Submitted by The first preview release of (K)Ubuntu 6.04 Dapper Drake has been released. You can download Ubuntu here, and Kubuntu here. Screenshots can be found here and here.
(K)Ubuntu Linux 6.04 Flight 1 Released
220 Comments
2005-11-20 4:29 pm
dylansmrjones
I prefer Gnome, but KDE does not have a licensing issue, nor does QT.
Can you read? If yes, please put together these letters: –> G P L
Now… no more FUD about licensing issues, got it! :@
2005-11-19 8:09 pm
thebluesgnr
It doesn’t matter which is more popular, people. We’re taking about two Free environments here, with clearly different goals and directions.
Perhaps Microsoft tought you that a desktop must rule 95% of the world and all others must die, but I see no problem in having GNOME with a 30% market share, KDE with 30%, GNUstep with 10% or whatever. GNU/Linux with 50% and *BSD with 20% As long as we’re living in a world with free software and open standards, we can use whatever fits best (and for the people who don’t want to choose, no problem, they don’t have to).
2005-11-19 9:10 pm
Anonymous
anyone knows what is new or what is expected new in draper,like a rod map or plan of features even if they are under the hood.
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2005-11-20 3:20 am
2005-11-19 9:12 pm
Anonymous
i personally like and use gnome, it feels more comfortable for me than KDE does, however i fully support both projects and glad they both exist. The only issue i ever had was a lack of standards, now that both KDE and Gnome are adopting the freedesktop.org standards I am very happy. I hope that they one day both adopt the same sound server as well. For now I am happy with them both working hard to make the best DE’s they can. Competition is great, it brings out the best in everyone. Look at MS, they are finally starting to try and make a big change for longhorn over Windows XP because of competition. I mean Win95-XP had 1 major change, went to the NT kernel. Outside of that a whole lot hasnt changed really. Well thats my 2 cents on the matter.
2005-11-19 10:14 pm
archiesteel
Meh. Personally, I don’t like konqueror at all. It does a lot of things, none of them well.
I disagree. To me, konq is the Linux killer app. I’m tring out version 3.5 and it’s full of yummy goodness.
What are some specific issues you have with Konqueror? I’m curious, because I often hear vague criticism of it, but rarely actual examples of real-world problems.
Of course, this is all a matter of personal preferences…
I use rhythmbox as my music player, but only out of lack of an alternative (amaroK fares on better).
Why not use amaroK then? It’s not only the best audio player for Linux, but also the best all-around audio player period. All IMHO, of course…
K3b suffers from the same problems as konqueror.
Could you be more specific? Personally, K3b handles all my CD/DVD burning needs…
I’d also like to point out that gnome and KDE are generally equal–they both suck, but at different things.
That’s a very negative attitude. At least they don’t suck as much as Windows, and suck about the same as OS X…
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Anonymous
konqueror is not a good application except to the kde faithful. in fact, its downright poor. for usability, it seriously needs to go back to square one.
*** NEWS FLASH ***
kde developers have begun work on new functionality that will give konqueror the ability to make peoples breakfasts in the morning.
its a shame for kde because qt is actually rather good. what lets kde down badly is the directionless developers who seem intent on ignoring design and usability in favour of piling in more and more functionality into the applications whether its useful to the average user or not.
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2005-11-19 10:35 pm
pinky>Personally, K3b handles all my CD/DVD burning needs…
For me k3b has one missing feature. I miss this feature not only on k3b but there are _no_ good gui app for it: make a copy of video-dvds.
If k3b would also be able to rip, shrink and burn video dvd with a nice dialog to select tracks, language, and so on. k3b would be a real killer app. And i could suggest GNU/Linux and KDE for much more windows-user.
2005-11-19 10:22 pm
archiesteel
The point is not – hey you’re wrong, these other apps are actually the best. The point is, stick to what you prefer and stop wasting time attacking other free desktop environments. Do like KDE developers, they cooperate with GNOME.
I agree that “preferred apps” is subjective. For example, I love using a file manager that is also a file browser. If I need to get closer to the metal I just use the command line.
For the second part of your comment, however, I’d just like to not that I did not attack GNOME even though I feel that Konq, amaroK and K3b are “best of breed” apps. In fact, if you read my posts here, you’ll see that nearly all of them include the words “both DEs are good.” I still use some Gtk apps on my Kubuntu laptop, namely Synaptic and Gimp.
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dylansmrjones
Yeah, and those posts also contain the sentence: “KDE is superior to Gnome, because of X KDE-app, and Y KDE-app and Z KDE-app, all superior to anything on Gnome.”
Personally I’d prefer to have a DE with the resource usage from EDE, the QT-toolkit and C++ in general from KDE, and the look and feel (usability) from Gnome.
Now, that would rock
But until then, people might use Kubuntu or Ubuntu or LFS or Gentoo or whatever they like.
Apart from the themes in use I’ve got nothing against (K)Ubuntu
2005-11-19 10:23 pm
JMcCarthy
IMO, the technology used with KDE is far superior compared to anything GNOME has to offer.
That doesn’t mean it’s a better desktop sadly. I’m actually using Gnome. IMNSHO, if Gnome used Qt instead of GTK+ it *would* be the superior desktop.
Again, IMNSHO, KDE has an average desktop / application exprience built on top of an awesome framework / toolkit.
GNOME has a pleasent desktop / application exprience built on top of a festering, bloated, slow toolkit.
Feel free to disagree and not post 
This is just personal opinion.
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pinky
@JMcCarthy: I agree with you on many points, even if i wouldn’t use that hard words.
But if we talk about application and integration KDE just have to offer that much more than GNOME.
Just to enumerate some apps i use almost on a daily base:
– konqueror (browser): sure there is firefox and ephiphany. But konqueror just integrate perfectly into the desktop and khtml is technically really good (e.g. passing acid2 test).
– kile: nothing simular for gnome
– umbrello (uml)
– taskjuggler (planing and managing software projects)
– network transparency of the whole kde desktop. (editing every network file with every app i want)
– kdissert: great mindmapping tool which can even create latex docs.
and so on.
KDE and KDE apps just offer that much. Even if i like the look&feel of GNOME, the GNOME filemanager and the overall usability.
2005-11-19 10:39 pm
Anonymous
really I don’t want to get in a tussel here but I always hear people complaining about it, but they never put specific examples. I have tons of friend around my age (20-26) that love it and what I have notice is that our workflow is different than older people. I think becuae we first started learning with windows. My cousins (7,10,11) all use my kde worksattion and I never really had to explain them how to use it. they knew the world was the internet and home was loca when they wanted something from their computer they just typed home and the only thing they did not know how to do was to open a tab. really I thikn that younger people are the ones that find konqueror usefull. My mother hates it because you can do many thing with it and she does not feel like reading in case she needs to ssh. so she use about 3 application in windows while I only use one for fiel browsin, interenet acces, ftp, and ssh sometimes I do all of this at the same time so only using one application is really helpfull as opose to opening 2 or 3 applications.
2005-11-19 10:41 pm
Anonymous
Ever typed ‘ubuntu.com’ in your web browser? Yeah, that’s right… The saint Shuttleworth uses the same ugly techniques as domain scammers.
If I wanted to go to cannonical’s website, I wouldn’t have typed ‘ubuntu.com’… So much for the Ubuntu Foundation…
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JMcCarthy
O-M-F-G. I can’t believe my eyes — clearly, it is completely outrageous for them to reserve it.
As a further blow to capitalism from the GNU/Linux community, they reserve ubuntu.com also, hindering advertising.
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2005-11-19 11:29 pm
poofyhairguyEver typed ‘ubuntu.com’ in your web browser? Yeah, that’s right… The saint Shuttleworth uses the same ugly techniques as domain scammers.
If I wanted to go to cannonical’s website, I wouldn’t have typed ‘ubuntu.com’… So much for the Ubuntu Foundation…
Ummm…..I typed “ubuntu.com” and I went to the Ubuntu Linux website. Not Canonical’s:
Nor Mark’s personal page:
http://www.markshuttleworth.com/
Whats the big deal? That Ubuntu Linux uses the “ubuntu.com” and the “ubuntulinux.com/org” domains? If you think that is evil or bad, your moral compass is WAY off.
2005-11-19 10:56 pm
archiesteel
Don’t you feel rather hypocritical?
No, I don’t. Why should I?
KDE certainly has technical strengths, but so has GNOME.
Certainly, but in my opinion KDE is technically superior, and I mentioned the technologies which I feel give it the technical edge. You’re welcome to try to convince me otherwise in a civilized manner.
Note that “technically superior” doesn’t mean “better”…
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dylansmrjones
Note that “technically superior” doesn’t mean “better”…
Oh it does. It implies that Gnome are technically inferior to KDE, and therefore not as good as KDE
KDE is technically superior to Gnome in some areas and technically inferior in other areas.
What I like about KDE is the minimum of dependencies compared with Gnome.
What I like about Gnome is mostly CORBA and the usability of the desktop. It’s got a much better implementation of the desktop metaphor than KDE (and windows) has.
My favourite is still Knome
2005-11-19 11:00 pm
archiesteel
konqueror is not a good application except to the kde faithful. in fact, its downright poor. for usability, it seriously needs to go back to square one.
Again, vague criticism. Can you point to us in which ways the latest version of Konqueror is bad with regards to usability? They did a really good job of cleaning up the toolbars (at least on Kubuntu) depending on the current task.
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Anonymous
do you want mine and everyone elses(ie ordinary users) viewpoint or that of a kde developer as to the reasons why konqueror is a poor application?
here aaron krill talks you through why konqueror fails the usability test:
Novell is “standardizing” on Gnome as their desktop environment. Anyone want to know why? Because the gnome guys know how to make a good simple end-user application.
Lets face it. Almost all KDE apps have interfaces that provide easy access to even the most advanced functions. That my friends, is the problem. The immense choice of features and actions things like toolbars, as well as non-descript icons, are turning newbies away from KDE.
Lets take Konqueror for example, probably the one thing a linux newbie would use most. Right now, with SuSE 10.0 defaults, I have 12 buttons on my toolbar… These are what they do:
* Back
* Forward
* Up
* Home
* Refresh
* Stop
* Print
* Find
* Zoom In
* Zoom Out
* Security
* Download Manager
This is in Web Browsing mode. I don’t need or want the Up button, or the Zoom buttons. The find button is non-descript and requires me to hover over the icon and wait for the tooltip. The security button is pointless since we can just put a lock icon on the status bar like most sane people (perhaps with a fancy KDE tooltip describing the security in use). The Download Manager button is also completely useless, especially since I don’t even have KGet integrated with konqueror.
Secondly, we don’t need the address bar to say “location.” Most people already know its for addresses, so that just makes it look clunky. The Go button could use some work too.
