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What the GNOME Desktop Gets Right and KDE Gets Wrong

Posted by Soulskill on from the gno-place-like-gnome dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Eric Griffith at Phoronix has provided a fresh perspective on the KDE vs. GNOME desktop debate after exclusively using GNOME for the past week while being a longtime KDE user. He concluded his five-page editorial (which raises some valid points throughout) by saying, "Gnome feels like a product. It feels like a singular experience. When you use it, it feels like it is complete and that everything you need is at your fingertips. It feels like the Linux desktop. ... In KDE, it's just some random-looking window popup that any application could have created. ... KDE doesn't feel like cohesive experience. KDE doesn't feel like it has a direction its moving in, it doesn't feel like a full experience. KDE feels like its a bunch of pieces that are moving in a bunch of different directions, that just happen to have a shared toolkit beneath them." However, with the week over and despite his criticism, he's back to using KDE.

3 of 267 comments (clear)

  1. Re: Yes I'm old.. by morgauxo · · Score: 4, Informative

    Forget file browsing. Try finding a decent cdburner GUI frontend that doesn't pull in a bucketload of either KDE or GNOME dependencies!

    I was a long-time KDE user and about a year ago decidedent to experiment with banning both Gnome and KDE from being installed and relying on lightweight window managers. It was only mean to be an experiment, I didn't really expect to go more than a week. Today I am using StumpWM combined with the pager (and only the pager) from Lxde. The only thing I really miss is K3b. Seriously, why does a program that is just a front end to cdrecord, which is more than capable of finding my burner rely on some integral part of KDE. If I install it without KDE it tells me I have no burners! Gnomes equivalent program did the same thing.

    I guess I shouldn't complain too loud though. Maybe someday I will take the initiative and write my own burner front-end and not require a bloated desktop to run it. You can write the file manager!

  2. Re:The author is easily distracted by xtronics · · Score: 4, Informative

    Totally agree - then I read the whole thing - never mentioned Dophin vs Nautilus. I mean - the most important part of a desktop was never considered?

    BTW Dolphin rocks.

  3. Re:Yes I'm old.. by dumfrac · · Score: 4, Informative

    I applied the same lazy philosophy with NetworkManager. I simply just started using it. Actually, it improved my life on my laptop.