.

What really tears it is that I much prefer the look of GTK, the fact that it's written in C, and that it uses the LGPL. Luckily, we also have XFCE, which I have taken to calling "what Gnome always should have been" since version 4.3.9x. All XFCE is missing is some drag'n'drop support (apps menu --> panel launcher, for example) and some more functionality in Thunar (which can be added via Thunar's plugin system) and it will make Gnome utterly pointless. XFCE might not be quite as friendly (read: patronizing) as Gnome, but even my mother, a longtime Windows user, said she "felt like the computer was insulting her intelligence" when she used Gnome.

Not to say KDE doesn't have its own issues; I hate Konqueror for web browsing, though prefer it just slightly over D[3/o]lphin for file management. Most of the apps I need are GTK, and the QT/KDE alternatives just don't do it for me. It's perhaps a bit *too* configurable for a beginner, though I personally appreciate how much can be changed. Theming is also a pain in the neck for beginners since there are so many separate things to change and it's not always obvious what each one does. Still, given a choice between Gnome and KDE, I would take KDE any day. ...I'd just rather have XFCE or IceWM or one of the *boxes instead =P

Re:Here we go again

[Anonymous Coward]

i like the dom perignon. if you like the mad train, that's your choice. i don't want you to tell me what you like, damnit!

Re:Here we go again

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing is "better" than nothing... ... None of them is perfect. ... Keep your taste for yourself, man and let other use what they want. Says the guy who's got a sig that mocks Mac users. Well, FWIW, Mac users are notorious for not keeping their tastes to themselves. :)

Re:Here we go again

[niteice]

Nor are non-Mac users.

Re:Here we go again

[bruno.fatia]

that means we are, in fact, divided in two groups: the mac fans and the "rest"?

Re:Here we go again

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree! We Osborne-1 users need to stick together, now more than ever.

Re:Here we go again

[EsbenMoseHansen]

[...]it is that I much prefer the look of GTK, the fact that it's written in C, and that it uses the LGPL. [...]

Why does it matter if it is written in C? (unless you are hacking on it yourself, of course).

Re:Here we go again

[fwarren]

As long as we all agree that Captain Picard used Emacs while he spread all measures of awesome throughout the galaxy. That is in stark contrast to Kirk, who used Vi to compose love notes to alien whores in his quest to spread space AIDS to as many planets as he possibly could before being canceled.

You say that as if it is a bad thing.

Don't think i matters all that much.

[IANAAC]

Since both sets of libraries are available, you can easily run programs from both environments.

I have mostly used Gnome, but since I got the EeePC, I've been using KDE, but I've set it up so it both looks and acts like Gnome. I'm pretty sure you can also do the same in the other direction.

The actual desktop environment really doesn't matter so much as do the applications.

Re:Don't think i matters all that much.

[Brian Gordon]

And make no mistake- they're desktop environments. NOT window managers. Sheesh.

Re:Don't think i matters all that much.

[Dasher42]

Historically, KDE has been much more configurable than Gnome. All through the KDE 3.x days my first step on a fresh install was to reconfigure the toolbars to reduce clutter, set up the keyboard shortcuts so that I could reach for the mouse less, so forth - or of course, copying over the .kderc folder from a machine where I'd done this before. Doing this in Gnome is problematic, and often Gnome distros bundle applications that will pay no attention to your customizations. The KDE integration advantage really comes through here.

Right now, Gnome is being so conservative about their interface that you actually can't "do the same in the other direction".

Re:Don't think i matters all that much.

[notamisfit]

True for the KDE3 series, but KDE4 seems to be a lot more set in stone (at least the 4.0.x stuff, in its current non-released released state).

Re:Don't think i matters all that much.

[Dasher42]

Right, true for now, but that's due to KDE4 being in early development, whereas the Gnome developers have stripped that kind of thing out over the years based on their design philosophy.

Re:Don't think i matters all that much.

[Hatta]

I have a feeling I'll be using kde 3.5.x for a long time to come. From what I've seen of KDE4 it looks like an entirely new desktop, instead of a new and better release of the KDE I've come to know and love.

Re:Don't think i matters all that much.

[ajs]

Thank you! I'm glad someone pointed this out. I'm really sick of people thinking that Gnome is a window manager (or KDE for that matter).

A desktop is everything from the libraries to the UI specs to the systems gui tools, etc. Some of the most important features of Gnome, for example:

• Internationalized text rendering capabilities
  
• Application data exchange standards
  
• HIG (Human Interface Guideline) specification
  

Re:Don't think i matters all that much.

[trjonescp]

I think there is something to be said for Gnome's slightly more restrictive interface customizations -- at least In terms of getting Linux into the mainstream consumer market.

Case in point: On my XP machine at work, when I need an IT admin to install/fix/whatever something on my computer it usually takes an extra 5 seconds for them to find my start button ("Uh.. Uh... Oh you moved your task bar to the top of your screen?!") Then an extra few seconds for them to realize that I have also customized my Start menu and the "Run" option is not there (I just use the shortcut). Overall, it's only a matter of 10-15 seconds longer for them to get their job done, but this is with on-site tech support between two computer professionals (well, 1 1/2 :-) Imagine an open source software company who is trying to offer phone support for grandma and have no idea what distro she is using or how her grandkids customized it for her.

And finally one last rant: Default settings matter! The vast majority of computer user's never event attempt to customize anything more than their desktop background. So, if the defaults that are shipped are not sane, user-friendly, then the product is no good to that user. They will simply move on or give up. (This is where Ubuntu really shines)

Re:Don't think i matters all that much.

[ka24]

That damned HIG has been responsible for ruining more GNOME functionality (galeon!) than any single document ever vomited from the hands of a development team. It's the one thing I truly cannot stand about GNOME. Mind you, I'm a user since the very early days, and it has made great progress over the years, but I despise anyone or anything that assumes I don't need customization or preferences. NO, your stupid registry editor doesn't make it better.

Re:Don't think i matters all that much.

[Air-conditioned cowh]

"Historically, KDE has been much more configurable than Gnome."
Which is why a comparison between Gnome and KDE doesn't make sense unless each has really been made to shine. I use PCLinuxOS and Mandriva because they do just that with KDE. It's a lot nicer than a KDE default desktop that is shipped with many Gnome-centric distros.

Re:Don't think i matters all that much.

[sumdumass]

Your lucky your allowed to customize your desktop like that at work. I usually lock the systems down and you have to ask to change the background.

Everything is the same so if someone has to use your system when your out, they will be just as productive as they would be on any other system. About the only thing you can do is move the Icons around but they will resort alphabetically when you re-log on. All your saved forms, recently used docs and everything is reset when you log out too. All your files are on a networked drive and there are very few directories on the workstation that you can save anything on.

On rare occasions I will come across software that pukes on these settings. Then you are given a set of rules and expected to follow them. And believe it or not, these rules are an accumulation of all the severe screw ups we have had years. I remember one dude set his background to a chic he found on the web. She was clothed in a string bikini so no nudity was there, but she was also one of the other accountant's niece and it caused a stir. I do this at most all the sites I administer except where a CIO or someone decides he wants smiley faces for his corporate email. Then I give up knowing that I will be constantly removing malware and so on. You would be surprised at how many grown men in management want smiley faces for their emails.

Re:Don't think i matters all that much.

[trjonescp]

This sounds like a great idea for minimizing IT work involved in maintaining machines, but is this best for the company? The first thing that comes to mind is all the talented employees that are lost because they cannot customize their work environment to their liking. (obviously not solely for this reason, but it could be the last straw)

Re:Don't think i matters all that much.

[darthflo]

Wow, that does sound like a place I really wouldn't want to be working for. I'm not that guy who spends hours with theming his desktop or changing cursor images, but auto-sorted desktop icons? That sounds awfully sadistic to me. Also, recently used docs and the like can be something quite useful and don't have much of a downside.
The potential usability troubles for other users can be easily offset with the simple use of profiles. That'd make everybody as productive on their "home station" in the company as well as any other -- and would allow them to have ordered icons, a background picture and a double-height auto-hiding start bar on the top of the screen (just examples).

Re:Don't think i matters all that much.

[sumdumass]

Sadly, it was all born from things that happened. I named off the desktop wallpaper shot because I think it was a little humerus. But locking them out of the local file systems and into network files was born from not one but two separate instances where someone saved all their work to the local disks which weren't backed up nightly and after a disk failure on one and a robbery attempt on another (the cops took the system as evidence) We had to scramble to get the files. One situation costs $3200 for recovery services and the other left us unable to work over a week.

Then there was the week the building at one place caught fire. None of the systems where damaged but they all needed to be taken off site to a make shift office. You would think that roaming profiles would have prevented this but 35 computers that all look the same except for the damn windows license key on the side of it and someone's kids made a situation where you didn't know who's system was who's and all the differences on the desktops and such got everyone complaining that they had someone else's computers. Of course them changing desks wasn't an option so I had to track down each system and rotate them a couple of times based on their current seating arrangements before they all got back into shape. It was more then just desktop back grounds and stuff. Some systems didn't have the right programs installed, some templates were installed (by someone else) onto the local drives so form letters weren't displaying correctly and so on. Some had pirated software and music from home and felt like they got robbed when it wasn't there.

We finally standardized on locking everything down to the same thing. No customizations that survive a log off. Every computer has all the required programs installed, all the files are on the network and so on now. It worked quite well at one site so I took it to the others. These are all accountants or lawyers, insurance agents and secretaries who all do the same stuff day after day. With HIPPA requirements, the California's Security Breach Statute (even though we aren't in CA), Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act we have to deal with which basically means we have to log, monitor and report everything, it makes it a lot easier to keep track of now.

There isn't a high turnover in these type of businesses. They tend to be better paying jobs that keep you busy with repetitive tasks. I would guess that if this was the last straw for those workers, they would have been gone a long time ago. Although we did just higher 3 girls at a law firm and 2 left. One was for maternity leave though (gonna be a house mom). I doubt these policies are hurting anything. Anyone can learn anything, if it isn't set up like they want, they will get used to is. If they want to personalize the workspace, they can put a picture or something on the desks. It is actually odd in how relaxed and personal these companies are when I tell you about these strict policies. But as I said before, they all came after something else happened that cost lost of money.

Re:Don't think i matters all that much.

[justthinkit]

To further Dasher42's point...

Which is easier, (1) add the functionality you want to a bare-bones system, (2) scratch your head at a unusually-designed system and have to go through a re-learning curve, (3) reconfigure a system that offers multiple ways of doing something by simply stripping away or rearranging what is offered?

Note 1: I'm not taking OS sides here (in fact, I prefer XP [then DOS] to everything I've ever tried).
Note 2: (1), (2) & (3) above are not referring to a particular OS, but could. For example, (1) sounds a bit like the "KISS system design, rather than ease of use" of Slackware. (2) sounds like gnome for sure, but also like Microsoft Office 2007. (3) sounds like KDE in particular and Microsoft Windows in general.

Embrace and extend is actually a good design principle. Marrying it to bad intent is what makes it evil. Microsoft embraced the mouse and used it to extend input options, but Gates insisted on full keyboard equivalence. Score one for the users who benefited from Microsoft's approach. If KDE adds numerous alternative ways of doing something, most of which can be easily changed or removed, I am all for it.

In reading this thread it occurred to me that each Linux application, on first use or when holding down some key while click-launching it, could prompt with "There are other applications that can do a similar job to me, can I show you a few?" This would allow Linux to embrace and extend applications in general. This would reward Linux developers who see things just a little bit different. This would grow the field for all of us.

Re:Don't think i matters all that much.

[sumdumass]

We use profiles. There was an issue where we needed to relocate physical locations because of a small fire and all the little differences wasn't good. People had brought software from home in and installed it and threw a fit like they were being robbed when their new system has a link to a non existing program. They all complained that they didn't have "their system" and while technically every box was the same processor and memory, spyware or the presence of a custom background image or music files not present and so on caused me to relocate 35 some of computers based on old->new seating assignments. You would think profiles would have handled that but "no fucking way". Something that was a pain in the first place was severely complicated because of personalizations and stuff.

They new way, everything it the same. No workstation is different. All files detrimental to your job is on the server and backed up nightly, not software from home is installed Music CDs and so on remain on CDs unless you can fit it on a 1 gig flash drive and even then, that's passworded to stop work files from going home. Now, All software is installed on all computers and anyone can log into any computer and not tell the difference between on of another unless there is something physical on the workstation itself. It has saved a lot of issues and quited a lot of pointless egos.

Surprisingly, not too many people resent this move. The offices are mostly insurance agents, lawyers, accountants and secretaries who tie them all together (different locations of course). But they are also pretty liberal and personal in almost every other aspect. They do birthdays parties in office, have pictures on their desks, have candy out the ass stashed all over the place and seem to change the locations of the types quite often so you have to goto different areas of the building to find your favorite pieces. I suspect it was originally for customers but has been adapted so the partners would be seen with everyone and so on (I think a couple of the employees might be diabetic, they are getting old). It really is a great place(s) to work-with. I remember when one of the lawyers made partner a few years ago, they took everyone out to dinner, including the contract workers like me and even the phone guy who is there maybe 4 or 5 times a year. I'm guessing some of that makes up for any disgruntlement of the other stuff.

Re:Don't think i matters all that much.

[ajs]

That damned HIG has been responsible for ruining more GNOME functionality (galeon!) than any single document ever ... I despise anyone or anything that assumes I don't need customization or preferences. NO, your stupid registry editor doesn't make it better. Well, I agree with the, "don't save the user from complexity," sentiment, but the HIG is huge, and most of it is very useful. Some of it was experimental, and did need to be refined. Some of it was addressing concerns that people correctly held about complexity, but went too far. I think if you look at what the HIG and GNOME are today, it was worth the trouble.

Re:Don't think i matters all that much.

[dbIII]

They both have window managers as well - which is my only problem with the most recent KDE3. The window manager couldn't handle certain old motif applications so I replaced it with enlightenment while keeping the rest of the KDE behaviour (panel, icons etc). I have two users that really disliked their week back on gnome while I worked problem out and many users on gnome that are very happy with the environment they are on - both have a lot of good features. Gnome is far more than just a way to break the gimp tool kit (gtk) every month like it used to be.

Re:Don't think i matters all that much.

[dbIII]

Doing this in Gnome is problematic

Change that to impossible for anything other than very recent versions. The gconf "hey it's cool to have a MS WINDOWS registry for every single user which will someday have a cool GUI which is why the command line tools and direct editing don't work" attitude clobbered that. I had far more respect for Miguel when I found out gconf was somebody else's work. Gconf is seeing active development and there are tools like "sabayon" so exporting the settings may now be possible.

Re:Don't think i matters all that much.

[riondluz]

Absolutely, presuming one has the HD space to have both installed, it's real easy to cherry-pick the desirable apps and run a different WM completely. Personally, I like E17 and a gnome-panel

Real brain-twister

[SnoopJeDi]

Does this mean GNOME is now a better desktop than KDE, or just that I have become so accustomed to GNOME that it's hard for me to give it up?

Neither.

It just means you prefer GNOME to KDE. That's all. Saying something is more superior because you prefer it over everything else (without any other grounds) is something the Slashdot crowd should recognize from a mile away: fanboism.

Personally, I prefer Fluxbox. Does that make Fluxbox superior? No, it just means that as a minimalist user, a more trimmed window manager does the trick for me.

Re:Real brain-twister

[dreamchaser]

It's a bit like "For years I used to love Quarter Pounders, then I switched to Big Macs and found that I liked them. Recently I started to eat Quarter Pounders again, but switched right back to Big Macs. Does this mean that the Big Mac is better?"

It's crazy what passes for front page news here these days.

Re:Real brain-twister

[Anonymous Coward]

SnoopJeDi: something the Slashdot crowd should recognize from a mile away: fanboism.

Roblimo: It's good to be king :)

Re:Real brain-twister

[MikeBabcock]

I keep fluttering between Blackbox for rapid-response older desktops and Enlightenment for sheer beauty.

Every now and then I wish for better Nautilus integration in either, or even better, something better than Nautilus.

(Yes, feel free to make suggestions).

Re:Real brain-twister

[karnal]

Switch out the Quarter Pounder with a Whopper with Cheese and you just might have something on the same track.

Re:Real brain-twister

[harry666t]

I use Thunar (from XFCE) with E16, E17 is still too unstable for me. Rox filer is also very good, and the Rox desktop environment just... Rocks (but it has very frequent problems with stability, and even more with dependencies, due to poor (or rather: none at all) integration of zeroinstall with debian package management). Neither of the two seems more integrated with E or Fluxbox, at least to me, but that depends on your definition of "integration"... And they're lightweight.

BTW, which version of E are you running? If E16, do you use a run dialog, similar to KDE's Alt+F2? I've found that KDE's run dialog works the best for me, but damn, it is not a separate program, and I won't be running this resource hog on my poor old machine just because of that one thing =/

Re:Real brain-twister

[Moixa]

thinkfinger works under Gnome, but not KDE

Re:Real brain-twister

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a Royal with Cheese you insensitive clod.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLtwFugudZE

Re:Real brain-twister

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope both suck , but are good for the toothless as they can be sucked up via a straw

Re:Real brain-twister

[SnoopJeDi]

A rather relevant example I can think of:

At my uni, the radio station runs a "DJ-Tron" which is just a randomized playlist of a fraction of our music that plays whenever a DJ isn't in the booth. When a DJ is in the booth, he logs onto the computer, flips DJ-Tron off on the control panel, and starts spinning and talking and ear-screwing the listeners to their heart's content.

The computer is an old i386 with very unimpressive hardware, probably snatched from some lab when OIT switched over to Dell desktops running XP/Fedora.

We don't do much of anything with it; We keep a copy of firefox running to access the web-based DJ control panel, and a copy of X-Chat to interact with any peons listening in. Personally, I open an xterm from time to time to ssh into my home machine to adjust StreamRipper, or into my university lab account for godknowswhat.

So, we don't really need big guns like GNOME or KDE. We run BlackBox on the machine, and it works spectacularly for the purpose. If non-engineering personnel ever had to do something on that machine beyond the web, chat, or restarting bb, they'd be totally lost. But they never do, and it saves the rest of that beastly computing power (I suspect it could be a Pentium II, but it's PIII at best) for running the IceCast stream and other miscellaneous doodads.

