xyzcomputing.com— GNOME is still the best desktop environment for Linux. Here are three reasons why GNOME is the logical choice for the majority of home Linux users.
Oct 16, 2006View in Crawl 4
Who gives a s**t what Torvalds thinks? His temper tantrum about Gnome developers has had no effect on Gnome usage. 3 or 4 years ago there were twice as many KDE users as there were Gnome, now it's about even. In a few years there will be twice as many Gnome users than KDE.
Personally, I prefer KDE because I have found it is more powerful than GNOME, though sometimes less user friendly. Konqueror is the perfect example of these two pros and cons. It is extremely powerful: a host of protocols via KIO, dozens of integrated parts via KParts, screen splitting, tabs, 9 different views, configuration options, file previewing, file searching, opening a terminal at the current directory with one hotkey, view filters, web browsing, and a host of addons. However, these features come at a cost. The interface tends to be cluttered and the combination of a web browser and file manager can be unwieldy. Some operations are difficult to find or are moved around as developers try to increase user friendliness. The configuration interface is confusing with options often placed into unintuitive places. However, I need the power of KDE and am able to deal with its complexity. I admire GNOME for its dedication to user friendliness, but I'm sticking with KDE. Hopeful the user friendliness problem will be solved as well as KDE evolves.
I think reason #1 is bogus. Yes Ubuntu and Red Hat use Gnome, but KDE is king on just about every other distro. Ubuntu is the only distro, to my knowledge, that is free and where you can see Gnome highly polished out of the box.# 2 can be fixed in one KDE release. Just start ripping out some of those excess menus.# 3 is a good point. I've used both KDE and Gnome ( because of Ubuntu ). I've used very little of the desktop specific apps. I typically use just the DVD player, the CD player, the terminal client, and the config tools. I have my own editor ( Visual Slick Edit ), I use firefox, until Ubuntu, Thunderbird, and I use Open Office ( I would love to stop, but they have the best MS Office compatibility ).
So far with Unbuntu/Gnome I've had all of the config tools I can use save for one: custom keybindings. If I want one that isn't already included I have to use some bizarre text/profile editing tool and it doesn't work all that great.
shadowmanOct 17, 2006
Who gives a s**t what Torvalds thinks? His temper tantrum about Gnome developers has had no effect on Gnome usage. 3 or 4 years ago there were twice as many KDE users as there were Gnome, now it's about even. In a few years there will be twice as many Gnome users than KDE.
pingvenoOct 17, 2006
Personally, I prefer KDE because I have found it is more powerful than GNOME, though sometimes less user friendly. Konqueror is the perfect example of these two pros and cons. It is extremely powerful: a host of protocols via KIO, dozens of integrated parts via KParts, screen splitting, tabs, 9 different views, configuration options, file previewing, file searching, opening a terminal at the current directory with one hotkey, view filters, web browsing, and a host of addons. However, these features come at a cost. The interface tends to be cluttered and the combination of a web browser and file manager can be unwieldy. Some operations are difficult to find or are moved around as developers try to increase user friendliness. The configuration interface is confusing with options often placed into unintuitive places. However, I need the power of KDE and am able to deal with its complexity. I admire GNOME for its dedication to user friendliness, but I'm sticking with KDE. Hopeful the user friendliness problem will be solved as well as KDE evolves.
Closed AccountOct 17, 2006
Why not install both libraries and use synaptic under KDE like the rest of the world does on a daily basis?
sashmitOct 17, 2006
Both are good?
Closed AccountOct 18, 2006
I think reason #1 is bogus. Yes Ubuntu and Red Hat use Gnome, but KDE is king on just about every other distro. Ubuntu is the only distro, to my knowledge, that is free and where you can see Gnome highly polished out of the box.# 2 can be fixed in one KDE release. Just start ripping out some of those excess menus.# 3 is a good point. I've used both KDE and Gnome ( because of Ubuntu ). I've used very little of the desktop specific apps. I typically use just the DVD player, the CD player, the terminal client, and the config tools. I have my own editor ( Visual Slick Edit ), I use firefox, until Ubuntu, Thunderbird, and I use Open Office ( I would love to stop, but they have the best MS Office compatibility ).
Closed AccountOct 18, 2006
So far with Unbuntu/Gnome I've had all of the config tools I can use save for one: custom keybindings. If I want one that isn't already included I have to use some bizarre text/profile editing tool and it doesn't work all that great.
Closed AccountOct 18, 2006
Many of us power users became power users by using our time to do things other than the futzing required by Gnome until Ubuntu polished it.