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57 Comments
- thelastknowngod, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12i dont think gnome is anywhere near as complicated as kde. maybe not in a compiling from source way but in a usability way. gnome is just simpler to use.
the only thing that i would like to see in a future release of gnome is that they get rid of metacity. when i replaced metacity with fluxbox the speed of the system went way up. it adds a lot of other features too. swap this and, if thats not worthy of a 3.0 release, it may be worthy of at least a ver 2.2 or 2.3 or whatever. - macewan, on 10/12/2007, -3/+13You didn't get to breast feed did you?
- NewChar, on 10/12/2007, -3/+11How many people actually build their DE from source? A few thousand Gentoo users, I guess. In terms of user interface and resource usage KDE is more complicated and bloated than GNOME, which is all that matters for most users.
- strabes, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8It is blatantly and unquestionably incorrect to say that linux growth is stagnant. I'm not even going to argue with this person who seems to like Microsoft so much.
A Microsoft world is a sad world indeed. - darkchild, on 10/12/2007, -4/+12You are talking about using a package manager here. The Gentoo devs will already have done the hard work of making sure that GNOME builds and installs properly. From personal experience, its a lot easier to build KDE from source than GNOME. Slackware dropped GNOME and one of the reasons was that it was a pain to build packages from the source.
- shakin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8I use KDE, but as someone with a job to get done I can completely understand why Gnome is attractive. It's the same reason why I rarely compile software anymore. I've outgrown the need to complete control because I just want to get things done.
If Gnome's simplicity works for someone then it's a great desktop environment. There are lots of great features and lots of great Gnome programs. Compiz and Beryl both work best with Gnome.
KDE has some advanced features that Gnome doesn't have (eg. Kioslaves), but if you don't need those features then it comes down to whatever feels better you you. - livestradamus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8I like Gnome far more than KDE, for personal preferences. Regardless of how bloated it is, it is still rather brilliant and easy to work within.
But.. I've heard it before & now I repeat it:
Xfce is what Gnome should have been. And today I use Xfce above Gnome & KDE even on my recently bought desktop. - Ademan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7aRTs is a cancer, it's being brought out behind the shed and shot for the next version of KDE...
- baalzebub, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7schestowitz, KDE is modular, the only required packages are QT, aRts, kdelibs, kdebase, and kdeartwork, the rest of the kde packages are optional...
build in this order:
QT first
aRts second
kdelibs third
kdebase fourth
kdeartwork last
there was some Turkish developers making sort of a fork of KDE named Simple_KDE but i have not seen any new development lately, they made one release and after that it seemed to have stagnated...
http://www.simplekde.org/ - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Blocked.
- shakin, on 10/12/2007, -5/+10"In terms of user interface and resource usage KDE is more complicated and bloated than GNOME"
KDE is lighter on resources than Gnome.
Gnome has a cleaner interface, but some of that is due to removing options for things. Dialogs are sparse (my God the file selection dialog is *awful*) and some functionality is non-existent or hidden. KDE's interface is more complex, but it's also a lot easier to get at more advanced options. System Settings is a far superior and more advanced system config app than anything Gnome has. Gnome actually shipped a release (2.10 or 2.12?) that didn't have any way to modify the main menu!
I like Gnome and it has many great features, but I they removed or hid so many features that I got turned off it and am now using KDE.
Gnome still has a better main panel (Gnome's three menus is much better than KDE's monolithic menu) and Nautilus's find-as-you-type is great. Metacity is way behind many other window managers, although KWin isn't exactly advanced. KParts and Kioslaves put KDE way ahead. - dragazis, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5sigh. yet another gnome vs kde war. stop acting like little kids and grow up. if you like gnome or kde you there is not need to make a comment against the other. Remember Linux is about choice and freedom. The fact that you can switch between either is great, yet people still fight over which is better is ridiculous.
- gavintlgold, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7Uhh... Beryl, anyone? Ubuntu? Nexuiz?