The right tool for the right job/user.

Re:Real brain-twister

[Anonymous Coward]

My taste includes both snails and oysters.

Re:Real brain-twister

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the entire point! It has nothing to do with what the articles in question are. It's more along the lines of a question about the human mind. Like, if YOU like item X and try item Y and then go back to X, does that mean that you preferred X or just became used to it. It doesn't matter that other people like other things, that has nothing to do the question.

Re:Real brain-twister

[Pichu0102]

I'm sorry, I'm afraid I don't understand. Could you restate that in the form of a car analogy?

Re:Real brain-twister

[mortonda]

They're both nasty. For a good burger, find the local place that owns their own herd for their burgers.

Re:Real brain-twister

[dfghjk]

He didn't say anything was "more superior" because that would make him seem illiterate.

Re:Real brain-twister

[TheLink]

A Gnu herd for burgers.

Make sure you get some of that open sauce stuff.

Re:Real brain-twister

[zakeria]

exactly! I used Gnome for years then tried KDE about 18 months back and have never looked back. To me KDE looks more like Windows and Window's was my first GUI, Gnome on the other hand is more like the old Apple Mac and I never got the feel for it even after years and years of using it. KDE is clean and functional Gnome seems to be based on hack after hack mixing of old and new library's. Only gripe I have with KDE is they have not made a KDE/ui based firefox something I think is very silly.

Re:Real brain-twister

[Anonymous Coward]

Big Macs are clearly superior though. I like mine with no pickles and extra mac sauce.

The toppings on the big mac are just that much tastier.

Re:Real brain-twister

[xerxesdaphat]

I use OpenBox myself, but in terms of a low-memory, fast and low-dependency Alt-F2 program, you can't go past gmrun (http://www.bazon.net/mishoo/gmrun.epl). It's in the Debian/Ubuntu repositories. Basically just a text field, nothing more, but hides a little bit of complexity -- tab-completion for executables and files, bash-style Ctrl-R history searching, lots more stuff.

Re:Real brain-twister

[MikeBabcock]

I run E17 when I'm not in Gnome on my high-horsepower machine, and Blackbox on my system-monitoring lots-of-SSH-windows machine.

With E17 I run a Gnome Panel (yes, a sin) and use the mini-commander applet therein.

An Epplet that had the same functionality would probably be simple to write now that I think about it.

Re:Real brain-twister

[fwarren]

For integration into fluxbox, blackbox, et al. At the start of your desktop session run

Thunar --daemon

That will put thunar running in the background. Anytime dbus signals a new device has been plugged in. It will mount the device and open it up in a new thunar window.

fluxbox is nice...

[ohxten]

While I'd certainly choose GNOME over KDE (it's just more of my style... KDE to me looks like it was designed by a little kid), I prefer fluxbox to them both. It's insanely lightweight and simple.

Re:fluxbox is nice...

[Anonymous Coward]

Fluxbox is pretty bloated. Just try to make sense of the >20K lines of code in a reasonable amount of time.

dwm on the other hand, is very lightweight and simple. Not to mention much more usable than Fluxbox.

Re:fluxbox is nice...

[setchell.dave]

damn straight. dwm and wmii are excellent. The ease of key commands calling scripts that interact with the plan9 style backend == "brilliant". You can type E and via very simple scripting will start emacs and take you to it or if it's already running just take you to it. Nonetheless if you want tiling and dual monitors: i'm really loving xmonad. Took a moment to put my noggin around haskell though. Also, I did like running 2 wmii's one on each screen. But to the point. I do like some of the features of the larger window managers. I just very much wish they tiled, if desired, nativly.

Re:fluxbox is nice...

[abigor]

Well to be honest, I think pretty much every desktop in the world has key bindings. KDE certainly does, and so does the Mac. Any key can be mapped to a script, application, or whatever. Check out Quicksilver for the Mac if you want to be really impressed - I don't think there's a productivity tool like it for any other platform. Hot keys like what you described are barely the beginning.

Re:fluxbox is nice...

[setchell.dave]

Yes they do... but the strength of wmii, dwm, and xmonad is that the script then has easy access back to the inner workings of the window manager. Very very easy to say, "start `someprogram` take me to virtual desktop x and call that desktop "myEditor Desk" and place the new program on the top left of monitor 2". Then bind that to . Or find all *terms and bring them to the v.desktop i'm looking at. In the suckless software (wmii, dwm) all settings for the WM are in a live plan9 style filesystem. mod the filesytem then the wm is immediately changed. I cannot speak as much for xmonad { just began using it }. I am enjoying it, just not terribly familiar with haskell. Plus it's tiled. i.e the same key command that starts program "x" will simply bring "x" to the screen. I do a great deal of audio work, which means upwards of 30 open windows at a time. I also need to see them all fullscreen. The first 10 wave files I open are bound ( automatically ) to control 1-10. If I need to see somesound.wav and I can just hit say ctrl 3. No need to alt-tab through crap, or shrink all of them down so I can see them. then maximize. Mind I fully agree this kind of thread can definately be flamebait. That's not my intention. There are some very lean windowmangers ( lean is vital when your cranking 50 some tracks of 96khz audio through and RME ). That have easily implemented features that I'd like lauded and perhaps seen in the "big names".

Re:fluxbox is nice...

[abigor]

Yes, you can do all of what you described on the Mac as well via scripting, including placing various windows and apps where you want them, tiling, etc. etc., and mapping stuff to hotkeys, as mentioned. But that's cool if what you have works for you - I definitely get the lean'n'mean requirements if you're working with a lot of audio.

Re:fluxbox is nice...

[setchell.dave]

Yes exactly. This is kinda a ridiculous topic. Because when it comes to interface, it is just what you, as the end user, want. That is all that matters. I want lean and tiled, for a good reason. Others want pre-configured and predictable, and for good reason. Mac's interface is wonderful, well thought out, friendly and very customizable. So my central point is, I wish that people would discuss features over the glob of entire windowing system. I wish that we could discuss, specific elements that are great about window manager x and window manager y on system z. In lieu of, " the system I use is great and yours sux0rs". Most actual users of their machines use the system they have for stellar reasons, even if they are drastically different from mine. This is good... the issue is that a great deal of wonderful work is spread out across systems; thus few people have all that they want, despite that fact that all their features are out there. They are just spread across many mutually exclusive interfaces.

Re:fluxbox is nice...

[pintpusher]

I just want to second the vote for xmonad. it's a remarkable piece of work for a one year(?) old wm with about 1k LOC in the core. Of course, comparing LOC in Haskell to just about anything is sort of silly.

Hands down the best part of xmonad is the small but robust community support. And the willingness of that community to help you realize your idea of how the WM should behave.

Re:fluxbox is nice...

[abigor]

thus few people have all that they want, despite that fact that all their features are out there. They are just spread across many mutually exclusive interfaces. Yes, you are correct, and what's more, in this way operating system interfaces resemble women.

I'm looking

[smittyoneeach]

...for gnome.el and kde.el, but not finding them.
Are gnome and kde part of this new-fangled "X" thingy people seem to be on about lately?

Re:I'm looking

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep that X thingy again...
Thats's not like the x-files is it?

Re:I'm looking

[sumdumass]

Sort of. X is like the vehicle and the desktop environment is like the rider going somewhere. It sits on top of X.

Happened to me too.

[Anonymous Coward]

I find myself switching back and forth sometimes. I went with Gnome for a while, because KDE had that bug where it took like five minutes to start up for everyone but the developers. Then they took all the features out of Gnome, so I tried to switch to KDE, but I'd just gotten too comfortable with Gnome to stay away from it.

It's a little depressing. I used to switch UIs all the time. It feels like I'm getting old.

I switched to Gnome

[Anonymous Coward]

Back when KDE became super bloated and never looked back. In 2004? or so Gnome was more like what KDE was like in 2000/2001 which was when I started using KDE because Gnome was just too unruly for a beginner.

(and yes I know they apparently fixed the bloat.)

Re:I switched to Gnome

[Anonymous Coward]

(and yes I know they apparently fixed the bloat.) Unfortunately, they didn't fix the ugliness. KDE has always looked bad, but have you looked at KDE4? Damn, that is ugly. Looks like a very poor attempt at ripping off Vista, which itself is very ugly. Seriously, KDE needs a good theme, but not a single one on kde-look even looks decent. Most Gnome things look bad too, but at least Clearlooks is very attractive and default. Plastik was a good theme, needed some polish, though.

Re:I switched to Gnome

[harry666t]

OTOH I find Plastik ugly. I'm not a Mac fanboy of any sort, but they (Apple) have managed to do one thing just damn right - the UI *look* (and feel, to some degree). Too bad there are *no* good Mac-like themes (Baghira for KDE used to be cool and so on but it felt bloated and it hadn't had a release for long months... Or maybe it's years now?).

My favorite setup is milk-like theme for a window manager, Milk for GTK apps and QtCurve with whitey (Milk-like) colors for KDE apps. Although it's much faster, it's nowhere like Baghira, forget Mac OS X :<

what i have

[FudRucker]

i keep kde for other users mostly (family & friends) i like to use dwm, fvwm2 and openbox, i switch between the three light weight window managers almost on a daily basis, i do have a custom built ~/.fvwm/.fvwm2rc that makes fvwm minimal and functional by trimming the cruft off of it, for those fvwm2 fans you might like it:http://pastebin.com/m13b1df9b/

Re:what i have

[FudRucker]

pastebin broke my link? (tries again)

http://pastebin.com/m79ec0872

GNOME and screen real estate

[NaCh0]

The worst part about GNOME is the huge 64x64 icons, wasted whitespace on all of the toolbars and control panels, and what appears to be 16pt default font. They also get the ok/cancel buttons backwards. The "desktop" might be okay if you're a 60 year old blind man. Otherwise it's seriously frustrating to use.

Re:GNOME and screen real estate

[prockcore]

They also get the ok/cancel buttons backwards

They're not backwards, they're just the way they're supposed to be. Apple uses the same button order, and has usability studies to back up that decision.

Re:GNOME and screen real estate

[Anonymous Coward]

You can actually change the size of the icons fairly easily -- just open up the right click menu, and then 'stretch' the icon. A similar thing can be done for the toolbars (right click and click on properties). I have my toolbars at the minimum thickness (24 pixels), and I think my desktop icons are all the minimum 24x24 as well. Incidentally the larger size of all the icons and toolbars in KDE is one of the reasons why I haven't given it more than a passing glance. In KDE changing things from the default isn't as intuitive for me.

The real advantage to GNOME over ftwm is that it is easy to set a hot key to get a *true* full screen on a window (without that annoying colored bar at the top).

And some flamebate (just for fun!):
At least GNOME doesn't name everything 'K'-something like we were from the Klan.

Re:GNOME and screen real estate

[HappySmileMan]

At least GNOME doesn't name everything 'K'-something like we were from the Klan. Yeah I know, look at how cool the names of Gnome programs are:

gattaxx,
gcalctool,
gconf-editor,
gdm,
gedit,
Geyes,
gfloppy,
glines,
gnet,
gnibbles,
gnobots2,
gnometris,
gnomine,
gnopernicus,
gnotravex,
gnotski,
gok,
grecord,
gtali,
gucharmap,

Re:GNOME and screen real estate

[UnknownSoldier]

Are in this order?

Cancel = Back (Left), OK = Forward (Right)

Slightly off-topic: When the hell is /. going to update the reverse layout of the "older news"
    YesterdayDate | DayBeforeYesterday

It should be:
    PrevDate | SelectedDate | NextDate

And there sould be at least button of whitespace between Preview and Submit.

Noob UI designers...

Re:GNOME and screen real estate

[tehBoris]

gattaxx, gcalctool, gconf-editor, gdm, gedit, Geyes, gfloppy, glines, gnet, gnibbles, gnobots2, gnometris, gnomine, gnopernicus, gnotravex, gnotski, gok, grecord, gtali, gucharmap,

Way to go, pal! Half of these programs are games —where silly names don't matter (and may save you from a trademark infringement violation)— and GDM is actually an acronym.

Re:GNOME and screen real estate

[Anomolous Cowturd]

GDM expands to: GNU's Not Unix Network Object Model Environment Display Manager. That's some acronym :)

Re:GNOME and screen real estate

[mikael]

What is your screen resolution? On a 1400x1050 screen the icons appear small and highly detailed. Gnome does allow you to customize your desktop layout. You can delete and reduce the size of the toolbars (down to 25 pixels). You can even make them transparent if you want. Some people may like to have their icons all in one side for quick retrieval, others might like to have toolbar icons located according to potential damage (eg. place all the shutdown/kill window icons in one corner, all the startup icons in another, and information icons in the middle; CPU temperature, system activity, time/date).

Given the portability of Linux, everyone is going to have a different configuration, so what might be good for a multi-monitor multi-core workstation isn't necessarily going to be good for an 800x600 server console.

Re:GNOME and screen real estate

[TheLink]

That also depends on which international region the user has set things to.

For example in Arabic you read from right to left. So the order of things would make more sense the other way round.

See this:
http://www.i18nguy.com/MiddleEastUI.html

It was a pain, but seems they have a lot of money there and we wanted some of it :).

Re:GNOME and screen real estate

[smoker2]

And after having been used to Windows for so long, Gnomes arrangement actually makes you think about the decision, and if you just click absentmindedly, you hit cancel, so no harm done.

Icons on top...

[mikael]

I've used both Gnome and KDE for over five years, but what I don't understand about Gnome is why the move to have icons at both the top and bottom of the screen. Is this to emulate the Mac look?

Re:Icons on top...

[19thNervousBreakdown]

No, it's to give you two areas where you effectively only have to worry about accuracy in the X axis. Having it only at the bottom only gives you one. Twice as much space, for practically no cost.

Re:Icons on top...

[Hatta]

Why not surround the entire screen with tool bars then?

Re:Icons on top...

[Requiem18th]

Well at least the right edge is reserved for the scrollbar so it is out of the question. The only other edge left is the left one but really, two tool bars are enough.

  As far as I'm concerned, KDE also uses two tool bars by default, is just that they are both placed at the bottom, merged. Haven't you noticed that the default kicker panel has two rows of window buttons, tray icons and virtual desktops? The app launcher icons are twice as big (that's pretty) and the clock applet is also very big (and ugly IMHO).

But you are right that they did copy something from apple and that is the top panel menus, the idea being that it is easier to use three menus than one big menu with a lot of sub-nesting.

Personally I think that the Applications menu should go at the left of the system menu. I wish I could configure that.

Re:Icons on top...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not surround the entire screen with tool bars then?

What would you place in the two vertical toolbars? You can't place any text there (such as a list of open windows) because the toolbar is the wrong dimension for text. This leaves you basically one option: very small icons to launch software. Too bad all these small icons already fit perfectly well within Gnome's top toolbar. Vertical menus are almost never used because they are bad for usability and have little usable space to do anything useful with.

Another explanation as to why vertical toolbars are almost never used is that everything you do on your desktop tends to be based on vertical scrolling. All your documents and webpages should be scrolling vertically with maximum screen width availability. Including vertical toolbars wastes horizontal screen space which is extremely valuable given that horizontal scrolling is out of the question. Vertical screen space is not as valuable, because we can scroll up and down the screen.

It'd be interesting to note that if most of your work was done in a "left to right" method of thinking (such as audio or video editing with a timeline layout), you'd probably want to use vertical toolbars instead of horizontal toolbars. As you're scrolling horizontally more often than vertically, it may make more sense to maximize the vertical height availability. However the problem of not being able to place any text in vertical toolbars still exists (and it is a blocking problem that can't be solved).

I like the 'default' toolbar placement of Gnome because it maximizes the space available for listing which windows are open. It groups all the "window management" controls in one toolbar at the bottom. The window switcher is closely related to the list of open windows, and hence both of them share the same toolbar. Application launchers are lumped in the top left and application status information is in the top right. It is logical. KDE4/Vista waste extremely valuable (price of printer cartridges expensive) screen real estate with toolbars that are too 'fat'. I could fit two Gnome toolbars in the height of the default KDE4 toolbar. And I wouldn't have ugly double-line text within the the list of open windows because the font size and icons are too large.

To further my comparison of KDE4/Gnome (as that is the topic we're discussing here) I'd like to mention KDE4's single KickOff menu compared to Gnome's use of multiple dropdown menus.

If you want to launch an application using KDE4's menu, the worst case scenario is the following procedure:
- click the KickOff icon
- click the Applications tab
- click/mouseover(?) to scroll down the list to the category of application you want
- click the category that has now become visible
- click/mouseover(?) to scroll down the list of applications
- click the icon for the application you want to launch

Compare this to Gnome:
- click the Applications drop down menu
- place mouse over flyout menu to expand a category of applications
- click the icon for the application you want to launch

You could use the search feature within the KDE menu to speed up the procedure, but I may have a drink in one hand and my free hand on the mouse. Even without the drink, my right hand would still need to switch position from the mouse to the keyboard. For common applications, I simply place shortcuts to the applications directly onto my top desktop toolbar (single click launching). In KDE this isn't an option if you're only using a single toolbar, as you simply don't have the space. Which is why you need two smaller toolbars.

I don't care if you can customize settings to your liking because I want this level of usability out of the box (by default). One of the reasons I hate using Windows is you have to setup 593 settings related to desktop usability before the GUI actually becomes reasonably efficient to use. If I'm using someone else's computer, I don't want to have to go through and change all 593 settings so t

Re:Icons on top...

[smoker2]

You can. If you are that desperate for clickable areas, but it does make things cluttered.
I'm pretty sure you can do the same thing with KDE and even Windows to be honest (er no, scrub that last one), I'm actually using Xoblite as my shell in XP, which is Blackbox based.

Re:Icons on top...

[Risen888]

I like having a panel at the top. Even in KDE4 I move my panel to the top. My preferred layout is a panel at the top and a task manager on the bottom, unfortunately KDE4 doesn't have support for multiple panels (yet). It's easier to push than pull, so I think it's better over the course of days/weeks/years to be moving my mouse hand up to the panel rather than down.

choice is good

[Sadsfae]

I find that I alternate windowmanagers/desktop environments occasionally.

GNOME --> KDE --> Fluxbox --> XFCE .. I am currently using GNOME 2.2x which works quite well for my uses.

