- The programming language. C developers prefer GNOME, C++ developers prefer KDE or the GNOME C++ bindings. - User interface design philosophy. GNOME aims for "keep it simple and stupid" and "everything must have good defaults", KDE aims for "power to the user" and "lots of configuration options". This is a *huge* difference, since both projects target a different group of users.
"Also, before slamming Karamba for being "an ugly hack", I'd love for them to explain A.) Why they think this is so and B.) Why their version is going to be so much better."
There is no "they". There is only "he". This is the comment of one individual, not the entire project. Slashdot is just trying to start another flamewar. This whole story could be considered a troll just because it mentions that single comment.
Really, was it really necessary to mention that "karamba is an ugly hack" comment? The project's homepage is very objective and doesn't slam KDE at all. That comment was the opinion of one single person! Why was it mentioned? Are you trying to slam KDE again? Or are you trying to make it look like as if the GNOME guys are slamming KDE, and start yet another flamewar on Slashdot?
I'm sure I will get modded down for this, but hell, it's the truth! Slashdot should not encourage more pointless desktop flamewars or trying to make either GNOME or KDE look bad.
And which part of that post tells you to not use Linux but use Windows instead? Answer: it doesn't. That post tells you to provide more information if you want to get help.
And try to imagine how those other people feel. Imagine you're someone in an IRC channel trying to help Linux users. If each and every person that enters the chatroom says things in the form of "help it's broken plz fix it", for an entire year (or heck, 2 or more years), wouldn't you eventually get tired of it too? These people are providing free support. Can't you understand that they become like that because people annoying them over and over and over?
And you can't argue that that poster won't have a point. If you ask for help, make sure you provide enough information. Nobody can help you without enough information.
"I think that * should not be expanded by the shell, but I know that I'm not likely to win -- mainly because the aforementioned millions of lines of scripts out there expect it that way."
Not to mention duplicate code. Each and every app would have to implement shell wildcard expansion manually.
I think the solution is to make rm prompt for "Delete foo? (Y)es/(N)o/(D)elete All/(A)bort"
You only call that sane behavior because that's the behavior you're used to. Unix commandline apps assume that you know what you're doing, and do *exactly* what you tell them to do. This behavior is very useful in scripts or graphical frontends, because you know exactly what they will do. And this is the correct behavior because these apps are meant to target users who know exactly what they're doing.
The less technical people should use graphical desktop apps. They make sure (more or less) that the user won't make big mistakes, like Windows. Those users wouldn't use commandline apps in the first place. So why modify commandline apps to target them if they won't use the apps anyway? It's not worth losing the scripting flexibility.
Don't use rm, hit the Delete key in Konqueror or Nautilus. Don't use tar, use File Roller or KArchive. They're easier to use *and* won't let you make stupid mistakes.
"My personal pet peeve? why is it that with >75% of apps that I download as source have either configure scripts that simply don't work, or include code that doesn't compile."
Then you must be running some weird or outdated distro. 90% of all source code here compiles and installs out-of-the-box.
"Are you telling me that if you were designing teh OS from the ground up you'd use this structure?"
Yes. It makes sense once I understand it. I'd rather have a layout that's powerful and flexible but not immediately obvious, than a layout that's immediately obvious but lacks flexibility. And I will absolutely not force the end user to care about the underlying layout. All they should know about is how to click on menus and icons.
"The problem isn't going to www.freshrpms.net. The problem is going back 20 times because the installer isn't smart enough to figure out the dependencies and solve them without user intervention."
I mean that you're supposed to go to www.freshrpms.net to download APT for RPM. APT automatically solves dependancies for you. There's no need to go to that website more than once.
Well, so far for the popular "Commercial software are more reliable than open source because companies are forced to listen to their customers, and provide better support" Slashdot myth.
But these are *core* commandline apps. They're supposed to be used for scripting etc. and do exactly what you tell it to do; no magic or autodetection.
"Missing the point. The point is that if it is simple enough for me to explain it to them (at a high level), then it is simple enough in general."
Making it simpler doesn't necessarily making it better. A simple Windows-like layout has problems in networked/multiuser environments; not good for servers or corporate desktops. It makes sense to me to go for a technically better layout instead of a simple layout for the user. After all, the user *shouldn't have to know* about the layout. The menus and icons are all they should care about. This way, end users won't be annoyed because they shouldn't get exposed to the layout, and the system can take full advantage of the more powerful layout.