This kind of stuff shows up in tons of KDE apps. Things have been getting better… especially in the KDE-PIM apps, But KOffice, Konqueror, Kopete, all have too much UI clutter and icons that just don’t make sense where they are. Do we really need copy/paste icons everywhere? Do we need an icons for every functionality on the planet? It overwhelms the newbie user. Hell, it overwhelms me at times. I just get confused and probably end up not seeing all the great capabilities of these apps.
Novell, Redhat, and other “commercial” distributions are targetting their desktop distributions at businesses whose users have probably never seen or used Linux. They’re also targetting their server distributions as replacements for Windows servers, and want to make it as easy as possible for Windows admins to move over to Linux. Gnome, I hate to say, excels at this due to the simplicity of their applications. They may not have the features or customizability of KDE apps, but they do have the UI right… simple and to the point.
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2005-11-20 12:23 am
JuerdYes, that’s a problem with Konqueror.
And it’s one of the reasons I give people Kubuntu instead of other KDE-based distributions: Kubuntu has managed to un-bloat KDE to an acceptable level.
With Kubuntu’s default installation, the Konqueror web browser has only these buttons:
* Back
* Forward
* Up
* Home
* Refresh
* Stop
(And of course the unnecessary buttons for clearing the address box, confirming location and starting a search, but these are used often by people who are new to computers, and don’t yet understand how to do these things with a keyboard.)
While you may not use the “Up” button, I find it very useful on many well-designed sites, that actually put some hierarchy into the URL. It’s a shame many sites, including OSNews.com, are actually hierarchical in structure, but do not reflect this in the URLs. If I were currently looking at http://www.osnews.com/news/12721/comments/62378/reply, the Up-button could have been very useful. Alas, I’m looking at http://www.osnews.com/reply.php?news_id=12721&comment_id=62378.
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2005-11-20 12:30 am
m_absActually they just run konqueror with the simplebrowser profile insteed of the normal webbrowser profile.
Simplebrowser should IMO be standard profile for web-browsing in konqueror.
I also use the up-button, a lot. And I miss it in other browsers.
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2005-11-20 1:52 am
segedunumNovell is “standardizing” on Gnome as their desktop environment. Anyone want to know why? Because the gnome guys know how to make a good simple end-user application.
Sigh. Not again.
The integration between those apps is non-existant in many cases, and if you want to talk about quality just compare F-Spot to Digikam and Amarok to, well, what do you compare it to? In most cases the technology actually works in KDE as well. The vast majority of people will go for working technology every time, and that’s certainly been my experience with Windows users out there who don’t know about Linux desktops in small businesses. I’ve given people Gnome and KDE and they’ve ended up picking KDE every time after a period of usage. Most people who’ve liked Gnome have usually been Mac users at some point, but they work out the issues fairly quickly. At the very least people work out with KDE that the user interfaces may not be perfect in some cases but that it actually does what it says on the tin.
Novell have standardised on nothing yet (they actually have to move to Gnome first!), and they have so much work in front of them to get central products like SLES (which now doesn’t exist – 9 was the last) and OES moved to Gnome (YaST etc.) it isn’t believable. What they’re trying to do is copy Red Hat. Saying it and doing it are two extremely different things, and quite frankly, Novell are a dead company even if they moved absolutely everything to KDE. It might help them for a bit longer, but they just have no grasp of the software that they’re using whatsoever.
Certainly, if they’re moving to Gnome then their desktop migration is going to be a costly and embarrassing failure which Microsoft will unfortunately jump up and down over. Novell just simply don’t have the resources or time to make it work and give their work away for free. What’s going to happen with Evolution and other bits of software? We’ll find out in the next few months.
Novell, Redhat, and other “commercial” distributions are targetting their desktop distributions at businesses
What businesses?! Red Hat and Novell are selling zero desktops to businesses as Red Hat have consistently stated. The only place where their desktops make any sense is for graphical administration environments for their servers. In the case of Red Hat I think they could do an awful lot more if they used KDE and Qt, simply because at the moment they’re spending far too much money, resources and developer time maintaining pointless low level stuff rather than actually creating graphical tools that actually help their customers and bring more in. Most of Red Hat’s tools at this point are a bit of an embarrassment.
Enough with this targetting businesses and corporate environments thing – it doesn’t exist.
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Anonymous
KDE has a problem and its obviou denie it won’t help and the problem is and will be the the Qt lincesing problem this has only bring frustrations to KDE, thy should get rid of Qt, the technical merits of Qt are not questionable but its licensiin its, by now KDE hasn’t been succesull enought thanks to its atachment to TrollTech, LSB, Mayor Linux Distributors and the list goes and goes, and instead of fix the problem they simple denie it and blame others like any meciocre would do, and they blame GNOME for lack of KDE developers vision, don’y look the problem in GNOME look for them in your own camp.
And this has bring frustration to the developers too, and they are exploting, but of course they will denie it, the frutration they have found in the KDE/TrollTech relation has made them to a totally retarded troll behavior:
http://phi.lv/wp-content/harald_sitter.txt
And of course there will be many reactions and I will be labeled as a troll, but the problme will remain and ignore it won’t help.
KDE will never win simple as long its attached to TrollTech.
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m_abs
LOL, your post might have been taken seriously if it hadn’t been posted before, in the same BLOODY thread.
http://www.osnews.com/permalink.php?news_id=12721&comment_id=62284
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segedunum
Ha, ha, ha. Three or four minutes to get marked down? I assume people just didn’t like that then. You people are always a good laugh when a decent comment comes along.
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2005-11-20 2:12 am
MitaraiKDE has a problem and its obvious denie it won’t help and the problem is and will be the the Qt licensing problem this has only bring frustrations to KDE, they should get rid of Qt, the technical merits of Qt are not questionable but its licensing is, by now KDE hasn’t been succesull enought thanks to its atachment to TrollTech, LSB, Mayor Linux Distributors and the list goes and goes, and instead of fix the problem they simple denie it and blame others like any meciocre would do, and they blame GNOME for lack of KDE developers vision, don’t look the problem in GNOME look for them in your own camp.
And this has bring frustration to the developers too, and they are exploting, but of course they will denie it, the frustration they have found in the KDE/TrollTech relation has made them to a totally retarded troll behavior:
http://phi.lv/wp-content/harald_sitter.txt
And of course there will be many reactions and I will be labeled as a troll, but the problem will remain and ignore it won’t help.
KDE will never win simple as long its attached to TrollTech.
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Anonymous
Maybe people is moding you down because your comments are long and boring.
I don’t blame them.
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segedunum
Maybe people is moding you down because your comments are long and boring.
I don’t blame them.
He, he, he. Maybe it’s because they don’t like them?
I don’t blame them from their point of view :-).
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2005-11-20 2:35 am
LinuxRocksActually, Trolltech and the KDE devs signed a contract where Trolltech would continue to offer QT regardless;even if Trolltech was bought by another company; for the life of the project…
So, that said, Long Live KDE
http://www.kde.org/whatiskde/kdefreeqtfoundation.php
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segedunum
so boring.
From the amount of extremely useful and insightful information that I’ve got from your comment I quite agree with you :-).
Ha, ha, ha.
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Anonymous
its because you talk rubbish, segedunum.
you say that the ordinary average user picks kde everytime. you are living in dreamland if you actually believe that. the ordinary user prefer the good UI design, intuitiveness, and simplicity of gnome. and thats a FACT!
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segedunum
its because you talk rubbish, segedunum.
I’m sorry you don’t like it. Feel free to explain why, and actually answer what I’ve written.
you say that the ordinary average user picks kde everytime. you are living in dreamland if you actually believe that.
http://www.desktoplinux.com/articles/AT2127420238.html
Give me some stronger evidence as to otherwise please.
the ordinary user prefer the good UI design, intuitiveness, and simplicity of gnome. and thats a FACT!
They prefer something that works even better ;-). That’s a fact based on my experience of actually doing it, not based on me buying the marketing literature of Gnome about intuitivenss simplicity, blah, blah, blah.
Difficult for you to take probably, but there you go.
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Anonymous
…prefer the good UI design, intuitiveness,…
Well, If you actually would have read anything about UI Design, you would know that the concept of “intuitiveness” ist just extremely bogus. There is nothing such as “intuition” in UIs. Only familiarity.
And simplicity? Well please, create a simple interface for managing an nuclear reactor….
You will only get a “as simple as possible” but never a simple interface.
So please. Spare us your “FACTs”.
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Anonymous
Intuition also refers to predictability, e.g. things being in the expected place. While familiarity can be important between different computer interfaces, familiarity with real world interfaces are even more valuable. Computer-based familiarity would be, for example, konqueror and windows explorer. Familiarity with the real world is demonstrated with the old finder seen in the mac os classics, or tracker in BeOS.
-bytecoder
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Anonymous
Intuition also refers to predictability, e.g. things being in the expected place.
of course, but that too is a learned trait, and not something inherent which is often associated with intuition.
I do not dispute that using familiarity and predictability is a great boon to user interfaces. I just do not like people repeating (in near-troll-mode I might add) buzz-words they somewhere heard, without thinking. Especially if it concerns such an important field as Usability.
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Anonymous
i can see that you’ve never done even a day of User Interface Design in your life. all kde developers and users believe that it doesn’t exist. and thats why we can all see why kde isn’t going anywhere fast.
good excuses, but “must try harder next time”
segedunum
i have got to hand it to you, segedumum. you are absolutely priceless. haha. that article that you’ve linked to. the poll was taken from DesktopLinux.com. we are talking about ORDINARY AVERAGE USERS, not linux geeks who like to spend their days twiddling with kde’s 5 billion configuration options instead of getting a girlfriend. the ORDINARY AVERAGE USERS are the ones who have been shown to consistantly prefer the gnome desktop both in usability and productivity. all the market research has shown this. novell and all the others who are dropping kde in favour of gnome aren’t stupid! theres money to be made. and they’re not going to go with a desktop if it thinks for one moment that its not going to be as popular as an alternative. they have done their research and they have all decided that gnome is the way forward. the evidence that gnome is the better desktop for the ordinary average user is that companies are putting thousands of pounds where their mouth is, and thats the strongest evidence of all!
there’s nothing actually wrong with the qt toolkit. its actually a very good toolkit. the problem is with the cluelessness of the kde developers themselves. if they did the following, kde would be onto a clear winner:
-made the interface much less cluttered
-cleared up all the mess
-dropped all that useless kde functionality to speed kde up considerably and improve overall reliability (complex software is almost always more bugridden than streamlined software. its even more unreliable if its all interconnected, as kde tries to be)
-designed applications with a clear purpose instead of focusing on stuffing it with functionality that most people are never going to use
-finally did something about that god awful control centre
-most importantly, developed a plan and got their priorities right (ie usability before functionality)
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Anonymous
all kde developers and users believe that it doesn’t exist.