It's fun to switch it up.

No, he's right.

[malevolentjelly]

Gnome is better.

However, it was not always as such. Back when KDE received all the development attention from the major distros, it was better. Now that GNOME is the de facto default in most cases, it's better. Basically, depending on whichever gets more attention, one will be more modern than the other.

The other issue is that Gnome has really solid User Interface Guidelines. KDE's basic HIG is just "see how many buttons you can add to that menu".

Say desktops are like lawn gnomes. In this case, gnome is a gnome. KDE is a tree stump. You must whittle it down in order to make it resemble something attractive or functional. If you love to whittle, you'll love KDE. If you want something that works well out of the box and is inherently easy on the eyes and hands, use GNOME.

So, those who are still using KDE are possibly:
A) Northern European (this is true for some reason)
B) Have been using linux since the 90's and don't feel like changing ANYTHING
C) Using Linspire or Xandros or PC-BSD or some other "easy" distro
D) Like the letter "K"

Or so I figure.

Re:No, he's right.

[Anonymous Coward]

interesting...

A) I'm not from Northern Europe
B) Have been introduced to Linux since 2002 (or somewhere close to that)
C) Using Gentoo (switched from Slack)
D) Never pay attention to the letter K :-)

lol :-)

Re:No, he's right.

[xaxa]

1) I am from Northern Europe (according to the UN definition)
2) Used Linux since 2002
3) Using Debian (switched from Gentoo (switched from Slack))
4) Type K way more than the average person.

Re:No, he's right.

[malevolentjelly]

I should revise that statement. Gnome really sucked in 2002, as well. Perhaps I was exaggerating, perhaps 2004ish is a better mark for when Gnome surpassed KDE in usability.

It isn't a legacy thing. KDE was undeniably superior until the last 4-5 years.

Re:No, he's right.

[oever]

Tree stumps are much nicer than garden gnomes!
Especially for sitting.

Re:No, he's right.

[gambolt]

Is there a KDE user out there who doesn't change every single panel and menu around first thing? My impression has always been that the KDE devs don't care much about defaults because 1) That should be left to the distros and 2) The user is going to change it all around anyway. Criticizing the default UI for KDE is dumb. You're not supposed to use it.

This is the polar opposite of the Gnome policy of assuming the user is too stupid to know how they work best.

Re:No, he's right.

[spyfrog]

Bah.

Gnome is a bad ripoff MacOS interface. Some people simply don't like the MacOS interface.
And since Gnome is a BAD ripoff, I don't see why anyone can like it.

I would say that Gnome still is behind KDE. The only thing I ever configure in KDE is that I enable double clicking to start programs in folders (to make it behave like in Windows). Then I put the taskbar on top of the desktop but that is something I do in Windows to.

Of course, I am northern European so perhaps I don't count.

Re:No, he's right.

[Hatta]

KDE's basic HIG is just "see how many buttons you can add to that menu".

And Gnome's seems to be "see how many buttons you can remove from that menu." But you know what, those buttons were there for a reason, and were useful. Some of us don't like having our hands tied. One size fits all seldom does.

Re:No, he's right.

[harry666t]

Your nikname reads "KAnonymous Koward".

Re:No, he's right.

[vga_init]

Aren't A, B, and D the same?

Re:No, he's right.

[westyvw]

Easy on the eyes and hands? Maybe. Useful? No. I am so "stumped" as to why people like Gnome. I have used both, and in the end Gnome ALWAYS drives me nuts. Its like KDE went to college: a little smug, a little brash, but smart. And Gnome, well its like 3rd grade. It plods along, doesnt do much, certainly cant be taught anything. There is so much missing from gnome I don't even know where to start. Five minutes with it doing anything productive and I am cursing it, similar to the feeling I get with windows. KDE has a few rough edges, a bit complicated to configure, but once done, there is power there.

Re:No, he's right.

[westyvw]

Funny, I like KDE better too. But one of the reasons is that they get single clicking right, and its functional. Why you change it to double clicking is beyond me, KDE actually works very well this way, unlike Gnome or Windows. What you want carpal tunnel? Web browsers aren't double clicking: keep it consistent.

Re:No, he's right.

[malevolentjelly]

Too many arbitrary options generally confuse people. Gnome's simple, intuitive design principles are partially responsible for the new surge of linux users through ubuntu. I could put a completely non-technical user in front of a default Ubuntu distro and they can do ANYTHING with it. KDE confuses even me. And I'm AWESOME.

Re:No, he's right.

[hugortega]

Really poor arguments...

People are *using* KDE because:

* They like KDE (of course!)
* They like linux
* They like to customize as much as possible
* They like the excellent integration of applications with the desktop
* They like the consistence between applications
* They like the power of DCOP scripting
* They like to use gnome applications :-)
* .... a big etc

and, of course, the same arguments (or equivalents) applies for people using gnome, or any other desktop environment... also, any power-user-of-any-desktop-env, at the end, is using the command line...

Re:No, he's right.

[Robert The Coward]

If you are lucky enough to only use Linux that is great but I still have to switch to windows on some systems at work. I pretty always double click when I used signal clicking I keep latching two copy's of every program. I like the fact it gives you a choice.

Re:No, he's right.

[Anonymous Coward]

Gnome is better.

For you, yes. For everyone else - they get to choose, not you. Development attention? Please. These two projects have both been very active since day one. I track them so believe me, I know. And if you don't trust me then check the subversion repo's on a regular basis.

The other issue is that Gnome has really solid User Interface Guidelines. KDE's basic HIG is just "see how many buttons you can add to that menu".

*cough*bullshit*cough* Pardon me but you don't speak for the developers of KDE, and yes, they do have a HIG (That page very old, started even prior to the release of KDE2. These days KDE works closely with The OpenUsability Project instead). Personally I think HIG's are overrated - what works for one person/application doesn't necessarily work for all. For example, tabs are excellent for webbrowsers but they suck something awful for applications dedicated to video playback (i.e. mediaplayers). Yes, that is my personal and highly subjective opinion, and that's exactly my point. Usually HIG's do work universally if they're well designed, but not always. And when you take it too far you often mess things up (like Gnome did when it pushed "simplicity" a little too far).

So, those who are still using KDE are possibly:
A) Northern European (this is true for some reason)

True for me, but I'm just one user. If you think KDE is some "european" thing then you are sadly mistaken my friend. KDE is a mixed bag with people from all over (developers and users alike) and there are a number of high profile developers that are american.

B) Have been using linux since the 90's and don't feel like changing ANYTHING

I have been using it since the 90's but I embrace change when it improves something, but not when it's change for the sake of change. Know what I mean?

C) Using Linspire or Xandros or PC-BSD or some other "easy" distro

Bzzzt! I wouldn't touch Linspire with a ten foot pole. I started out with RedHat and switched to Slackware after a year or so and stuck with it until a few years ago. Now I use something I cooked up myself - a hybrid of Slackware & LFS with stuff taken from distributions all over (like SysV init) and I use it on most of my own machines. I package everyting myself (including glibc, the kernel, KDE, Gnome, gcc). For work I use whatever fits the bill, be it RedHat/Fedora, SuSE, Slackware, whatever. I really don't care as long as it's based on something familiar. I also enjoy using Solaris and like {Free,Open}BSD a lot.

D) Like the letter "K"

Don't care one way or another, a childish assumption on your part. The only reason I'm mostly defending KDE here is because you came down on it. I enjoy using both Gnome and KDE but tend to favor KDE for day to day use but that's about as far as it goes - I feel no loyalty to either.

I really hate doing this poin-by-point "reuttal" crap but your post just annoyed me, so I'm sorry about that. And don't take offence by the profanity, It just comes natural to me.

Re:No, he's right.

[pherthyl]

Usability arguments by assertion. The only way to go!

Re:No, he's right.

[Anonymous Coward]

kde 3.x had awesome default layout. I never changed it.

Re:No, he's right.

[pdusen]

Ooor maybe they just want to have a default that's useable already instead of requiring you to play with it?

This has been my problem with KDE in the past; too much crap to sort through.

Re:No, he's right.

[Bogtha]

Back when KDE received all the development attention from the major distros

What? When was this? I've been using KDE since the 1.0 betas back in the 90s and don't remember this ever being the case.

KDE's basic HIG is just "see how many buttons you can add to that menu".

That is simply not true.

KDE is a tree stump. You must whittle it down in order to make it resemble something attractive or functional.

Now you're bordering on trolling. You need to "whittle KDE down" to make it even resemble something functional? Nonsense.

So, those who are still using KDE are possibly:

Okay, final strike, my troll alarm is going off. You need to find stupid excuses to explain why people use KDE to avoid the fact that many people choose it over GNOME? You don't think it's at all possible that it might just be better at some things than GNOME?

Using Linspire or Xandros or PC-BSD or some other "easy" distro

You just finished explaining how the people who want "easy" should use GNOME because it's "intrinsically" easy. Surely this is evidence that KDE is easy too, by your own admission.

Re:No, he's right.

[SocietyoftheFist]

I use a computer to get work done and I select GNOME as my default desktop environment when I'm under Linux. It has always made the basic functionality I need easier to achieve. KDE seems to be preferred by the type of people that like to run WindowBlinds on Windows. I need to be able to manage my windows, start my apps from a convenient location and not a whole lot more in day to day work. I configure my environment once and I'm pretty much done. When I get a machine with GNOME I:

I get rid of the bottom panel
Move the top panel to the bottom
Add the workspace switcher and window list to the panel plus any app launchers I need
At that point I'm done except for maybe resizing the panel based on the screen resolution and also setting up pixel smoothing for my display.

So how is GNOME assuming I'm too stupid to know how I work best? I have to admit that the clearlooks theme with slight hinting looks really sharp in my opinion, best looking Linux desktop I've had.

Re:No, he's right.

[Anonymous Coward]

I am southeast asian.
I have been using Linux for 1 year
I am using recently upgraded from Etch
I am using KDE
I like the letter a and x

Re:No, he's right.

[Mad Merlin]

Is there a KDE user out there who doesn't change every single panel and menu around first thing?

Yes.

There's only 2 things I change in a default KDE install, one of which is enabling mouse gestures, and the other of which is setting kicker to the smallest size possible (used to be the default).

Re:No, he's right.

[malevolentjelly]

You just finished explaining how the people who want "easy" should use GNOME because it's "intrinsically" easy. Surely this is evidence that KDE is easy too, by your own admission.

Actually, no. You see, these easy distros are for Windows converts. KDE is easier to customize, right? We can agree on this. Companies like Linspire like to use it because it's easier to mold into a Windows clone. I would argue that gnome is generally more intuitive still. It's better as its own environment.

Re:No, he's right.

[malevolentjelly]

A) Northern European (this is true for some reason) True for me, but I'm just one user. North European? Ah-ha! I've specifically pointed out that North Europeans love KDE for some unfathomable reason. As you are a member of the nation of "Northern Europe", I can officially discount your position as Nordic Trickery.

Well you aren't fooling me; my conspiracy theory remains!

Re:No, he's right.

[malevolentjelly]

I am southeast asian.
I have been using Linux for 1 year
I am using recently upgraded from Etch
I am using KDE
I like the letter a and x Hm, this is a serious case indeed. A and X are excellent letters.

Here's my take: considering your limited experience with linux (1 year is hardly enough for one to be confident in their desktop environment) and your not being North European, I believe you simply need to give gnome another go. If you truly enjoy KDE more, you may want to check your family tree. You may have obscure Nordic roots dating back as much as thousands of years, leading you to find KDE appealing. It could be a deep rooted recessive gene.

Good luck on your journey of discovery.

Re:No, he's right.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oooo, the anger is strong in this one.

Sincerely,

Patrick Volkerding

Re:No, he's right.

[tehBoris]

KDE's basic HIG is just "see how many buttons you can add to that menu". That is simply not true.

I was going to say that the webpage you linked sucked as a HIG because it hardly defined an actual style for KDE applications, but it seem like you got the pages mixed up. That one wasn't the real HIG, it was just a document with general UI design advice meant to complement the actual HIG.

That said, I can't say that KDE doesn't respect its own guidelines —as the last time I used the environment full time was for a few months in 2005-2006— but I can tell that they don't care much for that advice page you cited, as the last time I fired up a Kubuntu live CD I saw the one thing that annoys me from KDE: the little icons in the many toolbars. I find that they klutter (sorry, couldn't resist ;) the interface, and that they're hard to hit. I specially dislike the vertical toolbars, but I guess that's a matter of taste.

This is not only from Kubuntu, this is exactly how I remember Suse's KDE to be back in 2005 (only without the folders that jumped at you when you clicked them ;), of which I have fond memories after coming from Windows.

Perhaps it was just the bright icons, or their padding, but I really disliked those toolbars. I guess that makes me a GNOMEr (that sounded weird...)

In tomorrow's story, don't you all hate that weird 'Control' and 'Meta' stuff in EMACS?

Re:No, he's right.

[Anonymous Coward]

Having a default you are not supposed to use is counter-intuitive. The default should be easy to use but easy to make your own. KDE fails on the initial default settings and Gnome fails on the easy to make your own. It all boils down to what is important to you as a user. If you need a desktop for a corporate environment that doesn't require a lot of pre-user tweaks then Gnome is going to win easily. If you are supporting a ton of geeks and want to allow them to play then KDE takes the cake. Both interfaces have their strong points and their weak points. I use KDE on my laptop and Gnome on my desktop because they both offer features I like and the laptop is the box on which I play and the desktop is for serious work. I use Konsole on both as well as Amarok. It all boils down to what you like. I don't think there is a valid argument to be made on a technical level between the two unless you start getting into eye candy and then Gnome is much easier to use with compiz-fusion and so on. KDE 4 is looking nice but is still a work in progress.

There is a valid critique of the default settings in KDE. Not every user is geek who likes to tweak settings to have their desktop make sense. It is not dumb to point that out. People will use it because it is the default. If they are not supposed to, which is mentioned nowhere in any documentation, then it is in fact dumb to have it be the default.

Re:No, he's right.

[Anonymous Coward]

I should be able to use the system out of the box. Sure, maybe I might want to change it a bit, but it should default to a sane, reasonable and easily usable set of defaults.

Failure to do this is not expedient or anything else, it's terrible design.

Attitudes like yours are not accurate. They're the reason that "Linux on the Desktop" is still floundering, more than a decade after talk of such a thing first arose.

Re:No, he's right.

[gambolt]

Usable for who? That approach discriminates against people with unusual requirements.

Re:No, he's right.

[gambolt]

Persistent per-application window-manager settings are a big one for me. Some apps should always be visible on all desktops, some should always be on top, etc.

Re:No, he's right.

[SEMW]

Persistent per-application window-manager settings are a big one for me. Some apps should always be visible on all desktops, some should always be on top, etc. That's a window manager thing. GNOME doesn't force you to use one particular window manager, as KDE does with KWin; so if Metacity (the default window manager) doesn't do what you want, use another, such as Compiz -- I'm pretty sure there's a Compiz Fusion plugin that does what you want.

Re:No, he's right.

[gambolt]

Actualy, changing window managers has been depreciated and unsupported for quite a while.

When I use GNOME, I use openbox but there are problems

Re:No, he's right.

[SEMW]

Actualy, changing window managers has been depreciated and unsupported for quite a while. What? Ubuntu, to pick one example, even lets you choose between window managers on one of the tabs in its 'appearance' dialogue box (and has done for the last two versions)! Admitted the choice is limited to only Metacity or Compix Fusion, but the capability is certainly there.

Re:No, he's right.

[gambolt]

Ubuntu adds that on. Gnome upstream considers choice of window managers an unsupported legacy feature, meaning they can and will break compatibility with everything but metacity whenever they feel like it.

Compiz doesn't work with the savage chipset so I've never messed with it. 90% of its features seem like a waste of CPU cycles anyway.

Re:No, he's right.

[pdusen]

I'm not saying flexibility is bad, but KDE never seems to be configured in a way I can make use of by default, and I'm not willing to sort through all of the crap to configure it.

Re:No, he's right.

[gambolt]

You must have hated tinker toys as a kid.

it's like Extentions of your own body

[infonography]

I remember a article here about how the brain tricks the body into thinking a tool is part of the body.

http://science.slashdot.org/science/08/01/29/2241257.shtml

I think it's just a more advance form of that. This won't go over well with the Linux Proselytizers, with regards to Linux/Windows. Makes ya feel for those stuck in bad OSes.

Laziness

[David7]

Most decisions of this sort are driven by laziness. We end up using the system/interface/whatever that allows us to get the most done with the least effort. Sometimes the multitude of options available in the default KDE setup allows a person to get to an application faster. Sometimes the uncluttered default GNOME setup gives you the feel of a more lightweight window manager without sacrificing most of the creature comforts. In either case, laziness is the underlying driver for our decision-making. It's the underlying driver for most software decisions.

In fact, it's one of the reasons software was invented: So I can sit on my ass all day getting paid to turn my day-dreams into reality.

Re:Laziness

[mrbluze]

Most decisions of this sort are driven by laziness.

Actually, I don't think it's laziness in this case. Getting the most done with least effort is efficiency. Designing a GUI (window manager) is like designing roads. Safe roads are uncluttered, give warnings in advance, have a predictable path, separate traffic (tasks) in a meaningful way and tolerate human error. Safe roads are easy to design cars for. Safe roads mean you won't panic if your wife or teenage kid decide to take the car for a spin one day without you being there giving instructions. Good roads also lead to places you want to go to.

A good window manager is all of the above. Especially the last point. I like, for example, how Nautilus can make network connections appear somewhat like the rest of the file system and lead you there without much guesswork. But I wish it was more fault tolerant and didn't keep asking me to log again in every time it times out. KDE has proven to be very flexible and powerful but when a novice uses my KDE desktop I find I have to come back and reposition things and fix what they broke. A bit too flexible, I guess.

It's not totally 'taste', there is room for science in this and human interface study is valid.

Re:Laziness

[lazy_nihilist]

Laziness is the driving force for humans. We do things now so we can be lazier in future. :-)

Re:Laziness

[rhinokitty]

You say lazy, I say efficient.

Re:Laziness

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like pragmatism rather than laziness to me. Unless you think we should aim to get less done with more effort.

