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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?"
I installed Kubuntu as well and went back to Mandriva, Kubuntu has a long way to go.
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.
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/
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
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.
<xml><I><am><so><damn>Web 2.0</damn></so></am></I></xml>
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.
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
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.
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...
Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine.
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.
FLR
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.
First post = troll. Cleverly worded post designed to enrage others = flamebait.
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.
"Be light, stinging, insolent and melancholy"
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.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
Are in this order?
/. going to update the reverse layout of the "older news"
Cancel = Back (Left), OK = Forward (Right)
Slightly off-topic: When the hell is
YesterdayDate | DayBeforeYesterday
It should be:
PrevDate | SelectedDate | NextDate
And there sould be at least button of whitespace between Preview and Submit.
Noob UI designers...
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 . . .
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