So please tell me, what is your “intuition”. How can we measure it? What are the criteria for designing for intuition? Are there intuition experts or Intuition walkthroughs and heuristics? How do we test if anything is intuitive?
You named some valid points what KDE should do (not all of them, but I guess that is normal 😉
But none of that has anything to do with “intuitiveness” and all with good ui design
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Anonymous
(not all of them, but I guess that is normal 😉
should have been
(I do not agree with all of them…)
I guess that troll is pretty distracting 😉
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Anonymous
“How can we measure it?”
thats easy. by asking ordinary average users what they prefer and feel comfortable about using. they also do some phychological tests too.
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Anonymous
The thing is as soon as you are able to measure it, you will find that there are other reasons why that particular design decision is good rather than invoking “intuition”.
(It might be the gestalt laws, or some color theory or what-have-you)
With this discussion about intuition I am reminded of that Quote:
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
Someone might coin a version about intuition one day…
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2005-11-20 6:00 am
unoengborg-made the interface much less cluttered
-cleared up all the mess
Agree, this really need to happen or KDE will never make it on the desktops of ordinary users. I.e. users that have educations unrelated to engineering or computers.
-dropped all that useless kde functionality to speed kde up considerably and improve overall reliability (complex software is almost always more bugridden than streamlined software. its even more unreliable if its all interconnected, as kde tries to be)
In my experience, KDE is much more reliable than Gnome
probably due to a better toolkit and object orientated development techniques
-designed applications with a clear purpose instead of focusing on stuffing it with functionality that most people are never going to use
There is nothing wrong with functionality, but it must be designed in a way that uncommon tasks not get in the way of more common ones. One example, when you do drag and drop in Konqueror, you get a popup menu when you drop your file over the drop target. The menu asks you if you want to move, copy, link or cancel. I have yet to see a Unix system where the number of links is over one percent of all the existing files, and most of these links are created by installation scripts and such. So the chance that a user actually would like to do a link on drag and drop is very minimal. Also drag and drop is not something you do by mistake, why should there be a cancel item. Other menus doesn’t seam to need a cancel intem. In other words 50% of the alternatives in that popup is almost never used. Out of the remaining “move” and “copy”, move is the only one that fits well with the desktop metaphore. It is also the most frequently used item. This means that the menu will get in the way and interrupt the users flow of work quite frequently.
-finally did something about that god awful control centre
If you read KDE usability lists, you would think that KDE users didn’t do anything but fiddling around in the control center. It have been redesigned over and over again. Doing it once again would be a waste of time. There are so many other things in KDE that are much more urgent to fix. After all, normal non geek users will spend a few hours in it when they set up their system, the rest of the time they will do real productie work.
-most importantly, developed a plan and got their priorities right (ie usability before functionality)
Very true.
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segedunum
KDE has a problem and its obviou denie it won’t help and the problem is and will be the the Qt lincesing problem this has only bring frustrations to KDE, thy should get rid of Qt
I’ll bite a little bit. Let me explain the economics of the situation to all you clueless people out there:
– Trolltech makes money from licenses to put into the development of Qt, which give largely gives KDE the quality it has, and keeps them in business. It works.
– No companies around Gnome have the money or resources needed to put into GTK, low-level Gnome components or development tools to make them good enough, and they’re certainly not going to bring open source development in-house and give it away. Those companies like Eazel that have tried have went bust, Ximian made no money and their investors got them bought out and now they will probably eat what’s left of Novell’s cash pile as well.
I hate to break this to you, but all of that Gnome stuff, GTK development and development of stuff like Mono for you to develop for nothing does not come out of thin air. Venture capitalists and companies like Novell do not exist to fund that for nothing. Open source software will work because it’s cost effective, and the only cost effective open source desktop is KDE.
KDE is far from dead because it is the only way in which open source desktops are going to work, no matter how many people make Gnome their default desktop. Hard to take I know, but there it is.
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Anonymous
FUD and boooooooooriiiiiinnnnnnggggggg.
We all know that in KDE TrollTech has the last word.
Admint it, KDE dying thanks to TrollTech.
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segedunum
FUD and boooooooooriiiiiinnnnnnggggggg.
Thanks for proving my point and letting me know the average intelligence I’m up against.
We all know that in KDE TrollTech has the last word.
Nope. Over a thousand developers versus a handful of Trolltech employees? Nice try.
We all know Red Hat has the last word with GTK.
Admint it, KDE dying thanks to TrollTech.
Admint? Are they tasty?
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Anonymous
Use case 1:
KDE developers: WTF? DBUS? We will never implement it we are alright withg DCUP.
TrollTech: We are going to support DBUS.
KDE developers: Yes Master.
Use case 2:
KDE developers: FreeDesktop.org sucks we won’t use any of their standars.
TrollTech: We must cooperate with FreeDesktop.org
KDE developers: Yes Master.
Use case 3:
KDE developers: LSB? bah Who needs them is not going to be succefull w/o us.
TrollTech: Now tha LSN is an ISO standar we need to get involt with them
KDE developers: Yes Master.
Use case 4:
KDE developers: Porting KDE apps to Windows? no way, we need our user to be locked in our desktop.
TrollTech: Now that Qt4 is going to be GPL for Windows we need you to port KDE apps so we can sell more expensive licenses.
KDE developers: Yes Master.
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segedunum
Believe it or not some KDE developers actually have their own independent thoughts on some matters, including Freedesktop and KDE on Windows. Most of the stuff concerning stuff like the LSB is just politically correct stuff that sounds good even though it’s crap and isn’t going to work.
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2005-11-21 9:54 pm
phoenixLets take Konqueror for example, probably the one thing a linux newbie would use most. Right now, with SuSE 10.0 defaults, I have 12 buttons on my toolbar… These are what they do:
It’s all about personal preference. As long as it is easy to add / remove buttons from toolbars, then does it really matter how many there are by default?
That’s one thing I absolutely hate about Firefox: you have a *severely* limited number of buttons that you can add to the toolbar.
Regardless of the application, if you use a feature more than three times per session, then you should have the option of putting it on the toolbar. The toolbar is for frequently used functions … so let’s make it possible to put frequently used functions on there.
The toolbar editing functions in KDE apps are a little hokey right now and can be confusing even to power-users. I don’t know what they are like in GNOME. But the few GTK apps I’ve used have extremely limited options.
Defaults aren’t the big issue. Ease of customisability is. If you make it *very* easy to add/remove buttons from a toolbar, then the initial number doesn’t matter.
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Anonymous
For one thing, it tries to do too many things at once (god knows how browsing a basically tree-like structure is similiar to documents with interlocking hyperlinks is beyond me). I suppose I’d normally bring up how non-spatial file managers are always going to be less than ideal and inefficient to use, but I suppose that wouldn’t do any good, as the chances of somebody knowing anything about UI design is fairly low, and if they do they wouldn’t be arguing in the first place. I’ll offload this debate onto this article, instead:
http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/finder.ars/1
Honestly, I think current DEs should learn a lesson from the command line–small, specialized, and integratable == good; big, bloated, and disintegrated == bad.
-bytecoder
2005-11-20 12:20 am
Anonymous
Hi, it’s because of the new places sidebar and throw away of the location bar. Now it has a breadcrumb.
2005-11-20 12:27 am
Jarsto
As for Lindows (oops), Xandros, etc, these are rather small distributions. Since you care about popularity so much, you should know Red Hat/Fedora, SuSE and Ubuntu are far more popular.
This doesn’t have to say anything about GNOME v. KDE popularity though. I used Fedora for over a year, and booted into GNOME exactly once in that year (okay, I confess, it may have been two or three times). I knew I preferred KDE, and while KDE didn’t get as much attention from Red Hat/Fedora as GNOME the packages were still good.
For the record I have nothing against GNOME, if it’s what you like, go for it. I’ve found I prefer KDE and the great thing about having both is that we each get to pick the one we like best. Same thing goes for having both Ubuntu and Kubuntu. I currently use neither, but being able to choose an install that defaults to GNOME or one that defaults to KDE just means more people will get the system they want right from the start.
2005-11-20 1:07 am
Anonymous
ubuntu.com (not http://www.ubuntu.com) was a dns bug that has now been sorted out. This is not an evil conspiracy, merely a bug that happened when some website upgrades were made.
Corey
Ubuntu Documentation Team
2005-11-20 2:00 am
barkley
Shuttleworth is just throwing away money on that crap (especially Gnome). Wishing that KDE or Gnome will ever be more than hobbyist crap is like wishing that Timmah will become an NBA player.
I guess if you can’t afford a real Unix desktop like OSX then you can play around with that KDE/Gnome shit.
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dylansmrjones
OS X doesn’t qualify as quality nor as unix. AmigaOS has a better implementation of the desktop metaphor and so does Gnome. Even KDE is better… Mac OS X is a good idea that went wrong…
It’s basically a bloated unusable version of NextStep.
Or do you use Mac OS X as a MySQL server
2005-11-20 2:31 am
tikal26
really just do that. Use what works for you if you use gnome use it and suppoete it, but bashing kde is not going to make gnome better and if you use kde use it and support it. They both have good and bad thing that the people incharge are trying to fix and make better. Both projects seemed to have reached a point where innovation can take place (ie plasma). Competition is good and can just make it better. KDE nor Gnome or linux is doomed there are enough commercial application for it that would prevented from beign doomed. The movie industry is one of them. Maybe the desktop side need work but bashing each other doesn’t help.And by the way ubuntu is a fine distibution that is helping expand linux on desktops wheter you like it or not. it seems to work for alot on newbies. if you don’t like it don’t use it is not like you payed any money for it or someone is forcing you to.
Edited 2005-11-20 02:33
2005-11-20 2:42 am
Mitarai
KDE has a problem and its obviou denie it won’t help and the problem is and will be the the Qt lincesing problem this has only bring frustrations to KDE, thy should get rid of Qt, the technical merits of Qt are not questionable but its licensiin its, by now KDE hasn’t been succesull enought thanks to its atachment to TrollTech, LSB, Mayor Linux Distributors and the list goes and goes, and instead of fix the problem they simple denie it and blame others like any meciocre would do, and they blame GNOME for lack of KDE developers vision, don’y look the problem in GNOME look for them in your own camp.
And this has bring frustration to the developers too, and they are exploting, but of course they will denie it, the frutration they have found in the KDE/TrollTech relation has made them to a totally retarded troll behavior:
http://phi.lv/wp-content/harald_sitter.txt
And of course there will be many reactions and I will be labeled as a troll, but the problme will remain and ignore it won’t help.
KDE will never win simple as long its attached to TrollTech.