Re:Laziness

[DarkProphet]

Holy shit, an honest to god appropriate car analogy.

Mod parent up! ;-)

It's that time, again

[k-zed]

Damn it. There are times when you just look at the article title and you know that a long, delicious, juicy flamewar is coming up...

And I just lost my mod points, too. :(

Re:It's that time, again

[evwah]

bwahahahaha... I have some of my own!

Damnit I just replied to this topic! Curses! foiled again, k-zed!

KDE and Gnome

[tristian_was_here]

I think the main thing between KDE and Gnome is that they both appeal to different users.

I believe GNOME appeals to the "simple" user more and KDE to the bleeding edge more of a "programmer user". Correct me if I'm wrong

Re:KDE and Gnome

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a programmer, and I prefer GNOME, though I wish it was more customizable. I haven't been able to figure out how to disable 'Recent Items', for example

Re:KDE and Gnome

[Sadsfae]

I believe GNOME appeals to the "simple" user more and KDE to the bleeding edge more of a "programmer user". Correct me if I'm wrong I find the exact opposite. Where I work 99% of our developers use GNOME (with default settings/background etc) with a few that basically run screen or ratpoison.

Re:KDE and Gnome

[cbart387]

I'm a programmer user and use GNOME. Most of my programming is CLI and emacs or micro emacs. GNOME's simplicity appeals to me because it does what I need without configuring it too much. A friend of mine, who is also a programmer, likes KDE because of the configurable nature. To each his one...

Re:KDE and Gnome

[tbyte_s_user_on_slas]

You are wrong, I'm a programmer and I think exactly the oposite of what You said :)

Re:KDE and Gnome

[Narishma]

And what do you make of people like me who use both KDE and Gnome?

Re:KDE and Gnome

[HappySmileMan]

I agree, I've seen some code using GTK and some GNOME libs, and I've seen code using QT and some KDE libs... QT and KDE libs seemed so much easier and better documented so I started learning them, of course, take this with a grain of salt, I'm a C++ guy and GNOME and many GTK apps are done in C, also I was a KDE user even before I saw the code so maybe that influenced me.

Re:KDE and Gnome

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe GNOME appeals to the "simple" user more and KDE to the bleeding edge more of a "programmer user". Correct me if I'm wrong Personally, I think it's more like this. Gnome appeals to someone who wants things to just work and look/feel consistent. KDE is for someone who someone who like to tweak things endlessly and doesn't care about consistency.

Re:KDE and Gnome

[pherthyl]

As an engineer, I can't with clear conscience use a desktop environment built almost entirely on C. One look at the code is enough for me to know that C/GTK is certainly the wrong tool for the job, while C++/Qt is actually suitable for that kind of work.

Re:KDE and Gnome

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

Except you shouldn't be writing code in C++ either, you should be writing it in a higher-level language like Python. I really wish I could find something as polished as glade3 for KDE that I can use in Python.

Also, GTK+ is LGPL-licensed, but Qt is GPL2 licensed, so programming for GNOME doesn't tie you to whichever version of the GPL that TrollTech likes this week.

So I prefer developing against GNOME, but I prefer using KDE. Go figure.

Re:KDE and Gnome

[anirudhvr]

Agree; and I'm one of the 1% you are referring to. Although I started using ratpoison 4 years ago because my computer was too slow to run KDE or Gnome, I'm still using it for my beefy desktop and my two laptops. TFA talks about muscle memory, but he's referring to *clicking* on some corner for god's sake! Muscle memory means keyboard shortcuts, and ratpoison (and window managers in the same vein like Ion) are completely keyboard-oriented. Whenever I'm forced to use a non-ratpoison machine, I find myself crippled by the convoluted gestures to perform simple tasks. Ratpoison does not have a "Desktop", no desktop background, no icons to click, nothing. It just shows your apps in fullscreen windows. I find that this suits me perfectly: I use a tabbed browser (firefox), a tabbed terminal (mrxvt), a tabbed IM client (pidgin), amarok, and occassionally open a few other apps. I have them all bound to my numpad giving me 1-key switch to an app (e.g., 1 for firefox, 2 for amarok, etc.). Plus, ratpoison handles 2 LCDs beautifully. It has just about everything that KDE or Gnome does (e.g., shortcut to display time, execute commands, etc.) Moreover, you can write scripts in your favorite language to make the currently executing window manager do stuff, like dcop for KDE. Better still, the codebase is *really* small, and it's quite easy to add some functionality if you want to. All in all, my 2 cents: WMs like Ratpoison and Ion are the extreme in "cutting to the chase". If you want to look at photos of your florida beach or family, or if you a nice-looking desktop with hundreds of applets showing you things you can see with top or netstat or df, sure, use KDE or Gnome (btw, you can set backgrounds in ratpoison too, but that's not the point). But if you talk about muscle memory or personalization, you should not gloss over these keyboard-oriented window managers.

Re:KDE and Gnome

[Martin Soto]

Dissociative identity disorder?

Re:KDE and Gnome

[pherthyl]

Except you shouldn't be writing code in C++ either, you should be writing it in a higher-level language like Python

I dunno.. I've never used Python for anything big, but I just like C++ pretty well. It's fast, and statically typed, which I think is important for anything large. I haven't really liked any apps written in python, mostly for their memory usage. I don't mind it if the apps are things I use rarely, but everything that's running constantly I want to be native (for example, I quickly replaced the power manager in kubuntu which was python based with kpowersave and cut the memory usage of it down quite a bit).

I really wish I could find something as polished as glade3 for KDE that I can use in Python.

Can't you use designer with python? Never used glade3 so I dont know how it compares.

Also, GTK+ is LGPL-licensed, but Qt is GPL2 licensed, so programming for GNOME doesn't tie you to whichever version of the GPL that TrollTech likes this week.

Actually, Qt 4.3.4 can be used with the GPLV2 or GPLV3, as well as a boatload of other licenses as documented here: http://trolltech.com/products/qt/gplexception

Re:KDE and Gnome

[xerxesdaphat]

I'm a `programmer user', and when I'm not using OpenBox, I'm firmly in the Gnome camp. Why? It keeps out of my way. I do all my work from the terminal, anyway. Very rarely do I interact with the desktop environment, even to launch programs. I don't need any of the GUI flexibility that KDE offers; it makes its presence felt.

In general I find the reverse of what you say. It seems to be the more GUI, desktop-bound `ordinary users' that prefer KDE; the more advanced/programmer users mostly prefer Gnome or go even further down the keep-out-of-my-way path by using Fluxbox/Openbox etc.

question about GNOME ...

[shimage]

So ... I preferred KDE back when I figured I'd give GNOME a second chance ... about 5 years ago? Something like that. I couldn't figure out how to make GNOME behave like KDE. I'm stupid like that.

I had this recollection of GNOME being about choice? Like how they said you could use any one of something like 8 window managers? That appealed to me, but the last time I tried it, they seemed to think that if you didn't think their HIG made sense, you ought to be "power-user" enough to figure out how to override their settings without documentation. Like I said, I'm stupid, so I couldn't figure it out.

So then, on to my question. I am assuming here that they've gotten this stuff figured out. So what do I do to enable focus-follows mouse, and to make the cursor disappear when I start typing (yes, I do realize that my second request is not available under KDE, and I fake it with unclutter)? There are some other things that I'd probably want to configure, but they don't come readily to mind (it's been 5 years).

One thing I do like about GNOME is that they have a built-in emacs key-binding option, which I can't figure out how to get in KDE ... I've tried changing the shortcuts, but this usually just ends up breaking them. Remember, I'm stupid, so the only way I can get shit like this to work is if there's a built-in option.

On the other hand, I run Gentoo (I'm stupid), and I hate compiling stuff I rarely use, so I pretty much need to stick with the DE that has the applications I want to use, and ... well, I need a lot more KDE stuff than GNOME stuff, so I'm not actually willing to switch to GNOME anyway.

Re:question about GNOME ...

[gbjbaanb]

One thing I do like about GNOME is that they have a built-in emacs key-binding option, which I can't figure out how to get in KDE yeah, well KDE has a built-in vi key-binding option, so there.

umm..

That's probably not helping, is it.

Re:question about GNOME ...

[HappySmileMan]

So then, on to my question. I am assuming here that they've gotten this stuff figured out. So what do I do to enable focus-follows mouse, and to make the cursor disappear when I start typing (yes, I do realize that my second request is not available under KDE, and I fake it with unclutter)?

I'm using KDE 3.5.8 and my mouse cursor disappears when I type, in fact it disappears when I click on a text area, it's in KTextEdit class though, so many programs won't do this, only KDE programs (and some of those for various reasons(mainly ignorance about KTextEdit or not bothering to change, but possibly others) use QTextEdit) will, but it's default for them. Also the cursor has to be within the TextEdit anyway, but it wouldn't get in the way otherwise anyway so presumably that's what you meant.

Re:question about GNOME ...

[bgalbrecht]

I used GNOME for a while, but I like focus follows mouse AND click to raise. I really hate having windows raised to front just because I type in them, and I could never figure out how to turn that off in metacity. I found where it was happening, and uncommented out an if statement so that it would work the way I wanted it to, and submitted a bug report/enhancement request so it wouldn't raise the window if the appropriate knob was set to zero, and a GNOME developer rejected it with a "you don't understand what that knob's for" response. So, when I found it can be configured the way I like it in KDE, I switched. If the GNOME developer had rejected it with, "you don't understand what that knob's for, but this is how you do want you're requesting" I'd probably still be using GNOME today.

Re:question about GNOME ...

[icydog]

So what do I do to enable focus-follows mouse, and to make the cursor disappear when I start typing (yes, I do realize that my second request is not available under KDE, and I fake it with unclutter)?

I've never fiddled with the hide-cursor-when-typing setting, and on almost all text boxes (one-line text boxes, konsole, khtml, kword, to name a few) on my Fedora and Kubuntu boxen hide the cursor when I start typing. The only text area that didn't hide the cursor was the Kate editor.

Re:question about GNOME ...

[smoker2]

So what do I do to enable focus-follows mouse

Main Menu > Desktop > Preferences > Windows
Don't know (or care) about the cursor.

Re:question about GNOME ...

[shimage]

Interesting ... I guess I never noticed this because I tend to use non-KDE text editors on account of my inability to get emacs key-bindings in KDE. I have emacs bindings in vim, but not KDE ...

It is a problem of Kubuntu.

[xtracto]

In the article, the author describes several uses he had when using Kubuntu. I have had similar issues, but all is reduced to the fact that Kubuntu is a hack "KDE-patched" version of Ubuntu. When you use Kubuntu after using Ubuntu you can "feel" that it seems as they just threw the kde libraries and desktop into the Ubuntu distro. There are a lot of integrity issues. Particularly I have also had the wireless network issue, while it is working flawlessly in Ubuntu, Kubuntu is a complete mess.

But that does not mean that KDE is better or worst than Gnome, if you use a KDE-oriented desktop (such as SUSE or Mandriva) which have KDE preconfigured out of the box, the experience will be different...

Re:It is a problem of Kubuntu.

[Nightspirit]

Hmm, maybe I should give linux another try. After looking at screenshots it seemed KDE appealed to me more, so I installed kubuntu, which was horribly sluggish on my core 2 duo with 2 gigs of ram. I'll setup a partition of just ubuntu and give it another go.

Re:It is a problem of Kubuntu.

[Vexorian]

I see KDE fans love to use this excuse but it still is nothing but a excuse, KDE itself is mostly the same across distros, with mild differences in hardware support, I ended up liking Kubuntu the other day and I am planning to move when hardy gets released.

Re:It is a problem of Kubuntu.

[fyoder]

I installed kubuntu and found it to be a complete mess, totally unusuable. Then I installed ubuntu, then the kde desktop. The splash screen when it starts says 'kubuntu', but it sure as hell isn't the mess I got when I started by installing kubuntu. I think what I've got should be called ubuntuk, ubuntu + kde, or gubuntuk since it has both gnome and kde. I should figure out how to replace the splash screen with a custom one.

Re:It is a problem of Kubuntu.

[Hatta]

Quite true, KDE on debian is much nicer than kubuntu.

Re:It is a problem of Kubuntu.

[harry666t]

Hmm, that's interesting. I've had issues with Kubuntu as well (always switched back to Debian).

As of your custom splash, try running "locate ksplash" and find out what sits where. I think you can install your own splash themes under ~/.kde/share/apps/ksplash/Themes/, but if you're determined to make your own I guess you can find all the stuff out by yourself :)

Re:It is a problem of Kubuntu.

[zcsteele]

I replaced the splash screen on my system using USplash. The documentation for building your own themes is a bit sparse, but I found a theme online I liked.

Re:It is a problem of Kubuntu.

[HappySmileMan]

I see KDE fans love to use this excuse but it still is nothing but a excuse, KDE itself is mostly the same across distros, with mild differences in hardware support, I ended up liking Kubuntu the other day and I am planning to move when hardy gets released. Well the main difference is just the default settings and applications, but many users have different preferences for these, so for the user who can't be bothered to change settings themselves different distros seem to have different KDE.

Of course another factor is that distros may change parts of KDE themselves, either fixing bugs, or adding features and accidentally introducing more bugs. so it may be likely that one distro has a really irritating bug in KDE, or in general thigns don't work as they should, while other distros don't have these problems.

Re:It is a problem of Kubuntu.

[westyvw]

I agree completely. Never use Kubuntu as a comparison for KDE vs Gnome. Kubuntu blows. Hard. If I have to use Ubuntu and I want KDE I will add it and configure it myself. Try a KDE based Ubuntu like Mint, or go for a debian base like Mepis or Sidux, or maybe Sabayon. Its amazing what happens when the underlying system is set up with a nicely configured KDE desktop. There are MANY Kde desktops out there that you wouldnt even recognize as KDE.

Re:It is a problem of Kubuntu.

[Robert The Coward]

No they are not. I have used several distros and I have to say that Kubuntu is one of the worse setup of kde I have every used and that includes Redhat 5 with kde RPM's from mandrack.

Re:It is a problem of Kubuntu.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the splash file is referenced in the grub configuration.

Re:It is a problem of Kubuntu.

[jesterzog]

In the article, the author describes several uses he had when using Kubuntu. I have had similar issues, but all is reduced to the fact that Kubuntu is a hack "KDE-patched" version of Ubuntu.

Well I was a little disappointed reading Roblimo's review because it looked as if he thought he was reviewing KDE when he was really reviewing Kubuntu's packaged distribution of KDE, which in my experience is quite different. I installed Kubuntu on a new laptop after using KDE on Debian on my desktop PC for a long time, and Kubuntu felt very different. If I'd downloaded and compiled KDE myself, I suspect it would be different from the Debian packaged edition. In particular, I had a difficult time trying to figure out how to configure KDE as I wanted in Kubuntu, because I couldn't easily find many of what I've seen as standard KDE configuration utilities in the past. Kubuntu seemed to want me to use the (K)Ubuntu utilities to configure nearly everything, to the extend where it'd hide (or not even provide) the native configuration managers for the some of the applications.

This is fair enough too, because the distributions themselves are typically what people want to install with something like Ubuntu and Kubuntu. It's easier for the distro to support the desktops if they're all configured in ways provided by the distro. It's also onc of the nice things about open source that there's a huge amount of freedom in the licensing for distro maintainers to change and alter things to work with everything else in their distro, with their distro philosophy, and whatever else they like. This is something you simply don't get with proprietary software where commercial licensing issues tend to trump freedom issues.

Reviewing Kubuntu is not reviewing KDE, just as reviewing KDE isn't the same as reviewing KDE on Kubuntu. People make comparisons between Linux and Windows and KDE and Windows and KDE and Gnome, and Roblimo's just another of these in this case. Kudos to him for at least pointing out that he was using Kubuntu and comparing it with Ubuntu, though. At least there's some context there.

False dichotomy

[Cultural Sublimation]

I think you are making a false dichotomy here, and that at least a third option should be considered: Kubuntu might not be the best KDE desktop around. Bear in mind that Ubuntu was initially Gnome-only, and that to this day that's the desktop that gets most of Canonical's resources. Kubuntu doesn't get nowhere near the same level of attention, and that shows. Kubuntu mostly lacks polishing, ie, the "little things" that end up making a substantial impact on the user's experience. Moreover, there have been in the past a number of serious, potential data-loss bugs in Kubuntu that festered for *months* because there was just not the manpower to fix them. That is substantial evidence that Kubuntu is a second-class citizen for Canonical.

While I find KDE overall a superior desktop to Gnome, I have to agree that Ubuntu is generally a better desktop experience than Kubuntu. However, I just wish people would stop equating Gnome==Ubuntu and KDE==Kubuntu, and therefore Gnome > KDE.

Re:False dichotomy

[Andyvan]

My sentiments exactly.

I prefer KDE, but I prefer a *buntu base, and Kubuntu just doesn't have the finish. So, I use Ubuntu (and Gnome) cause I know that's what's getting all the attention.

-- Andyvan

Re:False dichotomy

[Anonymous Coward]

If Gnome is to Ubuntu, then for KDE try Mandriva One 2008. It's the best KDE distro out there.

Re:False dichotomy

[pschmied]

While I agree with you on one level, on another level I actually like that people are equating Gnome to Ubuntu and KDE to Kubuntu. If they are coming to the conclusion that Gnome is better than KDE, all the better. I don't say that to disparage KDE. KDE is a fine piece of work in its own right. However, the "community" is tantalizingly close to making Gnome a de-facto standard.

Though I loves my F/OSS, I think we present an unreasonably difficult target for software development--especially commercial software. Some software, though it would be great to have a fully-baked FOSS version, is either excruciatingly boring to write, or realistically requires some top talent working full time to pull it off. In those cases, I really can't begrudge commercial software houses some cash.

For that reason, I think it would really be nice if, when Company X decides to write an application for Linux, they can have some reasonable assurances of what that means from a development perspective. I'm not just talking languages here. I'm talking password keychains, central address book stores, etc. All that comes from having a full environment that is reasonably standard.

Yes, choice is great, but so is critical mass. Though it may not be my personal first choice on Linux, go Gnome!

Wow... just, wow..

[Moridineas]

I find very few statements from the "Windows and Mac: Not to my taste at all" section that I can agree with at all. I mean, obviously the taste part is fine, after all a lot of operating system/application choice is merely personal taste. (vi/emacs anyone?), however the overall section seems ... inane?