- lazyron, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Wow. It truly is amazing that this post started the wars going. Gnome vs. KDE, Microsoft vs. GNU/Linux. Mobile computing vs. desktops.
vi or emacs anyone? - lqqkout4elfy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I don't get these comments. If it were a Microsoft world, we wouldn't be dealing with different browsers, different OSes, the web as an application platform, etc... but I would advice you to wake up and actually notice that it ISN'T a Microsoft world. It is a world of whatever works. M$ worked in the 80's, barely in the 90's and now it's on the last limp (cough, Vista).
(Typing this on a nice new iMac, wishing you a happy new year) - GMorgan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3The Cult of Vi will triumph in the end. The malformed heretics of Emacs will never prevail while their hands are so crippled by RSIs.
TBH Vi vs Emacs is not really an argument. At least people are arguing different things. The default Emacs editor is not as good as Vi. As an out and out text editor Vi is best but you can run a Vi clone within Emacs. Emacs strength is as a LISP platform, it is similar to Konqueror in its ability to deploy different types of application.
So default Emacs editor < Vi but Emacs has its value in a certain context for a certain user. Personally I prefer to let the shell handle other tasks and just want a text editor. - GMorgan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Really all the arguments over bloatedness and configurability are non-starters. You can get minimal GNOME and KDE environments, if it's that much of an issue then there is a niche for a distro with a light KDE or GNOME environment and people should work towards that. GNOME can be fully configurable, you just have to use gconf-editor and/or VIM, KDE you use a series of dialogs and/or VIM.
KDE is better because QT is better than GTK* and KDE has technologies like KParts and Kioslaves that are just a cut above what you get in GNOME. The only thing that annoys me is the lack of a QT compiled VIM, something that surely can't persist long after KDE 4 comes out.
*QT3 is better than GTK2, QT4 is better again.
//edit - one thing that might sell me on GNOME is if they started using Fluxbox as a default WM.// - HerbertScrunge, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@fluoro
"Look at these screenshots and tell me this is not the stupidest ***** application you've ever seen."
I've done more than look at the screenshots: I've been using it for several months and it has become utterly indispensable. Just because it's not to your taste doesn't mean that it's "the stupidest ***** application you've ever seen". And with an 87% approval rating, I'd say your opinion is very much in the minority. - oobuntu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3just because KDE is feature rich, doesn't make it bloated. gnome and kde are similar in terms of resource use while using swiftfox/firefox, thunderbird, etc, but when you use the very capable K programs, it uses much less resources than similar programs in gnome.
i've used both gnome and kde interchangeably for a few years, currently i'm on KDE for the last 9 months or so. works very slickly using beryl on a powerful machine. i've used fluxbox on lower powered machines, but no need for such lightweight desktop on a decent P4 machine with >512mb RAM
the last time i switched from gnome was because of stability issues - lots of crashes with fedora and ubuntu. i'll probably try again in a year so see how progress is going, but KDE is a very nice DE to tweak the window/themes. i have baghira installed too (not running with beryl) and that's a very nice look. - jellygraph, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6lol, someone that still believes that KDE is more resource-using than Gnome... They are pretty much equal, FYI, and by some measurements, KDE takes a slight (but nearly negligible) lead
- GMorgan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3KDE targets more than Linux. They see their next release as being a good DE replacement on top of XP as an alternative to Vista as well as their traditional Linux stomping ground. They are targeting being totally platform agnostic a la Java. All this means that they cannot use Linux specific code and have to abstract. The only difference is KDE will run as machine code so won't have the 4 second extra JIT startup time so won't be 'slow'.
Personally I'd install KDE 4 over XP if I got the chance. I think its a worthy effort and may make XP better than Vista. - lovedaddy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Whilst I agree with aRTs being disgusting, and defo want ripping out for KDE 4 - does no one else agree that in the quest for unique "kde only" desktop perfection the devs often solve problems "too high" (eg in KDE rather than working with a lower solution).
Arts is a prime example, it should just have never happened.
Another example would be DCop - totally amazing bit of tech and one of my main loves about KDE (being able to knock up a script that sets my away status etc in a matter of mins is simply outstanding)... but why wasn't it developed for CLI and then used from KDE? (ie a bit like DBus is now).