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Anonymous
MITARAI has a problem and its obvious that denying it will not help and the problem is and will be his mental state that has only brought frustration to OSnews. They should get rid of Mitarai.
The textual merrits of Mitarai are maybe not questionable but his mental state is, now that his therapy hasn’t been succesfull enough thanks to his attachement to his brain, intestins, legs and the list goes and goes, and instead of fixing the problem he simply denies it, and blames others like any mediocre person would do, and he blames KDE for his lack of intelligence. Don’t look at KDE, look at the problems in your own head.
And this has brought frustration to the readers to, because no matter what they do they will not be able to understand his writings, or have insight into his brain which has made perform totally retarded troll behaviours:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychotherapy
And of course there will be many reactions and I will be labeled as a troll, but the problem will remain and ignoring it will not help.
Mitarai will never understand as long as he is attached to his brain….
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Mitarai
Actually I think people thinking KDE is totally free and usable are the ones with mental problems.
This image speack by it self.
http://img505.imageshack.us/my.php?image=kdetrolltech0dh.jpg
The sad truth.
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Anonymous
lol..
ok dude
a) you have serious mental issues
b) you are probably the most amusing troll I have seen in a long time
c) you have serious mental issues
d) why am I still writing in this thread?
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segedunum
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!
If you replace KDE with Gnome on its hands and knees and replace Trolltech with Nokia, Novell and Sun (Red Hat are OK as they’re actually doing some work) you’ve got a pretty accurate picture of how people like you view all of these wonderful corporate companies supposedly involved with Gnome!
Well done.
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Mitarai
wow, must be har don’t think by your own and be controlled by TrollTech dark interestsI feel sorry for you.
wake up:
http://img505.imageshack.us/my.php?image=kdetrolltech0dh.jpg
I know its hard but it will release you.
2005-11-20 3:21 am
joelito_pr
It’s pwned by trolltech trolls(Get it hehe, trolls)
Now to get serious I like using kde, I removed my Kubuntu install, but KDE still in my linux box under zenwalk(minislack), and KDE 3.4.3 works flawlessly under this ‘Linux for speed demons’ type of distro…
As for Kubuntu, I really hope for a well polished KDE distro for this one. (Hopefully it’ll work nicely with my wireless)
2005-11-20 3:37 am
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Anonymous
Ohh shit….
you could at least have a warning on that link.
Not safe for work, or at anytime else if you like to keep your Vision…
2005-11-20 4:09 am
Anonymous
In this screenshot it looks like the text on the first line of the loading screen is garbled. Is that supposed to be like that?
http://shots.osdir.com/slideshows/507_or/2.png
2005-11-20 5:18 am
archiesteel
do you want mine and everyone elses(ie ordinary users) viewpoint or that of a kde developer as to the reasons why konqueror is a poor application?
Your opinion would have been fine. Aren’t you able to think for yourself?
This is in Web Browsing mode. I don’t need or want the Up button, or the Zoom buttons. The find button is non-descript and requires me to hover over the icon and wait for the tooltip. The security button is pointless since we can just put a lock icon on the status bar like most sane people (perhaps with a fancy KDE tooltip describing the security in use). The Download Manager button is also completely useless, especially since I don’t even have KGet integrated with konqueror.
My take:
– I like the Up button in web browsing, I sometimes use it to return to the root of the web site
– The Zoom Button are very useful on my laptop as some web sites have their default size font in their CSS set way too big/small for my taste
– The security button comment is valid – as far as I’m concerned, it’s the only valid comment in there, and one comment does not a broken app make
– The Download Manager button is fine for me as I do have Kget installed
The positive points of Konqueror far outweight the small annoyances described. Certainly, it does not make Konqueror a “poor” application – and in fact Aaron Krill does not say that Konq is a “poor” application, simply that IN HIS OPINION its usability could be improved.
All apps have usability problems on some level or another. That doesn’t make them poor apps.
In the end, I really don’t care if you like Konqueror or not. I do like it, very much, and that’s utimately the only thing that matters.
Usability is an extremely subjective field anyway. Show me hard empirical data that proves that Konqueror is less useable than other similar apps, and then perhaps we’ll talk.
2005-11-20 5:21 am
smitty
How did an article about a (K)Ubuntu release degenerate into a KDE/GNOME flamewar? Sad. It’s things like these that make me wonder whether OSS will ever become mainstream.
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segedunum
How did an article about a (K)Ubuntu release degenerate into a KDE/GNOME flamewar? Sad. It’s things like these that make me wonder whether OSS will ever become mainstream.
He, he, he.
Well, someone makes a comment about KDE’s supposedly cluttered interface, or people marking comments down (which the Gnome supporters around here tend to do themselves):
you probably got rated down by the KDE fanboys. don’t worry about it. its the time of the month for them, and to add ot their discomfort and fristration, they’re having to come to terms with the fact that everyone is going with gnome and shunning kde.
and you’ve got a worse flamewar than usual – even with some interesting hand-drawn pictures by some fairly sad individuals!
When the hard work goes into KDE 4 and KDE has even better technology (which is Gnome’s large problem) as well as the interface worked out (have a look at stuff like the Oxygen icons set) I really, really fear for these people. What the hell are they going to complain about?!
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2005-11-20 1:48 pm
SlackerJackThere is nothing ground breaking or special about Oxygen icons set or even KDE4 since it’s just a pipe dream, just a flashy name for a desent set of icons. The difference with GNOME/Tango is that it carries on the GNOME look and consistancy.
What “better” technology are you talking about?, if it was that good GNOME devs would use it(open source remember!). The fact that KDe are changing there kiddy icon set to something more grown up and business like shows it’s turning direction (yet again)
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segedunum
There is nothing ground breaking or special about Oxygen icons set or even KDE4 since it’s just a pipe dream, just a flashy name for a desent set of icons.
It exists now and is part of a wider plan.
The difference with GNOME/Tango is that it carries on the GNOME look and consistancy.
Tango is a 100% ripoff of KDE’s Appeal project. Additionally, Tango is not supposed to be a Gnome project ;-).
What “better” technology are you talking about?, if it was that good GNOME devs would use it(open source remember!).
Gnome’s developers have a serious case of NIH syndrome and will whinge like buggery about the license or find some reason not to use it. They wouldn’t know good tech if it slapped some of them in the face.
The fact that KDe are changing there kiddy icon set to something more grown up and business like shows it’s turning direction (yet again)
Grown up, professional, yada, yada, yada. Well, this professional crap hasn’t exactly helped Gnome’s popularity, has it? The point of Oxygen is to find a colourful and attractive balance between the current crystal icons and usability thinking.
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Anonymous
|Well, this professional crap hasn’t exactly helped Gnome’s popularity, has it?”
not amongst the linux geeks, no. they prefer to twiddle with kde’s 5 billion configuration options than doing anything else. what it has done is helped businesses and ordinary users to see the light and either abandon(or ignore from day 1) kde in favour of gnome.
its the ordinary average users that are the important people.
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Anonymous
its the ordinary average users that are the important people.
While I agree on the idea that the non geek people need to be targeted, please do not use the word average in this context. I always have to think about the mathematical average, which clearly has no meaning in this context.
(What is the average of a man and a women? Or a secretary and an accountant? 😉
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Anonymous
“I always have to think about the mathematical average, which clearly has no meaning in this context.”
that doesn’t apply because the mathematical average is ALWAYS referred to as the mean in a mathematical context, which OS News clearly isn’t.
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segedunum
they prefer to twiddle with kde’s 5 billion configuration options than doing anything else.
I’ve never seena anyone do that in my experience, although some customisation is done.
what it has done is helped businesses and ordinary users to see the light and either abandon(or ignore from day 1) kde in favour of gnome.
Hmmm. Like there were thousands of businesses out ther using KDE and are now using Gnome. Whatever.
its the ordinary average users that are the important people.
I wish people would keep that in mind.
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2005-11-20 5:03 pm
jbauernot amongst the linux geeks, no. they prefer to twiddle with kde’s 5 billion configuration options than doing anything else. what it has done is helped businesses and ordinary users to see the light and either abandon(or ignore from day 1) kde in favour of gnome.
Have you seen many ordinary average users using Linux? I certainly not. When that day comes, we’ll see if that point remains moot or if it really has some truth in it.
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SlackerJack
“Tango is a 100% ripoff of KDE’s Appeal project. Additionally, Tango is not supposed to be a Gnome project ;-). ”
Sure but look at the icons, they are more inline with GNOME and a replacement for current GNOME icon set. Tango icons (in my view) are not for KDE since they just dont fit, but are perfect for GNOME. Lets not talk about ripoff’s because KDE has alot of them from GNOME, but thats opensource for yer. GDM theming in KDM and kicker add to panel are just two examples.
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Anonymous
Sure but look at the icons, they are more inline with GNOME and a replacement for current GNOME icon set. Tango icons (in my view) are not for KDE since they just dont fit, but are perfect for GNOME.
So you are saying that Tango is just claiming to be cross-desktop, but really is a (closet) GNOME project? So why are some people komplaining that KDE is not participating?
Lets not talk about ripoff’s because KDE has alot of them from GNOME, but thats opensource for yer. GDM theming in KDM and kicker add to panel are just two examples.
I would say KDE is much more inspired by other projects and ideas than GNOME. I have the feeling you suffer from the BIWIH (But it was invented here) syndrom.
I have not seen anything new in GNOME that has not been in another system. (Neither have I seen that in KDE but I did not argue that that was the case, did I).
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Anonymous
I would say KDE is much more inspired by other projects and ideas than GNOME.
Meant to say:
I would say KDE is much more inspired by other projects and ideas than from GNOME.
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segedunum
Sure but look at the icons, they are more inline with GNOME and a replacement for current GNOME icon set.
Well yes, but the point is that they’re pretending it’s a cross-desktop effort.
Lets not talk about ripoff’s because KDE has alot of them from GNOME
Well no – Tango obviously takes more than it’s fair share of ideas and purpose from Appeal.
GDM theming in KDM and kicker add to panel are just two examples.
Right. Like that’s ripping anything off.
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2005-11-20 6:54 pm
Daniel BorgmannI’m still trying to figure out where there is even a similarity between Tango and Appeal (aside from both being cool projects), what are you thinking about?
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segedunum
I’m still trying to figure out where there is even a similarity between Tango and Appeal (aside from both being cool projects), what are you thinking about?
Have a look at the goals and the language used on the project page and compare it with Appeal’s.
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Anonymous
if it was that good GNOME devs would use it(open source remember!)
No. The whole reason why GNOME was started was not of a technical matter but purely because of politics. So why should it be a matter of technical goodness now?