"Does my SuSE 8.2 installation do that out of the box? Nope. There is no installation system that is universally used. Hopefully this will change, but it will require the distro vendors to cooperate a bit."
To get virtual desktops in Windows you need to find and install PowerToys manually. Somehow that's an acceptable solution, yet going to www.freshrpms.net for the installation problem isn't? I fail to see the logic.
No! I told him to use graphical desktop apps. Nowhere did I even mentioned Windows.
Graphical archiving apps like File Roller and KArchive detect the file format automatically. Those are the apps you should be using, not commandline apps.
"# Inconsistent location of files./usr ,/usr/local ,/bin ,/sbin, and the like are not intuitive and not consistently used either. I shudder at the thought of trying to explain this structure to my wife or mother."
And second, why should you try to explain this to your wife or mother in the first place? All they should know is how to click on icons and menus, and that their files are in/home/username, and that's it. Why do you want to expose them to redundant implementation details?
"# Dependency hell. This can and should be resolved automatically without needing user intervention."
www.freshrpms.net
"Ugly fonts. Particularly bad in Mozilla. This has been getting better, but there still are issues to be resolved."
If you have a recent distribution (like RedHat 9), all your fonts (including in Mozilla) should be antialiased already. To further improve it, download the Bitstream Vera fonts from ftp.gnome.org, and extract the files to ~/.fonts
"Documentation. Usually you can find out how to do something but you had better be technically adept. Previous exposure to unix systems helps a lot. Documentation under linux usually sucks big time."
What kind of documentation? Desktop documentation is quite good and newbie-oriented. Have you ever read the GNOME User Guide? As for system documentation: only technical users would want to read them. I don't think it's a problem for technical users to learn a bit more about the system.
"Awkward and inconsistant user interfaces. Virtually all linux applications are guilty of this at some level. Everything from abiword to KDE/GNOME to the GIMP to xv has it's weird interface issues. (I love GIMP but it's interface is bizarre) This has been steadily improving but there is a long way to go still."
Most desktop apps are either GTK+ or QT (Mozilla and OpenOffice being two major exceptions; but Mozilla 1.4's Classic theme mimics the GTK+ theme). Only very few people use old apps like xv (why would you want to use xv anyway? how would users be exposed to them in the first place?).
As for Gimp: try Gimp 1.3. It's great. The new UI is much more flexible and sane, and makes the whole app much more productive. There's even an option to enable a "normal" (on-the-top) menu bar!
Please! Even when most hardware manufactures support Windows, driver installation in Windows is still far from easy enough and has plenty of problem. I bought a new printer and spent 3 hours trying to get it work (yes I followed the install instructions but I get a weird error message). And the funny thing is, I got it working in Linux faster than I got it working in Windows. Same goes for my scanner. The vendor's website says the driver will work on Windows XP. But after I installed the driver, the "Select scanner device" dialog keeps freezing.
Nope, hardware installation in Windows still has plenty of problems, dispite having "official" support.
I've heard plenty of stories from people who are annoyed as hell by Mac's menubar.
And as for the dwarf/dock: I want as much space as possible for my apps, not a task list. Sure the dwarf is easier to click on because it's larger, but it also takes away space from the actual applications.
The two things you mentioned, I don't call them significantly different or better.
Slashdot Mirror
- The programming language. C developers prefer GNOME, C++ developers prefer KDE or the GNOME C++ bindings.
- User interface design philosophy. GNOME aims for "keep it simple and stupid" and "everything must have good defaults", KDE aims for "power to the user" and "lots of configuration options".
This is a *huge* difference, since both projects target a different group of users.
Your post clearly shows that you're ignorant.
As opposed to how the Windows community wastes resources by re-inventing the wheel again and again and again?
Or how hardware manufactures waste resources by re-inventing harddrives again and again or again?
Or how you waste resources by writing redundant posts instead of helping GNOME and KDE unite their source code?
People like you just don't get it.
"Also, before slamming Karamba for being "an ugly hack", I'd love for them to explain A.) Why they think this is so and B.) Why their version is going to be so much better."