Another area of dev that concerns me for KDE going forward is the whole automounting stuff they are doing now. Yeah, it works really well in KDE 3.5.X, but why is it done in KDE in the first place? Wouldn't the effort have been better spent improving something like IVMan and setting a common way to interface to IVMan? At the moment, if I start KDE, automount something, then close KDE and return to the CLI, it really annoys that the mount isn't still there. So its either remount, or disable the automount stuff in KDE libs and have a hacked IVMan solution. - mrfunke, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I disagree with criticizing these guys for taking a stand on Gnome vs KDE. I still consider myself a linux newbie and after six months I still switch back and forth between Gnome and KDE. Messing around with each desktop doesn't necessarily force you to decide. I value the input of others regarding features that aren't easily recognizable. Oh, I know there's tons of threads about Gnome vs KDE, but honestly most of them are garbage because they're outdated or offer little relevant information. While some opinions seemed unsupported, quite a few made perfectly valid points here that I have yet to come across.
This may not be a Gnome vs KDE thread and probably isn't the best place for this, but the future of Gnome, to me, encompasses all linux desktops. - LightsOut06, on 10/12/2007, -6/+8I dont understand why anyone likes the simplicity (read lack of options) Gnome provides unless you are a newb or something. But us linux guys typically tend to be nerds so I dont understand why you wouldnt want the control over your desktop that KDE offers. I dont understand the whole simple is better so lets take out control mindset of Gnome.
- fluoro, on 10/12/2007, -5/+7Okay, this is why I prefer GNOME's simplicity over KDE's featuritis:
http://basket.kde.org/screenshots.php
Look at these screenshots and tell me this is not the stupidest ***** application you've ever seen. This is how I feel about KDE in general. It's powerful, but there's too much ***** in the way of the power. I think GNOME is very powerful also, but it allows me to get ***** done by not wasting my time with stupid cruft.
KDE has a lot of great stuff, and it has some stuff that GNOME may not have yet. I acknowledge that, but personally I prefer the general user interface approach by GNOME. Simplicity + power == efficiency. Simplicity by itself, or power by itself end up being much less efficient. - mfearby, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3@fluoro: I agree that KDE is a fat bitch compared with GNOME, but since GNOME doesn't even provide options that control-freaks would want to configure (such as myself), then I file GNOME away in the "child's toy" category.
- Xilon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I've gone a bit futher and dumped XFCE and just use Openbox, I don't really see the need for a full blown DE since the only thing a DE provides (or should provide) is a way to manage the system... a frontend to /etc basically. I can install Firefox, VLC, Azureus, and all other apps myself.
Having said that I do use Thunar and I love it :) XFCE is great. - Xilon, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2XMPP? You mean Jabber?
- Xilon, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I think minimal window managers/DEs are the future, especially XFCE and Enlightment. They probably aren't what most people are looking for, especially since WMs like xfwm, *box, etc have the right click menu and operate totally differently to say Gnome or KDE, but they are extremely fast and efficient at what they do. Gnome has become too bloated, and all the apps that use its libraries are very slow.
- fluoro, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1That link was pretty old. Here is something a little bit newer:
http://spooky-possum.org/cgi-bin/pyblosxom.cgi/kdevsgnome.html - jellygraph, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3I love Linux... :) I'm so glad I got off my ass and switched (and brought along 4 other people) about a year ago
- mfratt, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4Fluxbox, FTW
- mfearby, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@fluoro: I do more than the average-user's amount of file-management tasks and I find Nautilus' "chunkyness," for want of a better word, to be downright annoying. By chunky I mean over-sized toolbar buttons (it's nice having small icons and selective text in Windows Explorer) and a chunky details view that I can't reduce more to a "classic" Windows details view. I also like being able to draw selection rectangles around groups of files without having to select the first file in a series, hold down the shift key, then click on the last file.