The fact that KDe are changing there kiddy icon set to something more grown up and business like shows it’s turning direction (yet again)
Ok, let me get this straigt. In this sentence you want to imply that a change from something you seem to consider (interpreting your choice of words) “bad” (kiddy icon set) to something better (more grown up and business like) is in itself bad.
Wow…that is deep.
2005-11-20 5:23 am
archiesteel
I suppose I’d normally bring up how non-spatial file managers are always going to be less than ideal and inefficient to use, but I suppose that wouldn’t do any good, as the chances of somebody knowing anything about UI design is fairly low, and if they do they wouldn’t be arguing in the first place.
I’m sorry, but I HATE spatial file managers. I really, really don’t like them.
The problem is that UI design is subjective. There are broad rules, but the fact is that not everyone nagivates UIs the same way, and some people will prefer a certain way of doing something while others will prefer something else. Trying to force down so “absolute” UI design on users on the very debatable grounds that it represents the “ideal” UI goes against individual choice, and as such is NOT a good thing.
Despite your condescending tone, I have yet to see any real empirical evidence about what constitutes the “ideal” UI design. To me, it’s all very relative and highly debatable. Trying to pass yourself off as a UI authority without that empirical evidence seems a bit presumptuous, to say the least.
2005-11-20 5:26 am
archiesteel
What’s wrong with giving one’s preferences? There’s nothing wrong in saying that I prefer KDE over GNOME. That is NOT the same thing as saying “GNOME sucks”. If you can’t understand that then I don’t know what else to say.
Haha yourself.
2005-11-20 5:41 am
archiesteel
Please provide the data that led you to this conclusion. All polls I’ve seen seem to indicate that KDE is the preferred desktop – not that this really matters anyway, as both are good DEs.
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unoengborg
Please provide the data that led you to this conclusion. All polls I’ve seen seem to indicate that KDE is the preferred desktop – not that this really matters anyway, as both are good DEs.
Yes, both KDE and Gnome are good DEs, but they are good for different people.
We have all heard stories about users complaining that their “Cup holder” doesn’t work or users that have tried to order new folders from Apple. Most of them are probably made up, but anybody that have worked with support knows that they are not that far from the truth. One example that I know actually happened was a secretary who didn’t realize that she could save her documents to disk. When she was ready with a document she printed it saved it in a binder and erased all contents in the document on her computer to be ready to enter new text.
This was about 15 years ago, so I suppose such things doesn’t happen anymore, but a lot of people still have far less knowledge than people that read osnews, or any other computer related site.
These are the people that will have problem using KDE. They are not likely to fill out any polls on a Linux site. Even if they happened to enter such site and see the poll, would they even know if they liked KDE or Gnome. Many people even get surprised when you tell them that their PC hardware and windows are separate parts. To these users KDE is not a good fit.
So, the data in your polls could probably give you some weak indication that geeks prefer KDE, but not much more than that. This is no surprise. KDE fits very well into Unix culture, where everything is possible for the Unix wizzard.
To Novell and Red Hat this group of users will not bring in much money. They don’t target Linux users, they target windows users as there are so many more of them. So from a business point of view, KDE may be doomed, but that doesn’t mean KDE will disappear Kubuntu is a good proof of that.
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segedunum
These are the people that will have problem using KDE. They are not likely to fill out any polls on a Linux site.
Since those users are not likely to be using either KDE or Gnome that’s a mute point.
Many people even get surprised when you tell them that their PC hardware and windows are separate parts. To these users KDE is not a good fit.
Errr, and Gnome’s a better fit?!
So, the data in your polls could probably give you some weak indication that geeks prefer KDE, but not much more than that. This is no surprise. KDE fits very well into Unix culture, where everything is possible for the Unix wizzard.
Since the vast majority of Unix workstations out there are being replaced by Linux ones, where a market actually exists, I’d say that’s a pretty accurate reflection.
To Novell and Red Hat this group of users will not bring in much money. They don’t target Linux users, they target windows users as there are so many more of them.
Novell has no desktop business that’s bringing in anything and Red Hat is not targetting anyone – they definitely don’t have a desktop business.
2005-11-20 6:05 am
archiesteel
thats easy. by asking ordinary average users what they prefer
…except that there is no such thing as an “ordinary average user”.
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dylansmrjones
Well, there is “an ordinary average user”.
That’s the kind of users that don’t understand how their windows pc keeps blowing up on them, just because they are clicking on links to sites with “nude pics of Britney Spears!” or “Click here and see nude porn videos with Breetney Speers and Jennifer Luv Hugetits!”
That’s the definition of “an average user”
2005-11-20 6:58 am
JMcCarthy
You’re all fools if you think distros pick Gnome over KDE because of anything other than licensing.
2005-11-20 7:01 am
SlackerJack
KDE is more bloated that ever and is more Windows like then ever. If you like that kind of thing then great but I just dont like the KDE model anymore. I dont suppose KDE fans tell you about what KDE has taken from GNOME lately?, Obviously they will say it’s KDE making the idea.
KDE really needs to clean up it’s act with the bloat, Arts(badly broken), KDE media apps, super karamba bloat, to many points at which KDE accesses the net, security, Konqueror really needs to slim down. KDE also really needs to sort it’s themes out, they just look the same and no drag and drop install like GNOME. KDE can actually improve by using GNOME ideas which they have done in 3.5rc releases.
(K)Ubuntu just seems to bleeding edge and NOBODY has commented on the security side.
2005-11-20 8:19 am
SlackerJack
Well i’ll say one thing, there must be alot of KDE users with mod points, you say anything factual about kde being bad or wrong then you get modded down. What I said was factual so.
Edit:
According to this topic, KDE is just about perfect which it’s not by a long shot. KDE ALWAYS gets the more mod points, so I guess there must me more KDE users here.
Edited 2005-11-20 08:23
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Anonymous
What I said was factual so.
I am sorry to dissapoint you, but unqualified remarks about “bloat” are not facts.
…KDE is more bloated that ever…
Ok, what does “bloated” mean? Being “turgid or swollen” of being “filled to capacity or overflowing”?
Please say what you really mean, and do not hide behind nonsensical buzzwords.
Does KDE use too much memory? Does the default interface contain too much (in your oppinion) unneeded visual information? Does the default install come with too many applications that you do not need?
…to many points at which KDE accesses the net…
At which points do you mean? Does KDE call home without asking? What does it do?
…security…
What problems do you have with the KDE security model? Do you have any specific weaknesses in mind?
…KDE also really needs to sort it’s themes out, they just look the same and no drag and drop install like GNOME…
Why use the invisible drag and drop functionality if you have GHNS (get hot new stuff) http://kstuff.org/index.php?p=ghns
What I wanted to express in this post is that you have probably not been modded down because of KDE users which want to keep you from spreading the truth, but because you repeat unsubstantiated claims about KDE, using buzzwords.
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Anonymous
“Does KDE use too much memory?”
very much so! 3 TIMES AS MUCH MEMORY AS GNOME, to be exact. if you don’t believe me, set up a system for yourself with gdesklets running on gnome and the equivelent superkaramba on kde.
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Anonymous
“Does KDE use too much memory?”
3 TIMES AS MUCH MEMORY AS GNOME, to be exact. if you don’t believe me, set up a system for yourself with gdesklets running on gnome and the equivelent superkaramba on kde.
How about: “If you do not believe me: here are some numbers that I have gotten while experimenting”
or: “These was the exact setup I used, so that you can verify my claims” (the scientific method)
have you verified that it wasn’t just caches that were allocated from your system, but real used memory? Until you go into a little more detail I am forced to take your finding with a big grain of salt.
What i can take from your comment is that there is at least a perceived problem with the memory usage on which people will have to work.
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segedunum
3 TIMES AS MUCH MEMORY AS GNOME, to be exact. if you don’t believe me, set up a system for yourself with gdesklets running on gnome and the equivelent superkaramba on kde.
Errr, no. The memory numbers you’ll get are completely different depending on things like caching, particularly on Linux. Open GDesklets, Firefox, Nautilus and Evolution and all those normal apps you use and watch it go down the pan. KDE’s memory usage will stay just about consistent.
It’s a well known fact that you can’t run Gnome on anything less than 256 MB, and the more the better.
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SlackerJack
If funny that you cannot come up with anything other than to reflect my comments off the subject, you make it sound like KDE is perfect. Even the devs are not happy with KDE since most of the time it’s been redesigned so many times, and KDe4 will be no different.
KDE needs to get it’s act together and produce a design that they are going to stick with, not change it when they want. GNOME has stayed the same since early days showing the design was sound in the first place, KDE just add after add change design after design, KDE4 a redesign of something thats already wrong.
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Anonymous
If funny that you cannot come up with anything other than to reflect my comments off the subject
No what I try to achieve is to get a discussion going that does not simply repeat buzzwords, but contains actual information, as this is the only way that anything can actually achieved.
, you make it sound like KDE is perfect.
That was not my intention, and I do not believe that most people will see it that way. The intenion of that comment was to try to get you to verbalize your specific problems with KDE so that these can be discussed.
Even the devs are not happy with KDE since most of the time it’s been redesigned so many times
Do you know how many times the Mercedes Benz has been redesigned? (Not that I would compare KDE to that car, it is just supposed to act as an example)
Every time you design/implement/create something you learn. You see parts that work out differently than you anticipated, see parts that might have been achieved better or simply learned that you have made a wrong choice somewhere. The result of this process is that you would like to change it to the better. Hence the redesign.
I do not believe perfection can be achieved, so there is always place to improvement. Personally I would rather be alarmed if something does not change. (I know some people value stability higher than improvement, but this is a question of values, not of right/wrong or good/bad)
GNOME has stayed the same since early days showing the design was sound in the first place
Another possible explanation would be that they just stick to the design out of conveniece or dislike of change. (Again purely speculative and not meant as an attack.)
KDE4 a redesign of something thats already wrong.
Why would you redesign something that is right? I believe that the community of KDE sees room for improvement, and grasps this chance to actually implements it. I cannot see a problem with that. People are not forced to upgrade to KDE4, after all it is open source. They could stick to KDE3 for as long as they like.
2005-11-20 9:15 am
cm__
I know you’re a troll, but…
> Use case 1:
> KDE developers: WTF? DBUS? We will never implement it we are alright withg DCUP.
Not true. There had never been a decision in that direction.
a) DBUS wasn’t stable API-wise at the time. It was deemed too early and immature to decide.
b) Backwards compatibility in the KDE3 release cycle forced KDE to keep DCOP anyway and made it impossible to “jump” to DBUS. Nonetheless there have been efforts to support DBUS in parallel before anything on that matter was heard from Trolltech.
c) DCOP *did* do well, that’s the only true part. That’s why DBUS is modelled after DCOP.
> Use case 2:
> KDE developers: FreeDesktop.org sucks we won’t use any of their standars.