I will say that it's interesting how even with longtime users like Roblimo, the "linux experience" is really becoming the ubuntu/gnome experience and the kubuntu/kde experience. From this review, it sounds like the base operating system could be FreeBSD, solaris, whatever, and Roblimo wouldn't have a clue. I think this is probably a very good thing, but also speaks to the changing skillsets of linux users.

A few statements:

even humble things like the closest application I could come on a Mac to my beloved Bluefish editor cost money, even though they were no better than -- and in many cases not as good as -- the free software to which I had grown accustomed. ... There are ways to fiddle some Linux apps into working on Mac OS, much as Wine can make some Windows apps run in Linux, but this is a lot of trouble. Ok, here's what I had to do to install bluefish (which I've never heard of / used before).

open a Terminal window (I use csh) and type "sudo port install bluefish"

That was it. I'm sure fink has a package as well. While X apps are slightly different under osx, I don't think comparing the experience or process to Wine is at all correct.

And here's the funny thing: Windows feels a lot more Linuxlike to me than Mac OS. In many ways it seems as if it's a slightly clumsy knockoff of KDE. Yeah, you think WINDOWS is ripping off KDE? I'm not going to argue that windows is the king of originality, but I think it came about the other way around...

Ditto the way you store and find individual files, for which Windows uses the same "folders and subfolders" metaphor as both KDE and GNOME, and Windows gives me a Linux-style horizontal list of open programs across the bottom of my screen, which Mac OS does not. Confused again. Mac doesn't use folders and subfolders? That's news to me. Horizontal list of open programs--that's called the dock. Ok, so it includes launcher buttons as well, but virtually the same thing.

Backing up my data in Windows is lots harder than backing up a /home or /username directory in Linux, because Windows seems to scatter data all over the place. This is true, though for the past what...7-8 years (since 2k/xp) all of your files+personal registory should live under c:\documents and settings\username -- effectively the same as a /home directory. When you have roaming profiles on a windows network, your user directory gets copied back and forth.

Windows is supposed to be less virus-prone than it was a few years ago, but the only way to keep malware off of Windows (that I know of) is to not connect it to the Internet This was MAYBE true once upon a time. I primarily use my OSX laptop now, but I've never gotten a virus on my PC (don't run software usually) and have never had a malware/adware infection either. Of course I've used firefox/mozilla for years. At my office I've certainly seen my share of adware/etc infections, almost always from people clicking things in email or webpages (and no infections in quite awhile) they shouldn't--which I would hope roblimo doesn't do!!

and one from the next section...

Except for one thing: as far as he knows, he doesn't connect to the Internet or use email software. He connects to AOL, which to him is the Internet. Including email. AOL is indeed the Internet. When you connect to AOL, you're on the internet, and you can ping, use firefox, etc to your heart's content.

Re:Wow... just, wow..

[Anonymous Coward]

You "don't run software usually?" Do you run it unusually or abnormally??

Re:Wow... just, wow..

[jsebrech]

Ok, here's what I had to do to install bluefish (which I've never heard of / used before).

open a Terminal window (I use csh) and type "sudo port install bluefish"

Just tried this on my mac: "sudo: port: command not found"
The process to set up your mac so the command you mentioned works is not that different from the process of installing wine on a linux distro, so it's a fair comparison.

Confused again. Mac doesn't use folders and subfolders? That's news to me. Horizontal list of open programs--that's called the dock. Ok, so it includes launcher buttons as well, but virtually the same thing.

Poor description of what he meant. What he probably meant was:
- The mac file navigator doesn't use the two pane navigation with a folder tree view on the left and a flat list of files and folders on the right. And he's right, the finder is the only default file navigator on any system in popular use that doesn't do this. It can't even be configured to do this. I personally prefer this method of navigation also, and I've never liked the finder in all my years of mac use (I still think windows file explorer is a better file navigator). Ofcourse, there's pathfinder, but it's commercial, and it underscored roblimo's comment that on the mac you have to pay for additional software just to get what you get by default on other operating systems (especially linux).
- The mac doesn't have a horizontal list of open windows across the bottom of the screen. He's right, it is, again, the only system that works like this by default, and it makes mouse navigation of windows non-obvious. Seasoned mac users now that the dock context menu of that application contains a list of its windows (much like on a windows install if you open too many windows), but since most non-mac users are convinced macs only use one mouse button, they never think to right-click on the dock icon. Seasoned mac users probably use expose mapped to a mouse button on their non-stock multi-button mouse (best way to navigate windows by far), but again, new users would not have a clue about this.

In short, his criticisms of the mac are mostly to the point. The mac does seem very unintuitive if your definition of intuitive has been skewed by other operating environments. And even when you "settle in", there remain weaknesses (like the finder being a clumsy piece of crap, no matter how you configure it, which the "improvements" of leopard did nothing to alleviate).

That being said, I still love my mac. It is by far the best environment I've worked in, once you get past that whole awkwardness phase at the beginning.

Re:Wow... just, wow..

[pizzap]

And here's the funny thing: Windows feels a lot more Linuxlike to me than Mac OS. In many ways it seems as if it's a slightly clumsy knockoff of KDE. Yeah, you think WINDOWS is ripping off KDE? I'm not going to argue that windows is the king of originality, but I think it came about the other way around... That might be true, but a users perspective will always be led by their experience: Someone who uses KDE a lot will, after briefly using Windows, feel like Windows is just a cheap ripoff.
I myself am often astonished when people tell me something is just like in 'outlook', 'spotlight' or whatever. Actually it is pretty impossible to find out who started it. Maybe Windows is just a GEOS ripoff.

Re:Wow... just, wow..

[Anonymous Coward]

This is true, though for the past what...7-8 years (since 2k/xp) all of your files+personal registory should live under c:\documents and settings\username -- effectively the same as a /home directory. When you have roaming profiles on a windows network, your user directory gets copied back and forth.

That's fine but there have always been apps that ignore this and store settings in their folder or in some cryptic registry key.

Re:Wow... just, wow..

[Moridineas]

Just tried this on my mac: "sudo: port: command not found"
The process to set up your mac so the command you mentioned works is not that different from the process of installing wine on a linux distro, so it's a fair comparison. Ok, so port is one software package to download (as is fink). Alternatively, you could download and compile bluefish yourself. The point I was making in this regards is that software like bluefish/gtk/etc compiles natively, and runs natively. It's NOT like Wine. It's no different than compiling a port from the ports system on FreeBSD, etc.

I agree re: the finder could use some work.

I guess the thing I mostly found interesting about Roblimo's review is that it totally read like something a non-technical user, a "newb" if you will, would write. Not somebody who has been running linux for a decade plus. Additionally, (and Roblimo even acknowledges this) the "conservatism" / "stuck in your aways" (my use!) is interesting to me, as linux desktops and windows desktops seem to be getting progressively closer UI wise.

Talk about funny names...

[xtracto]

, Mac OS seemed alien and unintuitive. And the software had funny names,

Haha, that made me laugh. Funny names, as opposed to Hardy Heron, Gutsy Gipsy, amaroK, Pidgin... and those are just on the top of my head. What is the problem with iPhoto, iDVD, iMovie, GarageBad?? you can pretty much guess what are they about just with the name? ask anyone in the street "if there was a program called amaroK, what do you think it will do?" haha... they would surely tell you it was some sequel from Turok or whatever.

BTW, I do not use Macs, proud Win/Lin user since I have memory...

Re:Talk about funny names...

[tweak13]

Funny names, as opposed to Hardy Heron, Gutsy Gipsy, It's Gutsy Gibbon... not that that's any better.

amaroK, Now names like this just tick me off. All the KDE apps starting with K or throwing random K's in there is just annoying. Same thing with g's in gnome, and i's in OSX. I really don't understand why they can't just use a normal name and leave it at that.

Pidgin This one however I can't agree with at all. What's wrong with it? If you aren't familiar with the term look up pidgin language on google. I find the name very fitting for an IM program.

Re:Talk about funny names...

[harry666t]

> GarageBad

You insensitive clod, I've been literally LIVING in a garage when me & my pals started our band!

That... Garage... Was like... Home to me.

Re:Talk about funny names...

[HappySmileMan]

Haha, that made me laugh. Funny names, as opposed to Hardy Heron, Gutsy Gipsy, amaroK, Pidgin... and those are just on the top of my head. What is the problem with iPhoto, iDVD, iMovie, GarageBad?? you can pretty much guess what are they about just with the name? ask anyone in the street "if there was a program called amaroK, what do you think it will do?" haha... they would surely tell you it was some sequel from Turok or whatever. My Dad's never used Linux before, he guessed that Amarok is a music player once when we were discussing software, because it's named after a Mike Oldfield song. And go to wikipedia and look up "Pidgin"...

The names may be funny, but they usually are named as such for a reason. (Excluding Hardy Heron, Gutsy Gibbon etc... Those were originally just used during development stages, the actual names are just Ubuntu 7.10, Ubuntu 8.04 etc...)

Re:Talk about funny names...

[pizzap]

"Hardy Heron", "Gutsy", etc. are distribution names, much like "Cheetah", "Puma", "Leopard" and "Tiger".
"Pidgin" has just been renamed from "gaim" and in the menus you can find it under "Pidgin Internet Messenger".
Looking at the menu entries, I'd say all applications have their name followed by their type: "web browser", "image editor".
"Amarok", as far as I know is the name of a music band or a song by Mike Oldfield.

Re:Talk about funny names...

[motokochan]

GarageBad? Does that happen to be the software StrongBad uses to compose music?

The laziness that precludes change

[bliz1985]

I'm pretty such this is the same laziness that makes many people (including myself) go from windows to linux and back to windows. Reluctance to leave one's comfort zone to relearn something new.

Interesting quotes from the article

[Swift Kick]

While reading the article, I noticed a few funny things:

"And here's the funny thing: Windows feels a lot more Linuxlike to me than Mac OS. In many ways it seems as if it's a slightly clumsy knockoff of KDE. But it also has a lot more in common with GNOME than Mac OS does."

He should really have said that KDE is a great knock-off of Windows, and that Gnome has a lot in common with it. After all, they both 'borrowed' heavily from Windows, not the other way around.

"Backing up my data in Windows is lots harder than backing up a /home or /username directory in Linux, because Windows seems to scatter data all over the place. Why this is I do not know, but no doubt someone at Microsoft could tell me why this inconvenience is a good thing, not a bad one, just as I'm sure they could tell me why all kinds of annoying pop-up balloons that interfere with my work (instead of letting me concentrate on what I'm doing) make my life easier instead of harder.

Get over it, Roblimo. Windows does have a /home/ equivalent, namely the My Documents folder. Almost every single application will by default use that directory as the default location for any files you use, so if you do want to back up your data, just backup that directory. Even your precious Sony Vegas works like that.

Anyway, not a bad article, but then again, there was nothing remarkable about it. I wonder if I could get a paying gig writing fluff like Roblimo, but I guess I need to publish a couple fluff books first...

Re:Interesting quotes from the article

[Todd Knarr]

Get over it, Roblimo. Windows does have a /home/ equivalent, namely the My Documents folder. Almost every single application will by default use that directory as the default location for any files you use, so if you do want to back up your data, just backup that directory.

Except that the /home/username directory in Unix stores a lot more than just data. It's also where configuration information, and even the applications themselves, go. In Windows if you back up only your My Documents folder, you get less than half the information you need. Program configuration is often critical, and when in files lives in at least 4 places, none of which are under My Documents. And then there's registry information, which isn't even in the filesystem. And then there's the chunks of the application that don't go into it's Program Files folder or wherever else you installed it, but go into Windows system folders. No, applications aren't supposed to do that. No, that doesn't stop them even in this day and age. Why do you think so many applications get heartburn under Vista (which is pickier about such misbehavior)?

Basically, on a Unix system if I save a copy of my home directory tree I'm pretty much guaranteed to have gotten not only all my data but all the configuration information and other things I need to restore not just my data but my application environment. On Windows, if I save a copy of My Documents I'll lose the majority of my application environment.

Re:Interesting quotes from the article

[Curien]

You're mostly wrong. You're technically right, but only because grandparent mentioned one directory too far up the tree. There is a directory that stores user data and configuration info, it's just not My Documents.

"c:\documents and settings\username" is what you want (commonly called the "profile"). Of course, you can change the location where profiles are stored -- I just gave the default. "My Documents" is a subdirectory under the profile directory, and the user's HKCU registry hive is even stored inside the profile.

Re:Interesting quotes from the article

[Moridineas]

Correct, however, the real equivalent is

C:\Documents and Settings\username

I think in Vista it's:

C:\users\username

but I have no intention of using vista, so I'm not sure.

Re:Interesting quotes from the article

[Swift Kick]

i>"Except that the /home/username directory in Unix stores a lot more than just data.It's also where configuration information, and even the applications themselves, go."

Not entirely true. In most modern distributions, applications get installed system-wide with very little input from the user, other than querying you for your root password. You only have applications installed in your home directory if you compile them yourself, which was not mentioned in the article.

"Program configuration is often critical, and when in files lives in at least 4 places, none of which are under My Documents. And then there's registry information, which isn't even in the filesystem."

If you want to be pedantic, then he'd also have to back up /etc, /usr/share/applications, /usr/share/application-registry, and possibly a dozen others directories that contain configuration information for whatever is installed on his system.
In the context of the article, he was apparently referring to files he commonly uses, not the applications themselves, and that's why I specifically mentioned the My Documents folder.

"And then there's the chunks of the application that don't go into it's Program Files folder or wherever else you installed it, but go into Windows system folders. No, applications aren't supposed to do that." /etc. /usr/bin. /usr/lib. /usr/local/*. /usr/share/*. What me to keep going?

"And then there's registry information, which isn't even in the filesystem."

Wrong. Read this link, and you will get better informed about where the Windows registry actually lives (*hint* it's actually on the filesystem). It's not 'readable' just like your rpm db isn't readable, but just like you use utilities to manipulate your rpm database, you manage the registry the same way.

"No, that doesn't stop them even in this day and age. Why do you think so many applications get heartburn under Vista (which is pickier about such misbehavior)?"

He's not using Vista, he's using XP so your point is moot. You did read the article, right?

"Basically, on a Unix system if I save a copy of my home directory tree I'm pretty much guaranteed to have gotten not only all my data but all the configuration information and other things I need to restore not just my data but my application environment. On Windows, if I save a copy of My Documents I'll lose the majority of my application environment."

If you back up your User Folder under Documents & Settings (not just the My Programs folder) in Windows, you are not only backing up your documents, but your applications configuration options, your Music, Photos, etc, very much like a typical home directory. Howerver, as I said above, he was apparently referring to files he commonly uses and works with, not applications.

The bottom line is that the lines I quoted directly from the article were not accurate, or just misinformed. If he really wants to make comparisons between systems, he should at least know both of them equally well to at least give an impression of having an objective opinion.

Re:Interesting quotes from the article

[value_added]

Basically, on a Unix system if I save a copy of my home directory tree I'm pretty much guaranteed to ...

It can be a bit more complicated than that, but for practical purposes, but it's exactly true. The fact that these absurd "Windows does a have a $HOME equivalent" statements keep appearing (and keep getting modded up) I have to attribute to a cursory knowledge of how both Windows and *nix systems work. Moreover, I'd suggest that those inclined to offer "feature parity" comparisons consider that while bullet-point information may make work in marketing brochures, it's the implementation of those features that matters. And on a Windows system, that implementation is typically confusing, deliberately obscured, borked, or otherwise has limitations, caveats, exceptions, and then, is subject to reimplementation when the next flavour of Windows gets rolled out.

Next we'll be hearing that shortcuts and junctions are the same as links and mounts, the event viewer is the equivalent of what's in /var/log, that SYSTEM is equivalent to root, and that a few %FOLDERS% amidst the mishmash of directories spread across just about everywhere is the equivalent to what's defined in hier(7). There is no $HOME on Windows. Period. And despite their recent efforts to shorten the unwieldly name of "user's default directory", among others, there will never be one without a fundamental redesign.

Re:Interesting quotes from the article

[dkf]

"c:\documents and settings\username" is what you want (commonly called the "profile"). Of course, you can change the location where profiles are stored -- I just gave the default. Also, the name of the default profile location varies by locale.

Re:Interesting quotes from the article

[rohan972]

Windows does have a /home/ equivalent, namely the My Documents folder.

It's been a long time since I've had a windows machine (9x) but it didn't store email in "My Documents" then, I'm curious, has that changed?

Re:Interesting quotes from the article

[Todd Knarr]

Except for the applications that don't store their stuff there, they store it in the "All Users" profile instead. Which they shouldn't, but the number of applications that have problems under Vista is testimony to the number that ignore the rules.

Re:Interesting quotes from the article

[Todd Knarr]

No, he wouldn't have to back up the /usr stuff. That's system-wide, contains no user configuration or data. If you've got the original distribution media, you can just reinstall the app to get all that back. It's the user-specific configuration, all your preferences and settings and extra plug-ins and such that you need to save as part of a backup, and on Unix all of those are stored in dot-files or in dot-directories under your home directory. The only possible exception is /etc, if you've changed system-wide config files to suit you better then you'll have to back up /etc. And yes, the registry hives are in the filesystem, but again not all the parts of an application's setup are in the user registry hive. Just restoring the hive files tends not to produce a working setup.

And Vista is relevant not because he's running it, but because Vista has started to enforce good practices for applications by, for example, not allowing applications to write user-specific configuration to system-wide areas and blocking applications from dropping stuff in the Windows system folders. Any app that has heartburn with that under Vista will, under XP, leave critical bits in places you wouldn't normally save if you were backing your stuff up and if you try reinstalling without those bits things Just Won't Work Right.

Re:Interesting quotes from the article

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

Um, in Windows Vista, it's called "Users\YourUserName". Documents is just one subdirecrtory of your home directory.

Application configuration information goes in a folder called "AppData". Registry information is also stored in your user profile, also under your home directory.

Re:Interesting quotes from the article

[sykopomp]

Actually, the My Documents would be more like the C:\Documents and Settings\

/home/ contains the account folders for all users. My Documents exists on each user's account in Windows, and only really contains Documents (although a few programs have taken to dumping their junk in there as well).