I'm more productive at file management if I am not *required* to use the keyboard in conjunction with the mouse (though keyboard functionality is preferred in some circumstances). Whilst I can get Konqueror down to this state, wading through its zoo of options and managing view profiles (and trying to determine the difference between the several view profiles on offer) is very cumbersome. I like GNOME's general apparent cleanliness but dislike KDE's apparent clutter/bloat. If there were some happy medium, that would be nice (I've seen mention of xfce, so maybe that's worth a look at, but, judging from the screenshots, it doesn't look like xfce knows what a decent details-view is all about, either). - fluoro, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2@HerbertScrunge:
Heh, okay dude. If you like the app, then cool and more power to you. I think Basket looks like it was a great idea that went horribly, horribly wrong. I mean.. sorry, but there are little links all over the app that say "What does it mean?", "When does this apply?", "How is it useful?" - if you can't come up with a good UI and have to put little links like that all over the app to explain stuff, you should just take a step back for a second.. breath.. and try to come up with something reasonable. - addicted68098, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I like GNOME, but I think there is alot of room for improvent, and alot more room for more advanced users.
I would like to see application data integrated (CPU usage memory etc.) - fluoro, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@mfearby:
I guess I understand. But out of curiosity, what sort of stuff is GNOME missing that you want so badly? I'd be interested to know what types of features or options people consider it to be missing. I'm open to good suggestions, but I'm opposed to unnecessary featuritis in Gnome.
I can think of a few things that it's missing, but they're mostly related to developer tools. Like, I happen to think KDevelop is a pretty decent IDE and I wish GNOME had something that made developing GTK/Gnome apps much simpler. In fact, overall I would say that writing apps on Gnome is more difficult than KDE; people know C++, and KDE's usage of C++ is not very unusual.. and people know C, but Gnome's basis on this weird OO-in-C paradigm gives it a slightly steep learning curve for new developers.
But for regular day-to-day stuff I feel like GNOME is nicer to use. But I basically use an email client, a web browser, tomboy notes, IM client, IRC client, music player, image editor, a little bit of brief file management in Nautilus, and extremely rare editing of admin preferences. Among those things, there aren't really many things that I would like Gnome to do differently. Probably the worst app (UI-wise) among the things I use is GIMP, because I ***** hate all the floating windows. Other than these things, I do a lot of stuff in terminals and edit code in vim, so that's not very desktop-oriented. - madcap, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I don't agree. But it is a funny comment.
What i think it is that who Gnome is made for. You can tell by the look and feel, the use of the Tango Icon theme used to help users use all applications easier (eg. a button to cut a selection or undo looks the same in all applications), that shows you how it's designed for somebody like your mother, or people not so familiar and who WOULD be confused by massive amounts of configuration options.
I'd never give a new computer user a KDE machine as a first desktop, because it's not who it's mean for. That's the one thing that sets Gnome apart from all the other windows managers out there (I don't think everything else is designed for any particular type of user). - HerbertScrunge, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Got any evidence to back that up? Here's my Exhibit A in KDE's defence:
http://ktown.kde.org/~seli/memory/
I have absolutely no idea why so many people have a problem accepting this: after all, KDE is focussed on *massive* code re-use by spinning features into shared libraries, where a) only one block of code for the given functionality is loaded into memory and b) due to its being located in one place, the code implementing the functionality can be well optimised. The underlying toolkit has many talented people working on it full-time and was intended for embedded use (where low footprint is essential) from very early on. Plus, a large proportion of the developers are German, so that's an instant boost to efficiency ;) - rodrigo74, on 10/12/2007, -4/+4Next step, Mac OS X!
- drizek, on 10/12/2007, -4/+4lol, im compiling qt3 from source right now on gentoo, and qt4 is next in line. The reason why this is important is because it makes it easier on developers, packagers(slackware has no official gnome support) and testers. This makes it easier to develop KDE and easier to tests, which leaves you with a better product.
- thecheatah, on 10/12/2007, -4/+4I installed ubuntu, I installed kde on it. the kde makes me feel more organized, and a little less retarded.
- xv1ncentx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0That's what i'm talking about... Having a good GUI it's like walking in a road free of obstacles.
I'm pretty new at linux, so... Can someone tell me why there isn't a project to change the Linux GUI? - cynicist, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1"KDE is lighter on resources than Gnome."