That’s a filthy lie. Many of the successful fd.o specs are co-authored by KDE developers.
But please note:
– fd.o does not define standards. You may want to read what they say themselves on their page.
– In my book, only adoption by more than one major desktop makes a spec a de-facto standard. There are quite a few examples of that, but there’s also a lot of cruft that will never be used in a cross-desktop fashion. Just dumping a document or software at fd.o does not mean much.
BTW: See http://aseigo.blogspot.com/2005/11/cooperation.html for more info on the topic of cooperation.
> Use case 3:
> KDE developers: LSB? bah Who needs them is not going to be succefull w/o us.
So what? IMHO it *couldn’t* be successful without also standardizing KDE support (and hence Qt support). LSB hasn’t taken off yet. The future will tell if it ever will. But it’s good to see that there is cooperation on the matter between KDE, LSB and Trolltech.
> Use case 4:
> KDE developers: Porting KDE apps to Windows? no way, we need our user to be locked in our desktop.
Nonsense. You’re probably alluding to what one developer has said in his blog. Big deal. Other KDE developers had a different opinion and so a port was started. It’s Free Software, remember? Trolltech’s move to GPL Qt on Windows was of course favourable for the Windows port (OTOH independent efforts to port Qt/X11 had already been on their way).
Please do keep in mind that there are many KDE developers and every one has (and is entitled to) his own opinions. None of your “use cases” has ever been official KDE consensus or policy.
Edited 2005-11-20 09:23
2005-11-20 1:57 pm
Anonymous
“It’s a well known fact that you can’t run Gnome on anything less than 256 MB, and the more the better.”
I have to disgree here from personal experience. I run GNOME (Ubuntu 5.04) on a 900 Mhz Celeron w/ 128 MB or RAM (minus the 16 MB devoted to integrated graphics)
It isn’t overly snappy, but it is fairly responsive until you start opening more than 2 or 3 apps or use multiple tabs in Firefox. Then it slows to the speed of molasses in winter.
I have to say I like both desktops equally and it is hard to choose. For eye candy and familiarity though I prefer KDE, but GNOME ain’t shabby either.
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segedunum
It isn’t overly snappy, but it is fairly responsive until you start opening more than 2 or 3 apps or use multiple tabs in Firefox. Then it slows to the speed of molasses in winter.
So you can’t run it on that mount of memory then? Thanks.
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dylansmrjones
Well, the same is true for KDE
We shouldn’t really compare memory usage between KDE, Gnome, Mac OS X and Windows, but rather between the group of large systems (Windows, Mac OS X, Gnome and KDE) to smaller systems like EDE [Equinox Desktop Environment], AROS, MorphOS, Syllable, SkyOS, Haiku, Zeta and of course the always brilliant AmigaOS
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Anonymous
It isn’t overly snappy, but it is fairly responsive until you start opening more than 2 or 3 apps or use multiple tabs in Firefox. Then it slows to the speed of molasses in winter.
“So you can’t run it on that mount of memory then? Thanks.”
If you read the first part of my post, you would have understood that I said you *can* The results are merely not as satisfactory as running with 256 or more.
Besides, the issue being debated is GNOME itself, not the apps. Obviously if you start running multiple apps on a system that is underpowered, it doesn’t really matter what desktop environment you use- your performance will suck. It is not GNOME’s fault that I choose to put that old HP Pavilion through its paces and page like a lunatic.
2005-11-20 2:38 pm
Anonymous
Where are the comments about Ubuntu here? All you guys talk about is KDE or Gnome, and (k)ubuntu keeps both happy!
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2005-11-20 3:13 pm
Buffalo SoldierWas about to ask the same question
I guess any news that mentions “KDE” or “Gnome” will lead to this debate all over again.
2005-11-20 4:07 pm
cm__
> Many people even get surprised when you tell them
> that their PC hardware and windows are separate
> parts. To these users KDE is not a good fit.
It’s really funny to see that half the people who say that KDE was doomed (in the corporate world or not) argue that it is because KDE is not for windows users and the other half hold that KDE cannot succeed because it is too much like windows. Am I the only one who thinks that this is completely contradictory?
IMHO most arguments brought up in the troll wars in web forums like this are irrelevant to the real world.
– The GPL licencse of Qt that’s brought up ad nauseam is of no concern to a corporate KDE user who needs to write up letters and spreadsheets, and print them. The majority doesn’t do any software development, they just USE software.
– Third party developers have several choices:
* develop their apps under a GPL-compatible license
* buy a Closed Source license and choose whatever license they want. The license cost is small compared to the annual salary of a software developer.
* choose any other toolkit. The apps will run just fine under KDE and with gtk-qt they will even look native.
– Usability of KDE can and will be improved, but even in its current state it is *no* killer argument against it. There is ample proof that regular users can cope just fine with KDE in a corporate setting (where there are admins to take care of the setup!).
* One example is here: http://dot.kde.org/1131711558/
* The city of Munich will go for Debian and KDE, too.
* At the office I work there are quite a few Linux users, and AFAIK none of them runs a GNOME desktop. It’s either KDE or plain WindowMaker. And I don’t know a single person who runs redhat. Now I don’t make the mistake to generalise my personal experience to the whole world, but I ask everyone else to avoid that error, too, especially the people from the US and Mexico where redhat is dominant.
– Looks are not as important as trolls make it, and it’s configurable. Any distro and/or corporate admin can do it for the end user, and computer savvy end users can do it themselves. It’s really not complicated. That voids all the “KDE is ugly”, “KDE is too colourful”, … threads.
– Configuration management and lockdown is important in the business world. KDE’s kiosk framework and the related application kiosktool is worth looking at for that.
Edited 2005-11-20 16:15
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Anonymous
“Usability of KDE can and will be improved, but even in its current state it is *no* killer argument against it. There is ample proof that regular users can cope just fine with KDE in a corporate setting (where there are admins to take care of the setup!).”
you’re missing the point. gnome already fits the bill NOW. why adjust every single kde app when there is gnome that fits the bill straight out of the box?
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dylansmrjones
Because some people prefer KDE no matter what?
Just like some of us prefer Gnome over KDE. Personally I’d stick to Knome if that choice existed
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segedunum
you’re missing the point. gnome already fits the bill NOW. why adjust every single kde app when there is gnome that fits the bill straight out of the box?
Because they don’t fit the bill. Many Gnome/GTK apps are not particularly complete, and when you compare the quality of stuff like Amarok, Digikam or K3B there is simply no contest. KDE does not require a .Net clone to increase the quality of its applications. From that point of view KDE apps are more than usable because of the inherant quality, integration and the framework between them.
There are of course things to enhance on and work on the usability front, but that’s always an ongoing process. Gnome still has quite a bit of work, because usability is not about having a HIG and talking about crap like about icons, clutter and clean and professional. Usability is about how fit applications are for the purpose, whether they actually work and do what they say on the tin and the functionality an application presents. Human interface guidelines are important, but they are just a part of an overall whole.
You have this the wrong way round.
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Anonymous
“Because they don’t fit the bill. Many Gnome/GTK apps are not particularly complete, and when you compare the quality of stuff like Amarok, Digikam or K3B there is simply no contest.”
why does every kde person out there think that the quality of a DE depends upon a cd burner(k3b) and an unneedlessly complex player(ie amorak. the mini cd player on kde, noatun , can’t survive more than 5 minutes without crashing. have you noticed that noatun flickers(ie its crashed…again) in the top left hand corner of the screen with an error message on every single distro after 5 minutes of usage. after killing the app, it returns with crashed due to signal 11). i have news for you. it doesn’t. i can say exactly the same thing about gimp, inkscape, and gaim.
you seem to think that if the application is not packed with functionality, then it must be incomplete. think again. there are no more gnome apps that are incomplete as there are kde apps that are incomplete.
“Usability is about how fit applications are for the purpose, whether they actually work and do what they say on the tin and the functionality an application presents.”
the problem with most kde apps is that most average users can’t figure out what the kde app is supposed to do on the tin. they need to get rid of the clutter. one of the many problem that kde has is that the developers seem to equate usability with amount of functionality. but that, sadly, is not the case with the average user. people will much more readily use an application thats easy to use than one that has a confusing interface and is packed like a sardine with functionality, most of which the user will never use.
“Gnome still has quite a bit of work”
gnome doesn’t have any work to do on that front. thats why its the favoured desktop for the average user.
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SlackerJack
Come on now, I’ve seen this time and time again from KDE users thinking GNOME has no answer to k3b, Digikam and amarok.
Ever heard of Nautilus burner?, cd/dvd, audio burning intergration?
Ever heard of F-spot?
http://www.gnome.org/projects/f-spot/
Ever heard of Banshee?
http://banshee-project.org/Main_Page
Ever heard of Muine?
Every heard of GnomeBaker?
http://gnomebaker.sourceforge.net/v2/
Ever heard of Graveman?
http://graveman.tuxfamily.org/index.php
KDE dont have ANY cd/dvd burning intergration what so ever and k3b does NOT come with KDE, Nautilus cd/dvd burner does. KDE people just get worse every time.
2005-11-20 4:14 pm
Anonymous
I get this in Opera9 win32 on “ubuntu.com”
Invalid URL
The URL http://ubuntu.com‘ contains characters that are not valid in the location they are found.
The reason for their presence may be a mistyped URL, but the URL may also be an attempt to trick you into visiting a website which you might mistakenly think is a site you trust.
2005-11-20 4:27 pm
cm__
> you’re missing the point. gnome already fits the
> bill NOW. why adjust every single kde app when
> there is gnome that fits the bill straight out of the box?
No, *you* are missing the point.
As I said: The usability arguments are not that relevant. The difference is not as important as the flamers make it. Things like good support for an existing Kolab server, other KDE features like kiosk or maybe even familiarity with either KDE or GNOME on the part of the consultants doing the planning/implementation in a company play a much greater role.
And KDE is used by real users (corporate or not) *right now*, and straight out of the box without problems. Even my dad could do it after I set up Kubuntu for him. Guess what, he hasn’t seen a single configuration dialog yet. The “five million config options” argument is vastly exaggerated. Repeating this FUD doesn’t make it any more true…
Then why improve the usability of KDE apps? Because it’s improving a good (IMHO superior) thing.
Edited 2005-11-20 16:31
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Anonymous
“Then why improve the usability of KDE apps?”
the proof is in the pudding. if the licence is no problem anymore, there must be another reason why gnome is the preferred desktop by corporastions who have done their research into what is best for their customers(ie ordinary non-linux-geek users). and that primary reason is the btter usability and productivity of gnome.