Re:Interesting quotes from the article

[Cathbard]

He's talking about more than documents. Don't you use linux at all? Sounds like you don't to me. He's talking about all the user configs for programs and all sorts of things. He's right, windows does scatter that stuff all over the place. There's more to what's in the home folder than the sort of things you save in My Documents, a lot more.

Re:Interesting quotes from the article

[Dr_Barnowl]

the name of the default profile location varies by locale.

And by OS, on Vista it's mercifully changed to "C:\Users"

But this is why you don't use a string literal, you call one of the kernel functions designed to return the location, or expand the USERPROFILE environment variable. Rather like just using the '~' path on Linux.

Re:Interesting quotes from the article

[Anonymous Coward]

You're comparing apples to oranges. "/home/username" equivalent in windows is "documents & settings/username" or some such. That will get you most application settings, bookmarks and other crap as well as your personal files. Of course you're bound to miss some registry crap but you could export the current user branch to a file as well.

disclaimer: I haven't used Windows since Win2k so things may have changed in Wacky Windows-land.

Re:Interesting quotes from the article

[DarkProphet]

And some programs in linux insist on scattering files over /home/~username, /usr/share, /usr/local/share, /etc and /var. Not to mention /usr/lib and /usr/share/lib for system and shared libraries.

How is that really any different? If you want to keep all your files, environment settings, and programs on a jumpdrive, then you need to use applications that are developed with that in mind. Portable Firefox is a notable example. World of Warcraft pretty much is portable by default (except for its annoying habit of storing my screenshots in some pseudo system folder). The problem seems to be more crappy application development than flaws in the OS design. Unfortunately, some applications do not lead themselves well to becoming "portable".

Re:Interesting quotes from the article

[Todd Knarr]

All except the first are system-wide files that don't contain any user-specific information, though. That's because a normal user can't write to those directories. Unless you log in as root and customize those files manually, they're going to remain the same as the original package installed them. So if you need to recover, you can just reinstall that package and get those files back to the exact state they were in before. And once you restore the user's homedir, all of their user-specific customization of those packages is restored and they're back in business.

Windows permits the same system-state restore by just reinstalling the software too. But due to many applications' tendency to put user configuration in non-user areas or in the registry where special software's typically needed to back it up and restore it properly, recovering user-specific configuration after a complete wipe and reinstall of a system can be... nontrivial. Not impossible, but getting the backup right involves a bit more than "tar -C ~username -czf /mnt/backups/user.tar.gz .".

Re:Interesting quotes from the article

[DarkProphet]

Quite right. And at least with Vista, the same is true. You can't write to system directories unless you are Administrator, so again its a moot point. But that doesn't change the fact that its not an OS issue, shitty application development is to blame. I can't even hold microsoft accountable for it, considering that Visual Studio makes it trivially easy to store global variables within the application directory and user-specific configs in C:/Documents and Settings/~user (or C:/Users/~user if Vista is your bag). Again, it is a problem of the application developers themselves, not the platform. I've seen linux applications do things just as retarded as windows apps. About the only edge linux apps have in this context is that they usually have compile-time flags that can put config directories more to your liking. With windows apps, you pretty much have to put up with whatever behavior the developer saw fit to include with the binary blob.

doesn't everyone move it to top anyway?

[Cajun Hell]

while KDE keeps its controls on the bottom of the screen in a more Windows-like fashion.

Huh? KDE finally removed an option?! On all my 4x3 aspect monitors, I have it at the top, and on my 16x9s I move it to the left.

Old news, nothing to see here...

[Anonymous Coward]

When will these trivial battles cease....

KDE vs Gnome

Emacs vs Vi(m)

Vanilla vs Chocolate

etc...

Preferences..

[knghtrider]

For me, it's XFCE. My system is beefy enough (dual core, 2GB Ram, nvidia 8-series video w/256MB) to run GNOME or KDE..I just prefer XFCE. I've got libraries installed and do run programs from both GNOME and KDE, but the Window Manager of choice is XFCE.

Open Source is all about Freedom of Choice, and freedom from Monopoly.

GNOME ftw!

[Doug52392]

I started using Linux last year, and my favorite desktop enviroment has ALWAYS been GNOME. I tried KDE once, but I didn't like it one bit...

DE

[Anonymous Coward]

What's with these DEs? Seem like a waste of time to me.

Option C

[Cytlid]

I'll keep my fluxbox, thanks. Then again, I run Slackware as well. Long ago when I was obsessed with UT2004, I wanted a minimal and fast window manager. I loaded fluxbox and never went back. Every time I try KDE or Gnome on the same hardware, it seems too slow.

So yea, the lazy part was correct.

Re:Option C

[mebrahim]

I believe that you can configure KDE to be so fast. The question is: how did you try it?!

Re:Option C

[Maestro485]

Funny you mention Slackware since it doesn't seem to be very popular around here anymore. Anyway, since Slackware scrapped GNOME a while back and made KDE the default, I went for KDE when I upgraded to Slackware 12 recently (I hadn't upgraded for a couple of versions and had been using Xfce mostly). I have been utterly impressed by KDE thus far, about a month now. Everything is smooth and sleek looking and feels very integrated with everything else (in a good way). I had become pretty attached to the sparseness of Xfce, too. I feel like, although KDE has a ton of bells and whistles, they aren't going to start ringing unless you make them.

Just my quick 3am opinion.

really ?

[mapleneckblues]

What do you crazy linux people do to your windows computers? I generally do not run a virus scanner at all or anything of the sort. Just a Vista (used to be XP) machine connected through a low end retail gateway. Guess what? I haven't had a virus since... I want to say like 2001. What sordid holes are you sticking your windows computer into? Are you loading it up with totally sweet pirated software and CRACKZ and HACKZ and such? Why don't you just use open source software on your XP PC? My XP system runs firefox, thunderbird, openoffice.org, and netbeans for development. And it doesn't complain a bit about using 3rd party applications as system defaults. And if you REALLY think your PC is a timebomb or something, just get clamav or Free AVG. You need to run bluefish? Why not just write your web pages in Firefox? Bah, ridiculous. Why juggle around linux distros when you can have the best of both worlds? sigh.

Bah, real geeks use TWM!

[Anonymous Coward]

Bah, real geeks use TWM!

chumps... ;)

One App: Klipper

[ByTor-2112]

I would have switched to something more lightweight like Xfce, but no other clipboard manager will do what klipper does. Namely, forcibly sync both clipboards. My laptop doesn't have a 3rd mouse button and that is how I work around it.

Re:One App: Klipper

[seizurebattlerobot]

I like that behavior too, but it doesn't work well with some Java apps. They freak out and lock up for about 30 seconds every time they modify the clipboard. Weird, huh?

Re:One App: Klipper

[CaptnMArk]

Which app do you use that doesn't support the proper clipboard?

The only one I use regularly is Xterm (have patches for that I need to send).

GNOME and KDE are Desktop Environments

[Anonymous Coward]

GNOME and KDE are not window managers. Metacity and KWin and fluxbox are window managers.

First impressions

[alfredo]

My first impressions of KDE were not good. It was Windows 95 ugly, and it crashed too often. Since then they have really improved, but I gravitate back to Gnome. I still have access to the KDE apps, but like the Gnome look and feel.

OSX has really undercut Linux in this home. I can run my favorite Linux apps in OSX. Still I miss Linux and the fun I have with it. I'm looking for a laptop for linux. Someday the money will be there when the deal comes my way.

I haven't forgotten you Tux. I will return some day soon.

best one for not the money

[Anonymous Coward]

not well know ..but for me the best windows manager ..
http://www.enlightenment.org/p.php?p=index&l=en

Windows and scattered data

[Lonewolf666]

There are a few reasons for the impression that Windows seems to scatter data all over the place:

1) Sloppy programming by application developers - not all applications use "My Documents". Not directly Microsoft's fault, but here Linux profits from its origins as Unix-like system:
In the Unix world, it is taken for granted that the user may only write to /home/, and applications respect that. Windows still suffers a bit from its history as unsecured system, where everybody was administrator and could write all over the place. Some applications took advantage of that, and this behavior is not completely weeded out yet.

2) Data redirection:
A questionable methods on Microsoft's part to fix problems with 1) in Vista.
See http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc160980.aspx for an overview. In short, Vista will silently redirect attempts to write to "forbidden" places to a place in the user's profile. This prevents the application from corrupting the system, but has of course side effects. For instance, take a group of users who used the same application in older Windows versions and were used to sharing data through a common directory (for instance a subdirectory of the installation directory). Now user A cannot see the data of user B anymore, and I doubt an average user will understand what has happened here ;-)

Re:Real brain-twister Pound, Stuff, Mac...

[davidsyes]

Quarter Pounder, Stuff/Stuffing, Big Mac.... interesting....

Too Much KLutter

[christurkel]

I used to love KDE in the 1.x days. My first experience with Linux. But these days there is just too much clutter; so many K-apps just piled on. If KDE was more modular; i.e;, I can pick and choose what I want to install I'd be happy but I can't, so I go with Gnome which is modular and I can start with a minimal Gnome and work my way up.

Re:Too Much KLutter

[HappySmileMan]

Erm... You CAN pick and choose what you want, if your distro lets you. Blame your distro otherwise, I've done it myself, but that was on Gentoo, all the mainstream distros pack a whole load of shit with KDE for no reason other than looking impressive.

(I'm not saying that you should use Gentoo, I'm just saying I hate the way mainstream distros treat KDE)

Re:Too Much KLutter

[seizurebattlerobot]

kdeaccessibility, kdeadmin, kdeartwork, kdebase, kdebindings, kdeedu, kdegames, kdegraphics, kdemultimedia, kdenetwork, kdepim, kdetoys, kdeutils, kdewebdev

And if that's not modular enough for you, Debian based distros have independent packages for just about EVERY KDE program! I could list those off for you, but it would be a reeeeeally long post.

What's with all the KDE misconceptions today?

Re:Too Much KLutter

[mebrahim]

On Debian-based distros just install 'kde-core' package and you have a minimal KDE.
A similar solution should be possible for other distros.

Re:Too Much KLutter

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't you solve the problem of too much software by installing KDE-core, then building up?

Re:Real brain-twister Fluxbox, KDE...

[davidsyes]

When i need to use VirtualBox and when i watch SOME DVDs, i have to use Fluxbox. i turned on some 3D effects in my profile and it keeps DVDs from appearing in KDE, so i have to use Fluxbox, or log in as another user account in which i did not mess with 3D.

When i use vista in VirtualBox, I sometimes do so in Fluxbox because of the amount of RAM KDE uses. I gave Virtual Box 1.3 GB of shared system RAM and some 380 MB for graphics. My CAD apps run spiffier/faster in Fluxbox than in KDE. But, when demonstrating Linux, I generally run KDE.

Why hate KDE?

[spyfrog]

I remember one of the last times that Slashdot had a discussion about KDE and Gnome. That time it become painfully obvious that many Gnome followers has some of strange hatred of KDE and that they wish it dead and buried. KDE followers more seamed to be content to be able to choose whatever desktop environment they liked, thus not choosing Gnome.

So, while Gnome followers would like to have KDE buried, KDE followers don't seam to really care if Gnome lives, as long as they don't have to use it.

It would be funny to know why Gnome followers has a such more extreme view of DE choice - is it because they are the majority? Why can't you leave us that like KDE alone? Why continue to show your opinions down your throat?

Re:Why hate KDE?

[prockcore]

Are you kidding? If anything it seems to be the opposite.

Any discussion involving Gnome will have people bring up Miguel loving Microsoft and Mono and how Gnome is going to doom us all to hell.

Re:Why hate KDE?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, while Gnome followers would like to have KDE buried, KDE followers don't seam to really care if Gnome lives, as long as they don't have to use it.
It would be funny to know why Gnome followers has a such more extreme view of DE choice - is it because they are the majority? Why can't you leave us that like KDE alone? Why continue to show your opinions down your throat? They seem to hate those who like customising their desktops, and think the world would be a better place if people didn't have the freedom to make those kinds of decisions. In their eyes the desktop would be a better place if all the developers just agreed to randomly remove customisation and focus on a very simple Desktop, that did everything it promised and never allowed anyone to do anything more or less.
It's becoming increasingly different not to pay homage to Godwin, so I'll just come out and say it, those kinds of Gnome users are nazi freaks who despise people having their own opinions.

The vast majority of Gnome users are NOT nazi freaks, the nazi freaks just happen to be a very vocal minority. And I'm posting ano0nymously in case4 the nazi freaks happen to be the ones with mod points.

Re:Why hate KDE?

[HappySmileMan]

Any discussion involving Gnome will have people bring up Miguel loving Microsoft and Mono and how Gnome is going to doom us all to hell. Insulting Miguel for supporting Microsoft and Mono, and saying Gnome will doom us to hell is different from saying Gnome is inherently evil and should never exist.

And it's VERY different from saying it should never exist based entirely on your own preference, with no reasons other than "BAWWW it's ugly and the options confuse me".

Efficiency, not laziness

[ZxCv]

We end up using the system/interface/whatever that allows us to get the most done with the least effort.

Most people call that efficiency, not laziness. I suppose, to some people, they are one and the same. But I guess I figured laziness was something more along the lines of what allows use to get the least done. At least, thats the laziness code I've always followed.

Easy ;)

[arodland]

KDE is technically superior, better-designed, and more usable -- but you run Ubuntu, and GNOME gets all of the system-integration love. Kubuntu folks try to keep up but they don't have enough people to make it possible. So, some of the (pretty damn nice) whiz-bang features aren't there, not because KDE can't do them, but because the integration army has chosen to support someone else.

Oh come on.

[Anonymous Coward]

The Bynars are hands down the most obvious Emacs users in the Star Trek universe. They probably use it to run their entire civilization.

Most WM features are useless anyway.

[SuurMyy]

After years of toying around the WM:s, I now think that the two most important features in a WM are:

1. Pager, I use 3x3 desks, and four of those. Rarely run out of space, but it happens sometimes.
2. Keyboard shortcuts. Creme de la creme.

Most others are just useless excess. I see no point in having icons, buttons, menus and what-not. Keyboard is faster, and all you need is is enough space. Sticky windows are useful sometimes. But that's about it.

Gkrellm is nice thou. But it's not really a WM feature.

I use fvwm2, btw.

The fact that you have a choice...

[gatkinso]

...seems to be lost in the fanboy fluff.

FVWM and spatial layout

[bipbop]

I agree for the most part, and have a similar config. But I do use menus! When it became hard to find a good keyboard without microsoft and menu keys, I bound windows to meta, and I bound the menu key to open my root menu. So for example to start a new rxvt, I hit menu, followed by enter. (I used to have separate shortcuts to start various apps, but the menu is nice.)

The most important part of the fvwm interface for me is focus-follows-mouse, along with shift-arrow to move the cursor by 10%, or alt-arrow to move the screen by 100%. This lets me navigate spatially laid out windows (which must never overlap; I hate cluttered work space). So, I have no pager, as I switch windows by moving the cursor with keys--or occasionally with the mouse, but I have mouse-related RSI problems, so mostly keys. My desktop is entirely unadorned, in fact!

As I see it, working with 3x3 desks with non-overlapping windows, compared to a single desktop with overlapping windows, is very much like comparing a large wide-open physical workspace to a small desk with cluttered piles of paper, constantly going through the mess to find what's important. It's impossible for me to understand people who prefer the latter! (Apparently, most people?)

Re:FVWM and spatial layout

[SuurMyy]

I have things set up so that things like email and irc autostart when I start X. I used to have a shortcut for swiftfox long ago, but now I always start it from a shell, because it's easiest to kill it that way w/just ctrl+c, when it hangs (or ctrl+z and kill %1, if need be). If it's started w/o a parent that you can easily command, you have to go through the trouble of ps auxw | grep fox, and killing it by PID. Mostly, when it hangs bad, killall swiftfox-bin or similar just won't do it. I think this has been an issue since like Netscape 4, or something. It's those darned embedded players that just don't behave.

Regarding apps, my shortcuts mostly just open terminals. I continue from there as needed. I actually have a menu, but I noticed that I nearly never use it. And yes, it comes from the menu button. The only time I use it is when I exit X. I use three sizes of terminal, one fullscreen and two half-screen terms (top/bottom). And you can always alt+F10 between fullscreen/window as needed.

And oh yes, mouse-focus is the way to go. Moving mouse cursor w/keyboard is also practical.

I'm not sure people really enjoy those cluttered desktops, that's just what they were taught to work w/. It's sad. Part of the problem in Windows is that mouse-focus doesn't really work there the way it's supposed to, so you can't really get that WM system to work as well in there no matter what you do. You'll end up w/pop-up windows vanishing behind other windows and that kind of stuff. It was really annoying when I tried it the last time.

One more nice feature in fvwm (and others) is that you can resize a window w/o having to search for a window corner. I just hit alt and a mouse button to start resizing. I'm sure there are many other niceties that I can't recall right not, but all in all fvwm just works really, really well, if you know what you want of it. You're in luck, if you can get an old-timer to give you his or her config files. It's nice to start w/an already perfected config.

Another unrelated tweak that I have is a custom xmodmap file so that I can use caps-lock as an extra shift to produce scandinavian letters from an otherwise US-1 layout. Shells, and programs like vi were created w/the assumption that that's what you use, so it really saves me a lot of trouble to go this way. It's way more friendly for programmers than the Finnish layout is. And I'm sure this is true for most non-us1-layouts, and I feel sorry for the people who struggle w/alt-gr and very odd hand positions to get characters like []{} from their keyboards. It just makes no sense, and is very bad for your hands, too.

KDE user

[AaronW]

I started with KDE back in 1999 since we were using Sun workstations and CDE was unusable. I managed to compile KDE 1.2 and added a Solaris sound driver to ARTS and have been using it ever since. I have tried Gnome on a number of occasions, but I always go back to KDE since it always feels like my hands are tied behind my back with Gnome. Yes, KDE is cluttered (much better in 4.0), but I often use a lot of that "clutter". There are a lot more menu options, but I've frequently found them useful.

Some things in Gnome I absolutely detest, like their file dialogs. The KDE file dialogs are a lot more friendly and powerful, and I've found that the integration seems better. They're also consistent across applications and not limited to just local files, but http, ftp, fish, etc.