There is no "they". There is only "he". This is the comment of one individual, not the entire project.
Slashdot is just trying to start another flamewar. This whole story could be considered a troll just because it mentions that single comment.
Really, was it really necessary to mention that "karamba is an ugly hack" comment? The project's homepage is very objective and doesn't slam KDE at all. That comment was the opinion of one single person!
Why was it mentioned? Are you trying to slam KDE again? Or are you trying to make it look like as if the GNOME guys are slamming KDE, and start yet another flamewar on Slashdot?
I'm sure I will get modded down for this, but hell, it's the truth! Slashdot should not encourage more pointless desktop flamewars or trying to make either GNOME or KDE look bad.
> Gnome dosent let you change the colour scheme of the widgets.
; s e();
gtk_widget_modify_bg();
gtk_widget_modify_fg()
gtk_widget_modify_text();
gtk_widget_modify_ba
'nuff said.
And which part of that post tells you to not use Linux but use Windows instead?
Answer: it doesn't. That post tells you to provide more information if you want to get help.
And try to imagine how those other people feel. Imagine you're someone in an IRC channel trying to help Linux users. If each and every person that enters the chatroom says things in the form of "help it's broken plz fix it", for an entire year (or heck, 2 or more years), wouldn't you eventually get tired of it too? These people are providing free support. Can't you understand that they become like that because people annoying them over and over and over?
And you can't argue that that poster won't have a point. If you ask for help, make sure you provide enough information. Nobody can help you without enough information.
"I think that * should not be expanded by the shell, but I know that I'm not likely to win -- mainly because the aforementioned millions of lines of scripts out there expect it that way."
Not to mention duplicate code. Each and every app would have to implement shell wildcard expansion manually.
I think the solution is to make rm prompt for "Delete foo? (Y)es/(N)o/(D)elete All/(A)bort"
"His mistake, but... couldn't rm have said 'you sure you want to wipe out everything on every filesystem currently mounted?"
Well, this is not possible since the * is expanded by the shell, not rm.
And on RedHat, for root, 'rm' is an alias for 'rm -i'.
You only call that sane behavior because that's the behavior you're used to.
Unix commandline apps assume that you know what you're doing, and do *exactly* what you tell them to do. This behavior is very useful in scripts or graphical frontends, because you know exactly what they will do. And this is the correct behavior because these apps are meant to target users who know exactly what they're doing.
The less technical people should use graphical desktop apps. They make sure (more or less) that the user won't make big mistakes, like Windows. Those users wouldn't use commandline apps in the first place. So why modify commandline apps to target them if they won't use the apps anyway? It's not worth losing the scripting flexibility.
Don't use rm, hit the Delete key in Konqueror or Nautilus. Don't use tar, use File Roller or KArchive. They're easier to use *and* won't let you make stupid mistakes.
"My personal pet peeve? why is it that with >75% of apps that I download as source have either configure scripts that simply don't work, or include code that doesn't compile."
Then you must be running some weird or outdated distro. 90% of all source code here compiles and installs out-of-the-box.
"Are you telling me that if you were designing teh OS from the ground up you'd use this structure?"
Yes. It makes sense once I understand it. I'd rather have a layout that's powerful and flexible but not immediately obvious, than a layout that's immediately obvious but lacks flexibility.
And I will absolutely not force the end user to care about the underlying layout. All they should know about is how to click on menus and icons.
"The problem isn't going to www.freshrpms.net. The problem is going back 20 times because the installer isn't smart enough to figure out the dependencies and solve them without user intervention."
I mean that you're supposed to go to www.freshrpms.net to download APT for RPM. APT automatically solves dependancies for you. There's no need to go to that website more than once.
Well, so far for the popular "Commercial software are more reliable than open source because companies are forced to listen to their customers, and provide better support" Slashdot myth.
But these are *core* commandline apps. They're supposed to be used for scripting etc. and do exactly what you tell it to do; no magic or autodetection.
"Missing the point. The point is that if it is simple enough for me to explain it to them (at a high level), then it is simple enough in general."
Making it simpler doesn't necessarily making it better. A simple Windows-like layout has problems in networked/multiuser environments; not good for servers or corporate desktops.
