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Linus Switches From KDE To Gnome
An anonymous reader writes "In a recent Computerworld interview, Linus revealed that he's switched to Gnome — this despite launching a heavily critical broadside against Gnome just a few years ago. His reason? He thinks KDE 4 is a 'disaster.' Although it's improved recently, he'll find many who agree with this prognosis, and KDE 4 can be painful to use." There's quite a bit of interesting stuff in this interview, besides, regarding the current state of Linux development.
Gnome doesn't get in your way. It doesn't shout "PLEASE CONFIGURE ME!" in your face as KDE does.
Actually, it's really just more like KDE4 is turning out to be much more work than everyone expected. In less than a week, they'll be putting out 4.2 which will essentially be the first major bugfix/upgrade of KDE4. Version 4.0 was little more than a developer release, and the transition to 4.1 was aimed to include the minimum functionality necessary to actually allow it to replace 3.5. With 4.2, KDE4 should finally be (nearly) what it was intended to be, and further releases will probably focus on simply adding features.
In short, KDE4 is basically a year late.
I still go on a who cares... If you like KDE 4 and everyone else doesn't who really cares. If you don't like GNOME who really cares.
I can't speak for everyone but what is the point of caring what Linux, RMS, ESR, Bill Gates, President Obama... personal preferences are. The same goes with changing your mind, I switched from DOS/windows 3.1 to Linux back in 1994, Then I switched from Linux to Solaris in 2000, Solaris to Mac OS X in 2002. While I was primarly using Linux and Solaris I jumped around windows managers. FVWM, MWM, CDE, Enlightment, GNome, KDE, back and forth. You know what there are also some really smart people who Like Vista!
Every software sometimes they give you tradeoffs that you don't want. But for some other people they like those tradeoffs. KDE 4 may have moved in a direction that Linus doesn't like as well as a bunch of other people. However There are some people who do like what the tradeoffs were.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
In short, KDE4 is basically a year late.
And it is for that reason that I have such frustration with it...
It used to be, I could in good conscience make jokes about Windows, about how when Microsoft makes a "beta" release, it's what the rest of the world would call an Alpha, the release is really Beta quality, and SP1 is release candidate 1. By SP2, the product might be ready.
I could laugh about how Microsoft, and occasionally other proprietary shops, would follow that model, as opposed to the open source model, where the versioning seems to go, alpha is unstable (so beware), beta is good enough to use, release candidates are pretty solid, and release versions you can bet your business on.
But KDE4 was an alpha release. 4.1 was a beta release. Surrounding projects have done no better -- Amarok currently will not transcode automatically from flac to aac for ipods; it insists on mp3. This is a bug; it used to work. The stable Amarok won't fix the bug, because it's being depricated in favor of the kde4 version of Amarok, which doesn't yet support transcoding. WTF?
Kubuntu has done spectacularly bad as well. My mouse didn't work. Why? Because they included an update to the Bluez stack, to support a change to the kernel, but the KDE4 Bluetooth support hadn't been updated to support that new Bluez stack. Their solution? Drop bluetooth support in Kubuntu Intrepid. WTF?
It has been pretty much my own private Daily WTF as I continue to use KDE4. It's not yet so bad I'm going back to GNOME, but by this time next year, I suspect I'll be using something like Fluxbox again.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Some might disagree but we have desktop metaphors on computers for a reason. When I use my computer I put things on the desktop, move them around, arrange them to my liking and habit. Without a true desktop metaphor I can't do that. KDE4 doesn't give me a true desktop metaphor.
KDE4 is implemented messy. They spent so much time on their start menu that they lost all sight of the desktop. The start menu needs revising even after all their work.
Putting my desktop in a tiny Window is just crazy. I have a large screen monitor for a reason.
Having such a conflict with compiz and the native compositing manager in KDE4 harms acceptance. Nothing like having my desktop slowed down because KDE won't give way to Compiz when it is installed (and I mean give way all the way).
Without a regular desktop metaphor KDE4 will continue to fail.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.