When it comes to things like burning CDs or DVDs, I have yet to find anything that comes close to k3b, or for music, Amarok.

I still use Thunderbird for email due to some issues Kmail has with IMAP, but I'll switch in an instant once those are fixed. For the web, I have found that Firefox has slowly adopted a number of features I've been using for a long time in Konqueror. Both Firefox and Thunderbird have some nasty issues still when your home directory is mounted via NFS. I.e. if I have Firefox open on one computer, I cannot open it a second time on another computer in the lab without killing it on the first.

I've fallen in love with some of the features in Konsole, like searching the history, which it's had almost forever.

I've also found DCOP to be extremely useful since I can script things or even control applications remotely. I.e. I needed to change some parameters on a remotely running ktorrent and was easily able to do that via dcop without having any access to the desktop.

For file browsing I have also found Konqueror to be quite powerful, since I can use it rather seamlessly whether I'm browsing files locally, via FTP, fish, on my camera, etc. And if I click on different files, the part for displaying or editing that file is integrated. If I click on a PDF file, kpdf displays it. If I click on a text file, kate is integrated.

Also, each time I tried dealing with the configuration of Gnome to tweak things I was always disappointed in the lack of options.

KDE has also been fairly consistent with the menus.

And lastly, I've found that the embedding of different applications to be quite powerful. For example, I am writing this in Akregator, but all it has to do is add a tab with a KHTML part.

I may try Gnome again one of these days, but each time I do I'm left wanting for a lot of the features and options I take advantage of in KDE.

It's like Gnome goes for simplicity and in the process discards functionality and caters to the most common needs, whereas KDE is much more of a swiss army knife of tools that can be combined together and tweaked to the hearts content.

I might add that I've used the straight KDE distribution (for Solaris) and SuSE distributions.

I won't say KDE is the prettiest environment out there, but I rather have functional over pretty, and some of the other themes for it are rather nice.

From KDE to GNOME but not quite back to KDE?

[erroneus]

Well then, I guess I won't bother trying out KDE in the near future.

I have always used GNOME for as long as it has existed. At first it was buggy and crash-prone (or it could have been the crappy hardware I was using at the time) but it felt softer and more gentle than KDE at the time. And frankly, (and I know this is a STUPID reason) I hate the way everything in KDE has to have a K in the name where it doesn't belong!! Admittedly GNOME apps have been prone to the same practice, but that has actually been fading away. But if I had to choose based on which letter I like better? It'd be G over K every time... G is Good, K and Krappy. :)

And the past few times I had downloaded a live CD with KDE and tried it out, I always found KDE 'functional' but that's about it. And I'm already so used to GNOME, I don't care to justify my use of it... I use it because I always have. If KDE somehow became more of what I like about GNOME than GNOME currently is, then I'd probably move over since there seems to be just as much energy in either Kamp... (did I just write that? yeah I did...)

Dump 'em Both

[Beetle B.]

I switched from KDE to FluxBox back in 2003.

Then a year later switched to FVWM (FVWM-Crystal, to be precise).

Never gone back.

For me, KDE and Gnome are too inflexible, and at times quite bloated.

I really wish people would consider other options. There are lots of window managers out there - some with quite a bit of eye candy without the bloat.

Re:Dump 'em Both

[the plant doctor]

There are lots of window managers but only a few desktop environments. I believe that's what this article was about, desktop environments, not window managers.

moving panels, menus, etc..

[pbhj]

It's called customisation: I did it when I installed Ubuntu and tried gnome (for about 10 days), I did it (less) when I installed KDE on top of Ubuntu, I did it when I booted the preinstalled Vista I have on this box ...

Does anyone move into a room, office, flat and not think "that chair would look better there, we should have that colour for the walls and how about a pot plant?"?

Re:moving panels, menus, etc..

[techno-vampire]

I did tech support for about four months once, for a small company. From what I could tell, I was the only person in that company who bothered customizing my Win2K desktop, instead of just looking at the default wallpaper day in and day out. There really are a lot of people, some of them skilled computer users, who just take whatever comes out of the box and let it go at that.

Re:moving panels, menus, etc..

[bigdavex]

Does anyone move into a room, office, flat and not think "that chair would look better there, we should have that colour for the walls and how about a pot plant?"?

Yes.

In the U.S., we refer to these people as "straight".

Re:moving panels, menus, etc..

[darthflo]

I don't see the point in having a pretty wallpaper or a funny cursor set on a work machine. I'm there to be productive, to build quality software, not to spend hours picking whatever picture would look best on the desktop I never look at because it's hidden under some IDE.

Re:moving panels, menus, etc..

[dotancohen]

Does anyone move into a room, office, flat and not think "that chair would look better there..."? This man does

Re:moving panels, menus, etc..

[talksinmaths]

Does anyone move into a room, office, flat and not think "that chair would look better there, we should have that colour for the walls and how about a pot plant?"?

Hey! We don't all get to live in Amsterdam, you know. :)

Re:moving panels, menus, etc..

[techno-vampire]

Not everybody maximizes every window, you know. The idea is to have several different programs open and be able to see all of them without minimizing or moving any of them. HTH, HAND.

Re:moving panels, menus, etc..

[gambolt]

I have different wallpaper on each desktop with tasks sorted by desktop. I really like the way the default Afterstep configuration does this.

Re:moving panels, menus, etc..

[pbhj]

>>> I'm there to be productive, to build quality software, not to spend hours picking whatever picture would look best on the desktop I never look at because it's hidden under some IDE.

You see the desktop at boot. I generally match it to look pleasing with the task and toolbars and to contrast with the text of desktop icons.

Also I use my box for work (web design and some programming) and for pleasure; games, internet, family photos and the like.

I find that a bland working environment makes me feel depressed more! The computer is part of my working environment. I suspect you'll find that working environment plays a large part in productivity, particularly of more skilled workers ... do the big creative companies have beige cubes for their best workers?

another narrow-minded idiot

[Anonymous Coward]

KDE and Gnome, Gnome and KDE. That's the only two desktops in the whole entire universe, right? Gotta be just those two.

Anybody who sees Linux as being 50% KDE and 50% Gnome might as well go back to Windows and never visit our side of the tracks again. We don't want Linux adopted that badly.

KDE, Gnome style

[V!NCENT]

This must be really wierd, but I prefer KDE with a gnome-ish layout. My desktop (1280x800 JPG): http://img291.imageshack.us/my.php?image=screenshothi3.jpg

And YES! It's a car. These things on four round objects with a engine. Go ahead... make jokes...

PWM. Version 1. Or compiz with just a decorator.

[sudog]

I never understood why anyone would want to build their desktop around something as nasty and bloated as a GUI that does nothing but Get In Your Way. I for example like to use PWM version 1. It's the extreme in light-weight window managers while still having enough functionality to force tabbed windows, have lots of desktops, and other than that? No menus, no clutter.

Most people I bet don't know that compiz is configurable enough that you don't need a window manager running on top of it. It can act basically as its own window manager. It can accept all the keys and all the functionality of a window manager and you don't even really need a window *decorator* except perhaps to do things like resize your windows.

All KDE and Gnome apps can run essentially standalone, so all you need is good ol' ultra-lightweight xterm.

I bet I can type "mplayer" faster than you can find it in your menus.

Well.. I guess I do understand why some people want menus. But the option to eliminate KDE and Gnome almost altogether for those of us who remember how to spell kontact? Nirvana..

Enlightenment

[oyenstikker]

"Does this mean GNOME is now a better desktop than KDE, or just that I have become so accustomed to GNOME that it's hard for me to give it up?"

No. It just means that you have not been enlightened.

Re:Enlightenment

[The_Dougster]

No. It just means that you have not been enlightened.

Lol! IMO A full gnome install, with the Enlightenment window manager, assorted KDE apps, and then a bunch of other independent apps would be pretty tough to beat. I haven't run E for a while, but it's always been phenomenal. E takes a lot of tuning up for a particular system, but it has always been really amazing to behold and use.

Enlightenment is only a WM, not really a whole system though. It otherwise needs Gnome, KDE, and other applications to flesh it out into a conventional desktop package. For instance, there isn't really an E-Sheet, E-Writer, E-Browser, and so on. Gnome and KDE both have a bundle of associated applications in addition to the window manager and desktop menu system.

Re:Enlightenment

[oyenstikker]

I have been using e17 (in alpha/beta, but quite usable) for a while, and used e16 for years before that. Why do I need Gnome or KDE applications? I frequently use Konqueror, but I could just as easily use another file manager and web browser. Yes, Konqueror does require you to have kdebase, kdelibs, and kdesktop installed, but I don't have the full KDE installed (I don't have startkde nor kwin).

Re:Enlightenment

[riondluz]

Like you, I only run E, first 16 now 17 as a WM. I used to run
gnome+E17, but found i never really used the desktop, only the apps.

I justify the hassles it takes to get running, the minor aggravations involved in building or fetching packages, because of its beauty and, more important, the ability to wrap and flip thru virt desktops.

E is the only WM that has this capability and i have gotten so dependent on
ctl-alt-arrow or just mousing thru edges as part of my work habits, that
i cant go back to 'clicking' from one desktop to another.

Efficiency is ...

[rohan972]

laziness + ambition?

Oh my gawd...

[Anonymous Coward]

"More than likely it's just the inherent laziness of most users that precludes change."

I get really tired of engineers who can understand that the end users may actually have some wisdom. What is wrong with loving what you know? So many times, programs are changed not for any scientific reason but for marketing fluff, product placement, to avoid IP conflicts, or just plain ego. But many just to sell something new, whether you want it or not (can you say "Vista").

Can engineers ever have an oz. of respect for the people who use their programs? Down with your EGO!

KI Khate Kit

[somegeekynick]

Ki Khate KKDE forK Kabsolutely Kno Kreason Kat Kall.

Re:KI Khate Kit

[AlgorithMan]

iObject!
Microsoft(R) Windows(TM) Live(TM) OthersDoTheSame(TM) Enterprise 2008

Haven't we been here before??

[stox]

Back then, it was Motif versus Openlook. Interestingly enough, KDE kinda looks like Motif and Gnome kinda looks like Openlook. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

That's exactly what I though with a sigh of relief

[Gazzonyx]

Damn it. There are times when you just look at the article title and you know that a long, delicious, juicy flamewar is coming up...

And I just lost my mod points, too. :( If it makes you feel any better, you don't have the dilemma of trying to decide whether to mod a fanboy into the ground or light him up like a Christmas tree via posting a reply. Ironically, this pushes that very problem up stream to current mods. Right as they started doing 10 mod points, no less (when did that happen anyway?).

Happy hunting! First one to get forcibly rejected from Slashdot gets a bottle opener key chain! Double points for a k-line, and Quad for a z-line.

You forgot about the registry

[Anonymous Coward]

Since Windows 95 Microsoft has tried to have configs and other stuff written into the registry instead of into a cfg or ini file residing in the same directory as the program file. This is what basically broke the backups. You could no longer back up and restore your software later and have it work right away, because you didn't know where all the relevant settings were placed.

This of course was intentional as the concept gave them the tools to monitor, control and restrict usage of their (and other) software by obfuscating what kind of and where data was stored.

The basic idea though is not that bad an idea: have a centralized place for all your settings so they are not scattered in all the program directories. They should have made it browsable from explorer though, disallow binary keys/values and hardlink the corresponding data with a programs location so when you back up any of your prgrams the settings come for the ride automatically.

Mandriva or PCLinuxOS

[Linegod]

If you're going to be going to KDE, go with Mandriva or PCLinuxOS.

But then it's probably too late, you've already drank the Ubuntu kool-aid.

Slight nod to Gnome here, but I use KDE apps also

[The_Dougster]

First off, I have run a Gentoo system for around five years, and before that Debian, so I guess I look at it from a different perspective than a lot of Linux users. For some reason I like how Gentoo's Gnome Desktop emerges. It seems fairly nice, reasonably well configured, and certainly has an unmistakable linuxy kind of "look and feel" to it. It emulates other environments in some respects, but has some fairly unique characteristics of its own style. Furthermore, you can typically select a canned theme that appeals to you, pick a background, and just use it.

On the other hand, I generally build the QT and KDE libs once I have the Gnome Desktop running, and then selectively install KDE apps like the KDB debugger, which I like, QCad, etc. Gnome seems to be to be based on a whole bunch of odd little libraries, while KDE depends on a few very large ones. So typically adding KDE apps themselves are fairly quick compiles once the libs are all installed, but Gnome systems seem to be best built all at once so all the apps can configure themselves to best use all the libs that are going to be needed by everything else and hence have optimal features built in for the particular system.

Some of the KDE applications are much more advanced than their Gnome counterparts, so being able to have both is cool. I think I like how KDE handles files and folders slightly better than how Nautilus does it, but I like the Gnome panels and overall look and feel a bit better. The default Gnome desktop applications are typically somewhat minimalistic, but they seem to function as simple substitutes for most commonly needed tasks well enough unless a preferred package of some sort has been installed to do that task by the user. KDE seems to instead attempt to install somewhat more sophisticated desktop apps which tend to be less unified overall.

So I suppose what I'm saying here is that I prefer the somewhat simplistic style of Gnome as a base for my system but I like to add more complex apps like from KDE and elsewhere in an ad hoc fashion. I find that it tends to make a more heterogeneous mix of Linux applications which somehow adds to my enjoyment of using my Linux system. I believe that a complete KDE desktop system is better suited to a small tight system which requires maximum functionality in a compact package, like for PDA's and embedded systems particularly, which especially benefit from having a few large super-libs to share among them rather than Gnome's legion of flyweights.

In Gentoo at least, Gnome *appears* to compile faster because it is flying through zillions of minuscule packages, while KDE seems to take forever and a day to compile QT and KDElibs. It's anybody's guess as to whether this is actually true though and probably depends on what options you build Gnome with.

I could probably go on like this for pages. Nuff said . . .

All for choice..

[sykopomp]

..but I really take issue with the way in which apps have been split between gtk+ and qt. Choice is awesome, don't get me wrong, and I don't particularly favor either toolkit, since they're both free and have their own advantages (and they're both really popular).

What I take real issue with is the fact that I'll install some random app, and it'll either work half-assedly or look like crap because I haven't installed the config thing for the 'other' desktop. This has happened to me numerous times in the past. Most recently when I started using a gtk+ based DE (XFCE) from using KDE. The difference in the way some apps like firefox looked made me wonder why I never bothered to get gtk configured before. Likewise, I really like Amarok, and the difference in look from unconfigured qt settings to a properly-themed program is amazing.

I just hope one of them finally gives it up and dies...

By the way, I'm using a couple small chunks of XFCE in combination with Xmonad, and I think it's the greatest thing I've ever used.

Window managers?

[Profane MuthaFucka]

All you people who prefer the window manager KDE over the window manager Gnome are morons. They aren't window managers. And quit calling it X Windows. There's no 's' on that. There's no 's' on Lego either. Morons.

Problem with KDE

[Anonymous Coward]

The only problem with KDE (in terms of its visual appeal) that I find, is its UGLY *** Panel! Please KDE team, if you are reading this, redesign that panel, and make it look interesting

KDE vs. Gnome, my $0.02

[Anonymous Coward]

Since January, I've made 5 attempts to switch to KDE4. I think that for the time being Gnome has indeed outpaced KDE, despite a later start, and using a graphical toolkit generally agreed to be inferior to QT.

I've been a Software Tester for 10 years, so I hope the KDE team will listen and take it constructively when I say they've made some critically dumb decisions:

1. They released the last beta, intended only for developers and early adopters, under the name "KDE 4.0" without mention on their webpage or release notes that it wasn't quite ready for general use.

2. They have gotten KDE in a state where the old version's too old, and the new versions too new. Anyone I know who's thinking about trying Linux, I give them my Ubuntu disk and leave Kubuntu tucked away.

3. Some discussions I've had with KDE developers in other forums (I'm talking to YOU Seigo) make clear they forget that even free-as-in-beer projects have "customers." I've also gotten the impression that they are letting their ego get involved, especially when they receive criticism. They need to listen to their end-users, not dictate to them. Seigo, don't tell me I'd never want a theme other than beautiful Oxygen, don't give us that line that you'll do it your way since you're not a business, and don't accuse people of whining when they complain that KDE4's not ready. KDE management: It's interesting you opted to NOT make the desktop a file manager... --You guys did check and make sure that's what the end-users WANT, right? One of the ties keeping me away from KDE4 is that I'm USED to having the desktop be a file manager, and Nautilus does it so well. Upcoming changes for KDE 4.1 will allow plasma to pretend to be a file manager, but I never liked the approach of "it-won't-be-a-file-manager-whether-you-like-it-or-not." That approach is NOT the way to show that the open source movement is not "communistic" like Microsoft says.

KDE's lost ground to Gnome for the same reason Netscape lost ground to IE, and IE is now losing ground to Firefox. The people making the decisions have made more decisions wrong than their competition.

I prefer Gnome but

[rtobyr]

Patrick Volkerding only gives me KDE in my distro... and Dropline is such a pain to install. Seriously though, to everyone who says that Gnome is for lazy people because you're supposed to modify KDE's defaults: uh, like I have time for that. I need to be doing other stuff besides tweaking my UI. I'm responsible for over 20 servers, my boss wants four 9's, and we're starting our virtualization project next week. So yeah, I guess I AM too lazy to tweak my UI.

i think it does matter that much.

[CaptainNerdCave]

really? i've been gravitating to gnome for the same reason: customizing shortcuts. with kde, binding the "menu" key to open a konsole defaults back to worthless (and so on), but gnome behaves just right every time.

KDE in Debian is better than Kubuntu

[Oryn]

It has to said that there is a huge difference between KDE in Ubuntu and KDE in Debian. Why? I don't know, but things like wireless work in Debian and do not in Kubuntu, yet Ubuntu's wireless works like a charm.

There's no denying that Ubuntu is a awesome distro, but is does make you wonder if Kubuntu has been put out there to diswade folks from using KDE, intentional or not, that is the effect its having.

I would say to anyone frustrated after having tried KDE in the form of Kubuntu that its well worth trying a different distro, not just Debian (I might add)

Windowmaker is what I use

[houghi]

I run Windowmaker as that gives me much better what I personally want. I use both KDE and GNOME programs that I want.

