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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?"
And make no mistake- they're desktop environments. NOT window managers. Sheesh.
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".
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.
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.
There are a few reasons for the impression that Windows seems to scatter data all over the place:
/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.
;-)
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
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
C - the footgun of programming languages
Trying to see how this is offtopic. KDE and Kubuntu is the topic right?
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:
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."
/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.
/etc. /usr/bin. /usr/lib. /usr/local/*. /usr/share/*. What me to keep going?
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
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."
"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.
"We'll need 2000 crickets, 4 cans of Easy Cheese, and the fluid from 18 glowsticks for this plan to work...." - ph0n1c
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.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)
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..
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.
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.
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)
...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: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.
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.
For those that actually want to know: Use gconf-editor and change the /desktop/gnome/interface/gtk_key_theme key to Emacs.