I don't really want to get into the KDE vs Gnome debate (I like both), but thats not true. - dbr_onix, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1http://images.customize.org/category/ss/AuthenticGNOME1-0_big.jpg Oldish screenshot of Gnome
http://debblue.debian.net/images/gnome-debblue/desktop-gnome-debblue.png Fairly recent one
http://www.kropfberger.com/data/kheise-screenshot01.gif Very early screenshot of KDE
http://www1.autistici.org/loa/terminal/themes/LOAtheme.jpg Fairly recent (3.3)
Nothing visually in Gnome has changed - Why not, when there is *so much* they could be doing with. While I'm not the biggest OS X fan ever, there is one thing most people agree on - OS X has a nice GUI, everything just works. You drag a .app file somewhere, and run it - The program starts. You drag a photo to an image-editor, or a photo-management program, it opens or imports the image. You double-click and drag text, it copies/pastes it. The dock just works like it should. You shove a CD in, it lets you open a Finder window, drag files and click burn, and it does so. In Windows, silly things like being able to make new folders, drag about start-menu items, simply delete or make new shortcuts, the system tray, double clicking the clock which brings up a little calander, and a simple program to change the time/date, the control panel - all make a *huge* difference, if done correctly.
There is *nothing* that OS X can do that something like Gnome, or KDE couldn't do (Well, there are some, but in regards to the UI there's no reason they couldn't do something inovitive). But, instead, it seems their both stuck with what the version before was like.
Sure, there's the odd graphical change, shinier buttons/toolbars, but compare the over-all look to OS X or Windows, it just seems far less.. polished. Surely in all the thousands/millions of Linux users, there's a few good graphic-designers that could help make it look "good", and a few people who could design a Desktop Enviroment that does the basics (File management, detecting things like new harddrives, burning files, installing, starting and uninstalling applications and such).
The GIMP, is a good example of this unwilling-to-change-the-UI - I'm not exactly sure why the UI is still so bad, but a graphics design program should be the shiniest, prettiest application on Linux - Seeing as how the target audience will inevetibly contain lots of graphic designers, who are *should* be good at UI design.. Really, if GIMP had a really nice GUI, a *lot* of people would use it in place of Photoshop. And by nice, I don't mean super-shiney buttons, I mean things like Photoshop's "Scrubby-sliders", where you can quickly change values by clicking on a box, and dragging. Hitting Tab and hiding the UI, pressing f to go to a fullscreen with menu, then fullscreen with only pallette modes, etcetc.
Anyway, this comment has rambled on enough...
- Ben - Zaire, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1gnome sux
- shakeyshakey, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Next step: Moving in to oblivion along with Linux.
- Phocion55, on 10/12/2007, -7/+6Complicated?
Hell, I just typed "emerge -DuN gnome" before I went to bed, woke up in the morning, and it was done.
Hardest thing is setting your USE flags without forgetting something. - schestowitz, on 10/12/2007, -4/+3What about KDE-lite ( micro-KDE ) as an in-between tradeoff?
- fluoro, on 10/12/2007, -7/+6"Gnome as become too complicated and bloated, (i have not liked Gnome since 1.4) try building Gnome yourself from source, it is HUGE and complicated, i would rather build KDE from source..."
Sorry, but the goal of these desktop environments is not "make it easy for some dumbass to compile". And if it's so complicated, then maybe you shouldn't be trying to building it.
And I hate when people use the word "bloated", because nobody who uses it seems to really know what it means.. and nobody who reads what that person wrote really knows what they mean since it's used in such different ways. I'm guessing you mean "it's too modular, there are too many packages", which makes it a pain to rebuild the entire thing from scratch.. but only idiots sit around building it from scratch for no reason anyway. - Marthinus, on 10/12/2007, -4/+3@baalzebub
Slow day in Hell is it? So instead of using apt to get the latest Gnome and enjoy some sunlight at the beach, you want to sit at home compiling Gnome from source. Well I guess that is what demons do, but us mere mortals enjoy the easy life. -
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