To answer the question, Yes GNOME is a better desktop for you
Or as the French say: Le goût et les couleurs, ça ne se discute pas.

Gnome vs KDE

[Peaker]

A. Kubuntu is not as polished as Ubuntu (At least in Gutsy).
Ubuntu pops up scripts to download missing codecs, plugins, etc. In Kubuntu you are left on your own, with google and howto's. Some of Kubuntu's applications (restricted drivers manager) seem to be less stable than their Ubuntu counterparts.

B. KDE is more powerful than Gnome: The KDE IOSlaves and KDE's architecture is indeed more powerful. All protocols and all kinds of data can be used from any file/run prompt. For example, Konqueror's web shortcuts work in the run dialog ("wt:Efficiency" opens up the wiktionary page directly from the run dialog), and you don't have to open web links in firefox and other links in other programs - KDE just does all that for you.

C. KDE applications are significantly slower to start than Gnome. On all hardware I tried, Gnome apps take less than a second to start, even when not in cache. KDE applications, even smaller ones (kate) on modern hardware, take at least 3-4 seconds to start. This was my primary reason to stop using KDE.

D. I think both KDE and Gnome have tons of great applications, and its hard to say which one is winning in this regard.

Re:Gnome vs KDE

[21mhz]

B. KDE is more powerful than Gnome: The KDE IOSlaves and KDE's architecture is indeed more powerful.

GNOME has been including Gnome-VFS since the beginnings, and to the latest release they've made a better go at it.

The Truth

[Anonymous Coward]

>Does this mean GNOME is now a better desktop

No. It just means that after all you finally grew old. Your eyes got substantially bad and senility is upon you.

It's all personal preference

[SwedishPenguin]

I really wouldn't say GNOME has gotten better than KDE, it's all about personal preference.
Personally, I used KDE with Slackware when I started using Linux in 2000, switched to GNOME when I installed Ubuntu 6.06 in 2006, and recently switched back to KDE a few months ago when I installed (K)Ubuntu 8.04.
GNOME is a great desktop, so is KDE, but they're great i completely different ways. GNOME is pretty slick and prefers to limit options (some might say they're limiting them too much) in order to increase ease of use, while KDE tends to prioritize options over ease of use.
Either way I'm quite comfortable using either of the two desktops, you can still run Amarok in GNOME and you can still run GIMP in KDE.

Please correct my misunderstandings, if any...

[Anonymous Coward]

1) KDE&Gnome&XFCE etc. extend the WIMP paradigm, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WIMP_(computing) , beyond other, mainly commercial, alternatives because they're open/free software and thus develop quicker.

2) The way I use it, I require Windows to be focused upon mouse pointing (usually nown as "hovering") and not require mouse clicking. Further, focused Windows should receive mouse clicks and user interactaction -- without being raised! This would ruin window layout. This is contrary to both Windows and Mac models -- mainly to Mac considering the common menu at the top (because one needs to click on File and thus leaves the working window).

3) It's very important that apps communicate dinamically so that e.g. a spreadsheet, a music file or a video file can be inserted into a text document and still work. In Mac & Windows there are native (and proprietary) ways for this to happen; in Linux, we're still walking to that goal. KDE tries to provide apps which rely on its libraries (or Trolltech's) to achieve this; Gnome has GTK and that Bonobo thing, while some new apps use Mono (which is like .NET -- sorry I really don't know much about Gnome). Given that Qt is truly object orientated and GTK not, I put bigger faith in KDE, while I confess I don't like M$-derived things (maybe that's prejudice, I need to think it over). Gnome software is of more diverse origin, which is very good (because that's an ideal in FL/OSS), but also poses problems for app interoperability.

4) XFCE IMHO should be based on FLTK, but its authors insist on GTK... but one has to have GTK etc. installed -- for e.g. Firefox. And that sux. Someone invented toolkit adaptation layers long ago (seek about a KHTML-based browser -- if I find anything I'll post), we should have some way of Qt/GTK interoperabilty, just like we got somewhat standard wm hints... it sucks having to call gnome-theme-manager to adjust things in KDE, just so that Firefox looks better. But then I'm using an old Mandrake (boy, talk about being reliable... it testifies the quality of French products). I should try EDE one of these days just to see if it's really lighter.

5) more thoughts later, I have to go... TIA for any answer... if anyone gets to read this, that is... :-/

Stick to writing polls Robin

[theolein]

You may have used Linux on the desktop for some ten years. Others have used Windows in some form or another, or Mac OS9 and Mac OSX. You may find it strange that person X doesn't know anything about the operating system on their computer. Others who work in user support, see this every single day. It doesn't mean those people are stupid, or clueless (How much do you know about topics not in your world view?). It means their lives are filled with other things than worrying about what the funny little buttons on their computer screen looks like. You may only need one "professional" application, but, as someone who has actually had to edit truly professional videos, for broadcast TV, Sony's Vegas is NOT a professional video editing application. Avid, Final Cut Pro and others are what one would need and use.You may think Bluefish is the world's finest text editor. I don't. And many others don't either. I use Ultraedit on Windows, Textmate on Mac, and jedit as a universal editor on all platforms.

You are, in my opinion, as shortsighted, as all the supposed shortsighted Windows and Mac users you profess to be better than. Linux is fine for some people, but not for others.

In other words, Rob, your article seems to be a filler for the easter weekend.

Stick to writing polls.

"Design Is The Art Of Making Choices"

[SEMW]

1) That should be left to the distros and 2) The user is going to change it all around anyway. Criticizing the default UI for KDE is dumb. You're not supposed to use it.
This is the polar opposite of the Gnome policy of assuming the user is too stupid to know how they work best. To quote from Joel Spolsky's User Interface Design For Programmers :

"... Users care about a lot less things than you might think. They are using your software to accomplish a task. They care about the task. If it's a graphics program, they probably want to be able to control every pixel to the finest level of detail. If it's a tool to build a web site, you can bet that they are obsessive about getting the web site to look exactly the way they want it to look."

"They do not, however, care one whit if the program's own toolbar is on the top or the bottom of the window. They don't care how the help file is indexed. They don't care about a lot of things, and it is the designers' responsibility to make these choices for them so that they don't have to. It is the height of arrogance for a software designer to inflict a choice like this on the user simply because the designer couldn't think hard enough to decide which option is really better."

Re:"Design Is The Art Of Making Choices"

[jsebrech]

It is the height of arrogance for a software designer to inflict a choice like this on the user simply because the designer couldn't think hard enough to decide which option is really better.

Amen. There are three basic lessons on users every developer should always remember:
- Users don't read (dialogs, help files, manuals, hints, ...).
- Users don't care about your application, only about the task they need your application for.
- Users hate choice, until you pick the wrong one for them, and then they absolutely need it.

The lesson for developers is this:
- Avoid forcing your users to read (avoid dialogs, think about ui design so users don't need help files).
- Avoid needless choices.
- If you must offer choices, always pick sane defaults, and make the choices easy to reach.

The lack of sane defaults and the excessive amount of choices that were forced on me is the primary reason I dumped linux a few years back.

Re:"Design Is The Art Of Making Choices"

[gambolt]

I HATE panels on the bottom. Keep all that crap at the top so I never have to move the mouse below the top couple inches of the screen.

Anybody who buys that crap you quoted should be forced to use emacs for the rest of their lives.

I have a background in adaptive technology and interfaces for special needs individuals. Amongst other things, lack of configuration options makes computers difficult to use for individuals with assorted disabilities. There is no such thing as a "one size fits all" UI. Any attempts to design such a thing is inherently discriminatory.

People who are too lazy to learn to use their computers have a choice. I'd prefer that that they chose the shut the fuck up, quit whining, and use a typewriter. People who have any of the hundreds of disabilities that require a UI be specially customized for their specific needs do not have a choice.

The GNOME approach to UI design is inherently bigoted. It's got a big "normal people only" sign on it. They do make a few concessions to people with some visual disabilities, but that's only a small fraction of what's out there.

XFCE FTW!

[om_mani_padme_hung]

IMO gnome is lacking and slow, and KDE 4 is a buggy mess so far. I like XFCE best. It's what gnome SHOULD be like!

it depends

[Anonymous Coward]

I have generally been more fond of gnome than KDE. However when I installed Sabayon, I was really taken by their implementation of KDE. For some reason I really liked KDE on sabayon. After that experience I decided to install Kubuntu, but I found that KDE just annoyed me. I think both environments have bennefits over the other, but how they are implemented and how well the distro applies them can be hugely important. (And I know you can customize them to look like any other distro, but that doesnt change initial impressions).

Evilwm

[Frantactical Fruke]

For me, minimal means maximum usable screen space. When I'm working on text, I want as much of it on screen as possible. Openoffice is already greedy with all its tool bars that tend to pop back at random intervals, if you minimize them. So Fluxbox, taking a quarter inch per window at the top and another for its tool bar at the bottom, looks wasteful. Evilwm takes away just two (2) pixels worth of height, and I can enlarge programs to hide their menus outside the screen to get a full screen effect out of any program: Nothing but my work on screen! What more could I want? But then I don't mind starting all programs from an xterm...

See http://www.6809.org.uk/evilwm/ or your local Debian repository.

Toolbar positions

[Fencepost]

I find it amusing that he starts out with differences in menu/toolbar placement and comparisons to Windows; I long ago moved my Windows taskbar to the top of the screen - I'm remoted into other systems many times a day, and it's convenient to not have to worry about overlapping on my laptop.

For a related reason, I prefer KDE on my desktop system because of its bottom bar - I have a dual stacked monitor setup, and I'd rather not have to go 2000 pixels up just to get to menus. I tend to throw more stuff like "tail -f whatever" onto that upper monitor.

GNOME is Unmaintained

[Compenguin]

The problem with GNOME is that it is unmaintained. Sure modules have "maintainers." But it seems the maintainers can't be bothered to review patches on core (aka "boring") components; all they want to do is write "exciting" new code. Consider the following there are 3322 unreviewed patches on GNOME bugzilla. A significant fraction of them are over 100 days old and to gnome desktop or platform components (vs related software that uses Gnome bugzilla).

Gnome-panel has 67 unreviewed patches, 9 are over 100 days old. Where are the so-called maintainers???

Some of my favorites are:
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=384783 - 39 days
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=504594 - 93 days
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=499374 - 119 days
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=409262 - 398 days

Re:PWM. Version 1. Or compiz with just a decorator

[Anonymous Coward]

Most people I bet don't know that compiz is configurable enough that you don't need a window manager running on top of it. It can act basically as its own window manager. It can accept all the keys and all the functionality of a window manager and you don't even really need a window *decorator* except perhaps to do things like resize your windows.

Well, more than the fact you don't need a window manager running on top of Compiz, Compiz IS a window manager and you CANNOT have another window manager running on top of it.

You don't want a full-blown DE? Well, that's fine and your choice.

I personally like my KDE desktop, the KDE GUI does not get in my way, rather it helps and enhances my computer use and it offers a hell of a lot more functionality than just a few pretty menus. Sometimes it is easier to do something or launch an app using the command line, and since I do use the command line all the time I installed a nice helpful KDE app called Yakuake so I can show/hide a shell with a single keystroke.

Incompetence rather than malice

[Lonewolf666]

Having an operating system with multiple users, whose settings are protected from each other, implies that each user has a separate configuration.
I guess the simplest way of handling that is to put a set of config files in the home directory of each user, which you can backup separately. And Linux applications tend to do it that way.

The registry also has separate "branches" for each user and you can export them to text files. You can also import them back into the registry. So it is functionally equivalent, but somewhat obfuscated.

Extracting the settings is also not so easily done, in addition to a file backup you need something to extract those parts of the registry. But there are APIs to get the registry content, so I don't think Microsoft intended to make it impossible. Instead, I believe it was merely bad design ;-)

Open File Dialogs

[Anonymous Coward]

Im surprised... no one talked about that. I dont like gnome and avoid to use gtk/gnome apps, and everytime I have to save or open a file in firefox I remember why I hate gnome so much. Theres a standard way to build open/save file dialogs boxes, and everyone is used to that way, gnome uses it? no! The user is stupid approach made a new file dialog box that is worst to use and slow.

Sensible defaults do not imply no configurability

[SEMW]

Your argument would make sense if GNOME did not let you change the fact that there was a panel at the bottom. But it does. Gnome panels can be placed on one, more, or none arbitrary screen edges, with arbitrary content on each one. The point which you seem to have misseds that including the ability to configure and change the defaults does not remove an obligation for the designer to think hard about -- to design -- sensible and thoughtful defaults in the first place.

not exemplary of my experience

[monkeySauce]

I run Kubuntu on one desktop and two laptops at my house.

I use KDE, but Firefox + Thunderbird for web/email, and Openoffice not Koffice for productivity/office apps. Unlike Roblimo, I've had no problems at all configuring default applications/file type associations so that the desired program opens when expected (mailto links open in Firefox, URL's in email open in Firefox, office docs open in OOo, etc)

I've heard about the problems some people have had with wireless but that hasn't affected me either. Both laptops connect "out-of-the-box" to my WPA2/AES wireless network.

Go figure but I actually prefer Adept to Synaptic. Adept just seems more intuitive to me.

I was a Gnome user back in the RedHat 5.0-9.0 days, because it was the RH default. After I switched distros I tried KDE and found that I liked it pretty well, but I still used Gnome primary. The reason I finally switched to KDE was that I wanted to change the format of the display of something (can't remember exactly what at this point) but Gnome simply wouldn't let me. It just wasn't an option. I logged in using KDE and it let me customize anything I wanted to. I've been using KDE ever since. It just seems more accommodating overall.

Re:Sensible defaults do not imply no configurabili

[gambolt]

I wasn't speaking just about the panel.

Here's what it boils down to: for every option that only one out of a thousand people need, that one person likely needs it a whole lot more than the other 999 people don't need it.

Gnome is the way to go

[karupa]

Gnome has just matured quickly, and is far better than KDE at the moment. Its clutter free, delightful and more importantly doesn't remind me of windows.

Re:PWM. Version 1. Or compiz with just a decorator

[sudog]

Alright.. by "window manager" running "on top of it" you know damn well I meant all the infrastructure of menus, config dialogs, panels, and panes. None of that extra cruft is necessary. And compiz isn't a window manager. It's more than that. Calling it a window manager is like calling Linux an interrupt scheduler.

Love the article

[bensch128]

The best quote is "And here's the funny thing: Windows feels a lot more Linuxlike to me than Mac OS. In many ways it seems as if it's a slightly clumsy knockoff of KDE."

That's hilarious considering that KDE is loosely designed to be like windows but more powerful.

I use kubuntu all of the time at home now and am eagerly looking forward to hoary for it's updates.
Don't ever take away my options!!!

Cheers
Ben

Option #3 ?

[billcopc]

(checks desktop icon) Okay so this one box runs KDE.

I've tried both KDE and Gnome, and hated them both for different reasons. The only WM I've used that I really can't complain about is Fluxbox, because it does absolutely fuckall and does it well.

The day we come up with a GUI that is consistent, visually satisfying and does not get in the way of the apps, is the day I switch to a Linux desktop. Until then, it will remain a painful gadget that I use out of necessity alone.

Windows is far from perfect, but it mostly works in a predictable manner. Why we can't just clone it and call it a day, well that's a question for our filthy unshaven leaders.

Gnome is nice!

[deepclutch]

Gnome the favourite for bashing!still Gnome improves with each release(consistent). Gnome UI is very easy for even a n00b! Gnome liked by many in their hearts,but tries their best to avoid because after seeing the comments of Gnome basher's in slashdot and other EUROPEAN sites,they are confused! Gnome is the most used Desktop Environment.but we feel like it is not!because most of the users who are commenting are basically Europeans!Europeans loves kde for some unknown reason.EU ppl likes OpenSUse!go figure out!dont believe linuxquestions.org polls.it is opened for 1 month or so.all kde ppl from EU voted for it. while an Independent sudden 3 day poll was opened by http://desktoplinux.com/ and the winner is Gnome with a huge gap followed by kde!!! Gnome is a FSF project!even if you believes FOSS wont happen ,I support Gnome and GTK2+ applications. Gnome does not mocks winblow$ registry,instead Gnome uses gconf a centralized xml database which is actually easy and useful!unlike winblow$ registry which is binary and buggy! Gnome For The Win! Kde=worst windows copy! qt=a good library(gui). Q.I really wants to use kde,but I know it is as bloated as Madras Metro Lorry's garbage! Ans:Use Kdemod,which is only available with Archlinux! Kdemod=kde+modular=kde -most of the fucking bloats! make Gnome The Desktop Environment standard!use it,embrace it! to Gnome users: Prevent De Iqaza and Co from bundling mono apps with Gnome!that sucks!

Re:Gnome is nice!

[deepclutch]

Im sorry regarding formatting!
So a formatted reply! :-)
Gnome the favourite for bashing!still Gnome improves with each release(consistent).

    Gnome UI is very easy for even a n00b! Gnome liked by many in their hearts,but tries their best to avoid because after seeing the comments of Gnome basher's in slashdot and other EUROPEAN sites,they are confused! Gnome is the most used Desktop Environment.but we feel like it is not!because most of the users who are commenting are basically Europeans!Europeans loves kde for some unknown reason.EU ppl likes OpenSUse!go figure out!dont believe linuxquestions.org polls.it is opened for 1 month or so.all kde ppl from EU voted for it. while an Independent sudden 3 day poll was opened by http://desktoplinux.com/ [desktoplinux.com] and the winner is Gnome with a huge gap followed by kde!!!

    Gnome is a FSF project!even if you believes FOSS Utopia wont happen ,I support Gnome and GTK2+ applications. Gnome does not mocks winblow$ registry,instead Gnome uses gconf a centralized xml database which is actually easy and useful!unlike winblow$ registry which is binary and buggy! Gnome For The Win! Kde=worst windows copy! qt=a good toolkit(gui)

  Q.I really wants to use kde,but I know it is as bloated as Madras Metro Lorry's garbage!

  Ans:Use Kdemod,which is only available with Archlinux! Kdemod=kde+modular=kde -most of the fucking bloats!

  make Gnome The Desktop Environment standard!use it,embrace it! to Gnome users: Prevent De Iqaza and Co from bundling mono apps with Gnome!that sucks!