It makes sense to me to go for a technically better layout instead of a simple layout for the user. After all, the user *shouldn't have to know* about the layout. The menus and icons are all they should care about. This way, end users won't be annoyed because they shouldn't get exposed to the layout, and the system can take full advantage of the more powerful layout.
"Does my SuSE 8.2 installation do that out of the box? Nope. There is no installation system that is universally used. Hopefully this will change, but it will require the distro vendors to cooperate a bit."
To get virtual desktops in Windows you need to find and install PowerToys manually. Somehow that's an acceptable solution, yet going to www.freshrpms.net for the installation problem isn't? I fail to see the logic.
"RTFM. If you don't like it go use windows."
No! I told him to use graphical desktop apps. Nowhere did I even mentioned Windows.
Graphical archiving apps like File Roller and KArchive detect the file format automatically. Those are the apps you should be using, not commandline apps.
Ten thousand? Do you have any data to backup your claim?
"# Inconsistent location of files. /usr , /usr/local , /bin , /sbin, and the like are not intuitive and not consistently used either. I shudder at the thought of trying to explain this structure to my wife or mother."
I EW&t_id=126
/home/username, and that's it. Why do you want to expose them to redundant implementation details?
First, the filesystem is described here: http://www.linuxnovice.org/main_focus.php3?VIEW=V
And second, why should you try to explain this to your wife or mother in the first place? All they should know is how to click on icons and menus, and that their files are in
"# Dependency hell. This can and should be resolved automatically without needing user intervention."
www.freshrpms.net
"Ugly fonts. Particularly bad in Mozilla. This has been getting better, but there still are issues to be resolved."
If you have a recent distribution (like RedHat 9), all your fonts (including in Mozilla) should be antialiased already. To further improve it, download the Bitstream Vera fonts from ftp.gnome.org, and extract the files to ~/.fonts
"Documentation. Usually you can find out how to do something but you had better be technically adept. Previous exposure to unix systems helps a lot. Documentation under linux usually sucks big time."
What kind of documentation? Desktop documentation is quite good and newbie-oriented. Have you ever read the GNOME User Guide?
As for system documentation: only technical users would want to read them. I don't think it's a problem for technical users to learn a bit more about the system.
"Awkward and inconsistant user interfaces. Virtually all linux applications are guilty of this at some level. Everything from abiword to KDE/GNOME to the GIMP to xv has it's weird interface issues. (I love GIMP but it's interface is bizarre) This has been steadily improving but there is a long way to go still."
Most desktop apps are either GTK+ or QT (Mozilla and OpenOffice being two major exceptions; but Mozilla 1.4's Classic theme mimics the GTK+ theme). Only very few people use old apps like xv (why would you want to use xv anyway? how would users be exposed to them in the first place?).
As for Gimp: try Gimp 1.3. It's great. The new UI is much more flexible and sane, and makes the whole app much more productive. There's even an option to enable a "normal" (on-the-top) menu bar!
Can you find one post that says that and is actually modded up?
Because they're traditional commandline apps. They're not supposed to do too many things automatically. Doing so can break scripting behavior.
If you want easy and automatic, you shouldn't be using commandline apps in the first place. Go use GUI desktop apps.
Not on my computer. So far I've had a little less hardware problems on Linux than on Windows.
Or you can pay someone to fix it for you.
Please! Even when most hardware manufactures support Windows, driver installation in Windows is still far from easy enough and has plenty of problem.
I bought a new printer and spent 3 hours trying to get it work (yes I followed the install instructions but I get a weird error message). And the funny thing is, I got it working in Linux faster than I got it working in Windows.
Same goes for my scanner. The vendor's website says the driver will work on Windows XP. But after I installed the driver, the "Select scanner device" dialog keeps freezing.
Nope, hardware installation in Windows still has plenty of problems, dispite having "official" support.
What you need is Apt for RPM.
Then how do you explain the HUGE number of freeware tools for Windows?
I've heard plenty of stories from people who are annoyed as hell by Mac's menubar.
And as for the dwarf/dock: I want as much space as possible for my apps, not a task list. Sure the dwarf is easier to click on because it's larger, but it also takes away space from the actual applications.
The two things you mentioned, I don't call them significantly different or better.