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Anonymous
there must be another reason why gnome is the preferred desktop by corporastions
politics? inertia? there are a lot of possible explanations…
corporastions who have done their research into what is best for their customers
cooperations will have done research into what is best for their bottom line. If that coincidently is the same as what is the best thing for their customers, good for them. But I would not count on it.
that primary reason is the btter usability and productivity of gnome.
I have yet to see a study that shows that (other those “because I say so” anecdotal evidence posters)
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segedunum
there must be another reason why gnome is the preferred desktop by corporastions who have done their research into what is best for their customers(ie ordinary non-linux-geek users).
These companies do no research whatsoever (and they dn’t eve know what they have), and you make them look far, far better than they really are by suggesting that they do.
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cm__
> These companies do no research whatsoever
Yes, that’s another explanation that is probably true with quite a few companies.
2005-11-20 4:42 pm
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Anonymous
Its beyond me how a distro update turned into a brutal KDE vs Gnome war
I can imagine troll messages like these
http://osnews.com/permalink.php?news_id=12721&comment_id=62230
have a tendency to poison the climate. It would be interesting to see if there is a correlation between the time of the first troll post and the probability of the discussion turing into a flamefest.
2005-11-20 4:44 pm
cm__
> [GNOME] got a much better implementation of the desktop metaphor than KDE (and windows) has.
Could you please elaborate? This is very abstract.
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dylansmrjones
Looks like it could be a reply to one of my posts, but I’m not sure.
If I can establish the fact, it’s a reply to one of my posts, then it will be answered my be.
But please use the reply-link below a post to reply. It makes it a lot easier to follow replies
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cm__
> But please use the reply-link below a post to reply. It
> makes it a lot easier to follow replies
Once again.
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dylansmrjones
But it’s mainly a question what happens during drag’n’drop, click and doubleclick actions.
Drag’n’drop is much more implemented in Gnome than in KDE. Some will see this as a good thing, and other will recoil in horror
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Anonymous
Drag’n’drop is much more implemented in Gnome than in KDE. Some will see this as a good thing, and other will recoil in horror
The problem that I have with drag’n’drop is that it is invisible functionality. How to let your users know that something is possible as drag and drop action is a hard problem. (And no, I do not think RTFM is a way to letting your users know these kind of things 😉
And do you drop a document onto the tool, or the other way around? What if both is possible?
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dylansmrjones
Well, you do have a point, but usually dragging (and dropping) a document into a window should open sid document in that window.
Dragging a theme to a theme chooser, and dropping the theme right there should switch the current theme to the dropped theme.
Just like dropping a document on a printer. This should result in a dialogue popping asking you for how many copies you want printed, what pages (if a text document) and so on.
Dropping the printer on the document doesn’t make sense.
Rule is: You drag the document you want to manipulate on the tool you want to manipulate it with.
Exception to rule: This exception is most likely to occur within an application (dropping a bucket on an image changes the color of that area to whatever color is in the bucket).
I prefer drag’n’drop because I’m used to this from OS/2. There’s a lot of things you can’t drag’n’drop in Windows and KDE. KDE however allows you to configure pretty much everything, which Gnome doesn’t. A combination would be the perfect solution for me.
2005-11-20 5:05 pm
cm__
> think again.
Oh, how convincing.
[Hint: GNOME apps don’t fit the bill in some cases. I’ve explained it already. I’ve given examples. Twice.]
Edited 2005-11-20 17:13
2005-11-20 5:33 pm
cm__
> there must be another reason why gnome is the preferred desktop by corporastions
Simple. It just isn’t, as I’ve explained above. Not here. Maybe where you live.
So if companies in different regions of the world come to different conclusions then the usability argument cannot be the decicive factor.
Edited 2005-11-20 17:37
2005-11-20 5:45 pm
Morty
I miss this feature not only on k3b but there are _no_ good gui app for it: make a copy of video-dvds.
Are you sure? Have you looked at KDE-Apps.org lately? There are several and some of them looks like they have rather good guis
Like DVD Rip-O-Matic: http://www.kde-apps.org/content/show.php?content=21455
Or k9copy:
http://www.kde-apps.org/content/show.php?content=23885
2005-11-20 6:14 pm
cm__
> But please use the reply-link below a post to reply. It makes it a lot easier to follow replies
Testing…this post should be a reply to your post. (I experienced problems with this forum feature, let’s see)
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-
2005-11-20 11:05 pm
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cm__
Another (hopefully the last) test.
[Edit: Yeah, works now. That’s Open Source for you.]
Edited 2005-11-21 06:11
2005-11-20 7:02 pm
archiesteel
These are the people that will have problem using KDE. They are not likely to fill out any polls on a Linux site. Even if they happened to enter such site and see the poll, would they even know if they liked KDE or Gnome. Many people even get surprised when you tell them that their PC hardware and windows are separate parts. To these users KDE is not a good fit.
So, the data in your polls could probably give you some weak indication that geeks prefer KDE, but not much more than that. This is no surprise. KDE fits very well into Unix culture, where everything is possible for the Unix wizzard.
I’m sorry, but I find this *highly* speculative. The fact is that there aren’t that many “average” Linux users (which, again, is an ill-defined group) compared to “geek” users right now. I do not believe that “geek” users are the minority yet.
That said, I do not believe that users are generally clueless – of course, support people will hear about the clueless ones because these are the ones that will call tech support. The “sample bias” you say applies to online polls also applies to tech support users.
The only scientific usability testing I’ve seen done used both Gnome and KDE, and users found tasks similarly easy/difficult on both DEs (then again, the sample size was pretty small so the data reliability is not optimal).
As others mentioned earlier, familiarity is as important – if not more important – than “intuitive” UI design. The fact is that KDE seems more familiar to Windows users than Gnome, and therefore one could make the case that business users – the vast majority of which are Windows users – would prefer KDE over Gnome.
A good example is the Open/Save dialog. The KDE one is closer in style to the MS Office open/file dialog (I won’t say the Windows one, because they’re quite inconsistent across varied Windows apps), while the Gnome one is decidedly different. Doing an informal test with my girlfriend and my roommate, I saw that both of them were more hesitant with the Gnome dialog than with the KDE one.
My take on it is that there isn’t enough data to determine whether KDE or Gnome is more friendly to newbie users, nor to know if the initial friendliness has much of an impact on how quickly they’d become proficient with either of the DEs.
As for RedHat and Novell, well, neither of them dominates the “business” Linux Desktop by a wide enough margin to impose their choice of DEs. KDE isn’t doomed, neither is Gnome. Both DEs will continue to compete, improve and interoperate, and that is a good thing.
2005-11-20 7:12 pm
archiesteel
dylanmrjones, I usually appreciate your posts in other threads but calling my post stupid is uncalled for. It looks to me as if all you want is to pick a fight with me by saying that I want to start flamewars, which is in itself seems quite stupid.
I didn’t say that you should use Konq, Amarok or K3b. I’m saying that I, personally, think they’re the best apps of their kind. We’re talking about personal taste here! I’m not saying that Xmms sucks, or that Firefox sucks (I use 32-bit Firefox on my 64-bit system to access flash websites and trailers.apple.com).
What is best for me isn’t necessarily what is best for you, but I can still say which apps I believe to be the best. You’re then free to disagree. This can be done respectfully, in the spirit of open debate, without calling anyone stupid.
Stating personal preferences is not starting a flamewar. Saying “KDE suxx0rz” is. Can you see the difference? The former is positive affirmation (i.e. “I like this”), while the other is negative affirmation (i.e. “This sucks”).
I am not trying to start or fuel a flamewar, which is why I’ve stated repeatedly that I think both DEs are great. In fact, I used Gnome exclusively for a little less than a year when I started to use Linux.
I think you owe me an apology.
2005-11-20 7:19 pm
archiesteel
Yeah, and those posts also contain the sentence: “KDE is superior to Gnome, because of X KDE-app, and Y KDE-app and Z KDE-app, all superior to anything on Gnome.”
Show me a SINGLE post where I wrote this. Just one.
If you can’t, then please acknowledge that you were wrong and apologize, otherwise I’ll be forced to consider you a liar.
I NEVER said that KDE is superior to Gnome. I said that, to me, Konq, amaroK and K3b are superior to alternatives (not just Gnome alternatives, but alternatives from other computing platforms as well). That does NOT mean that KDE is superior to Gnome.
I also said I PERSONALLY felt that KDE was in fact technically superior to Gnome because of such technologies as kio_slaves and the like, however again that does not mean that KDE is in fact superior to Gnome (as technically superior does not necessarily mean better), and it certainly does not mean that the two argument (technologies and apps) are related.
You are trying to put words in my mouth, and I hate that. It’s not my fault if you misunderstood me.
2005-11-20 7:23 pm
archiesteel
Oh it does. It implies that Gnome are technically inferior to KDE, and therefore not as good as KDE
No it doesn’t, and adding a smiley doesn’t take away from the fact that you’re trying to put words into my mouth.
The fact is that better technology does not mean better usability, therefore the fact that, IMO, KDE is (marginally) technologically superior to Gnome doesn’t meant that it is better.
Jeez, try to make an argument with any kind of subtlety here…
2005-11-20 7:37 pm
archiesteel
why does every kde person out there think that the quality of a DE depends upon a cd burner(k3b) and an unneedlessly complex player
We don’t. I do think that Gimp and Inkscape are better than their KDE counterpart, and I use them in KDE. (I do prefer Kopete over Gaim, however.)
the problem with most kde apps is that most average users can’t figure out what the kde app is supposed to do on the tin. they need to get rid of the clutter.
“Clutter” is often determined by functionality, not design.
According to your logic, Gimp and Inkscape would fail, because their interface is cluttered. A program like Maya or 3DStudioMax would fail, because their interfaces are cluttered.
Reality check: complex programs have complex interfaces. Simple programs have simple ones. That’s as true for KDE as it is for Gnome, Windows or Mac OSX.
gnome doesn’t have any work to do on that front. thats why its the favoured desktop for the average user.
Please provide empirical data to prove that Gnome is the favored desktop for the average user or stop repeating this bit of opinion as if it was fact. Thank you.
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Anonymous
“We don’t. I do think that Gimp and Inkscape are better than their KDE counterpart, and I use them in KDE. (I do prefer Kopete over Gaim, however.)”
yes you do!! how many times have people said/written “kde applications are much better than their gnome equivelents. just look at k3b and amorak. there are no gnome equivelents blah blah blah”
‘”Clutter” is often determined by functionality, not design.’
no it isn’t. its to do with the design of the interface. the technique is to fit the maximum possible functionality into an application while keeping the interface as intuitive and simple as possible. kde have it the other way round – they seem to want to make even the most basic of applications seem complex, almost as if the number of buttons determines how much functionality it has. its is PLAINLY OBVIOUS that the kde developers don’t write with any end user in mind other than themselves and their own kind.
“Reality check: complex programs have complex interfaces. Simple programs have simple ones. That’s as true for KDE as it is for Gnome, Windows or Mac OSX. ”
i can tell that you’ve never studied interface design in your life. see my comments above. unfortunately for kde developers/designers, it requires using some planning before the application is even started.
do you remember the old newtonian laws of physics that stated that complex stimuli produced complex results and simple stimuli produced simple results? along came chaos theory and proved it all wrong. you may be surprised to know that chaos theory is utilised in a considerably greater number of applications/subjects than physics, one of which is computing and design.
“Please provide empirical data to prove that Gnome is the favored desktop for the average user”
the proof is in the pudding. i’ve already stated this.
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segedunum
yes you do!! how many times have people said/written “kde applications are much better than their gnome equivelents. just look at k3b and amorak. there are no gnome equivelents blah blah blah”
There are no equivalents to those applications. K3B and Amarok are simply the best there is, but in their fields the GIMP and Inkscape are much further on than their KDE equivalents although Krita is about there now. There is also Scribus, but strictly speaking that isn’t a KDE app although it does use Qt.
its is PLAINLY OBVIOUS that the kde developers don’t write with any end user in mind other than themselves and their own kind.
I have news for you – neither do Gnome’s developers. Usability is about a lot more than adhering to some human interface guidelines.
i can tell that you’ve never studied interface design in your life.
He’s right to a large extent. Complex functionality tends to need seemingly complex interfaces in some ways – there’s no getting away from it. A good example is spatial Nautiules. Many people thought they were being extremely clever trying to come up with something more user friendly, and then many people realised it didn’t make anything easier at all and that managing folders still required a sensible interface that is many people thought was too complex. That’s why you’ve got tree views over the years.
do you remember the old newtonian laws of physics that stated that complex stimuli produced complex results and simple stimuli produced simple results? along came chaos theory and proved it all wrong. you may be surprised to know that chaos theory………………
I can see you like getting as far up your own backside and as off-topic as you can go.
However, at no stage has chaos theory ever proved Newton’s laws of physics wrong – quite the opposite in fact. That’s just unbelievable bollocks. Out of apparent chaos comes some semblance of order, otherwise we, and user interfaces, simply wouldn’t exist. There are always reasons why things are the way that they are. Chaos is merely a reflection of us humans, our lack of knowledge, our lack of understanding of something and our lack of comprehension at any given point in time. I think it’s one of the biggest red herrings there has ever been in science.
the proof is in the pudding. i’ve already stated this.
It most certainly is, and based on actual usage you’re wrong ;-). That’s a small matter of your theories not coming good in practice.
Edited 2005-11-20 21:44
2005-11-20 8:23 pm
Anonymous
“Reality check: complex programs have complex interfaces. Simple programs have simple ones. That’s as true for KDE as it is for Gnome, Windows or Mac OSX.”
its a good job you weren’t asked to develop america’s Star Wars program.
2005-11-20 8:43 pm
archiesteel
yes you do!! how many times have people said/written “kde applications are much better than their gnome equivelents. just look at k3b and amorak. there are no gnome equivelents blah blah blah”
Sigh. Let’s look at what you originally wrote, so that I may demonstrate how your affirmation was false.
why does every kde person out there think that the quality of a DE depends upon a cd burner(k3b) and an unneedlessly complex player
You start out by saying “why does every kde person out there”. “Every” means “all”, as in “every single one”. So, according to you, every single kde user claims that the quality of KDE depends on K3b and amaroK (which, btw, has a very well-designed UI).
That is clearly not true. For starters, there are quite a few Gnome users that use K3b and amaroK, just like I, as a KDE user, use a number of Gtk apps. Also, many people would prefer KDE not because of amaroK or K3b, but because of other apps, features and technologies. I know of at least one person who thinks this way (they use KDE on a workstation that managers servers, and therefore has no media player or CD burner). Therefore your overly broad affirmation is clearly false.
no it isn’t. its to do with the design of the interface. the technique is to fit the maximum possible functionality into an application while keeping the interface as intuitive and simple as possible.
Would you say that Gimp and Inkscape have simple interfaces? How about Maya or (god forbid) 3DSMax?
As someone said before, intuition is only one element of UI design. Clarity and familiarity are others. But ultimately the important aspect of an app is what it allows you to do. An app can have the best UI in the world, if the functionality isn’t there it’s useless.
kde have it the other way round – they seem to want to make even the most basic of applications seem complex, almost as if the number of buttons determines how much functionality it has. its is PLAINLY OBVIOUS that the kde developers don’t write with any end user in mind other than themselves and their own kind.
That’s a gratuitious assertion. Simple apps such as kwrite have simple interfaces, because they have simple functions. K3b has a simple, easy-to-use interface, so does amaroK (compared to its functionality).
Even Konqueror is simple to use. The biggest gripe people have against it is that there are three or four buttons on the toolbar that shouldn’t be there…I’m sorry, but I have a hard time taking this seriously. The fact is that I’ve have complete novices use Konqueror to browse the web and they had no problems using it. In fact, at least one of them asked me what version of Internet Explorer this was…
i can tell that you’ve never studied interface design in your life.
Actually, I have. I’ve designed web sites for years, and I have been designing console games for the past five years, including the UI. I’ve done focus tests (formal and informal) for these games as well.
The fact is that UI design is not an exact science. What works for some people won’t work for others. Saying that there is “one true way” to devise UIs is either being excessively naive, presumptuous or downright dishonest.
the proof is in the pudding. i’ve already stated this.
The fact that you’ve stated it means nothing, that’s just an example of the logical fallacy known as “Begging the question.”
What I want is empirical studies showing that Gnome is indeed the preferred choice of “average users”, as well as a clear definition of what constitutes an average user.
Until then, all you’re doing is presenting your opinion as fact, and that’s not a valid argument.
2005-11-20 8:48 pm
archiesteel
You know, speaking of UI design, there’s an “edit” button that lets you add text to a comment you’ve already posted (within a certain time limit). If you were a real user, and not an anonymous poster, you’d be able to use it. Why not create a user on OSNews?
That said, your comment doesn’t make much sense. What does the Star Wars program have to do with UI design? I’m certain the UI to control the program, like just about any specialized UI out there, will be quite complex.
Have you ever looked at the dashboard of a fighter plane? It’s not simple and it’s not intuitive. But once you learn it it’s efficient. Ultimately, that’s the most important thing about a UI: how efficient will it be once I’ve gone past the learning curve and use it daily. The rest is not that important.
-
Anonymous
“Have you ever looked at the dashboard of a fighter plane? It’s not simple and it’s not intuitive. But once you learn it it’s efficient. Ultimately, that’s the most important thing about a UI: how efficient will it be once I’ve gone past the learning curve and use it daily. The rest is not that important.”
again, missing thr point. how many untrained average users are going to use the UI on the dashboard of a fighter plane?
i simply can’t believe that you’ve ever studied UI design if you believe that complex functionality equates to a complex interface. you should have been taught that the whole point is to simplify the interface as much as possible no matter how much functionality is present.
2005-11-20 9:12 pm
2005-11-20 9:52 pm
Anonymous
I can’t believe it, almost 200 posts and hadly any of them about Ubuntu. It sounds like a kindergarten in here… LOL
2005-11-20 10:45 pm
2005-11-20 10:45 pm
archiesteel
again, missing thr point. how many untrained average users are going to use the UI on the dashboard of a fighter plane?
No, YOU are missing the point. Sometimes the amount of functionality means that a simple interface is not practical. Again, you refused to answer my questions: do you think that Gimp and Inkscape have simple UIs?
i simply can’t believe that you’ve ever studied UI design if you believe that complex functionality equates to a complex interface. you should have been taught that the whole point is to simplify the interface as much as possible no matter how much functionality is present.
That’s simply not true. What you suggest can lead to oversimplification, i.e. making advanced functions not easily available simply to provide a cleaner interface.
The fact is that you want users to be efficient, and that means giving easy access to all functionality. That, in turn, means striking a correct balance between clarity and availability. Take a look at a program like Gimp: there are tons of buttons, widgets, menus and dialogs. You could try to hide them as much as possible, but that means that the user would always have to navigate through the menus and dialogs to access these functions. Instead, they’ve opted to strike a balance between simplicity and complexity. So Gimp ends up with a moderately complex UI that is very efficient once you’ve learned to use it.
And that’s the key element here: it’s okay to expect users to actually learn a UI. That’s okay. Users are not idiots. Treating them as if they were only dumbs down the entire computing experience by bringing everything down to the lowest common denominator. This is a very dangerous attitude to have in UI design.
In other words, the main objective of UI design should not be simplicity, but efficiency. Oversimplifying things is simply bad UI design.
2005-11-20 10:59 pm
Anonymous
KDE has a problem and its obvious denie it won’t help and the problem is and will be the the Qt licensing problem this has only bring frustrations to KDE, they should get rid of Qt, the technical merits of Qt are not questionable but its licensing is, by now KDE hasn’t been succesull enought thanks to its atachment to TrollTech, LSB, Mayor Linux Distributors and the list goes and goes, and instead of fix the problem they simple denie it and blame others like any meciocre would do, and they blame GNOME for lack of KDE developers vision, don’t look the problem in GNOME look for them in your own camp.
And this has bring frustration to the developers too, and they are exploting, but of course they will denie it, the frustration they have found in the KDE/TrollTech relation has made them to a totally retarded troll behavior:
http://phi.lv/wp-content/harald_sitter.txt
And of course there will be many reactions and I will be labeled as a troll, but the problem will remain and ignore it won’t help.
KDE will never win simple as long its attached to TrollTech.
2005-11-20 11:00 pm
Anonymous
Use case 1:
KDE developers: WTF? DBUS? We will never implement it we are alright withg DCUP.
TrollTech: We are going to support DBUS.
KDE developers: Yes Master.
Use case 2:
KDE developers: FreeDesktop.org sucks we won’t use any of their standars.
TrollTech: We must cooperate with FreeDesktop.org
KDE developers: Yes Master.
Use case 3:
KDE developers: LSB? bah Who needs them is not going to be succefull w/o us.
TrollTech: Now tha LSN is an ISO standar we need to get involt with them
KDE developers: Yes Master.
Use case 4:
KDE developers: Porting KDE apps to Windows? no way, we need our user to be locked in our desktop.
TrollTech: Now that Qt4 is going to be GPL for Windows we need you to port KDE apps so we can sell more expensive licenses.
KDE developers: Yes Master.
2005-11-20 11:17 pm
Anonymous
Use case 1:
KDE developers: WTF? DBUS? We will never implement it we are alright withg DCUP.
TrollTech: We are going to support DBUS.
KDE developers: Yes Master.
Use case 2:
KDE developers: FreeDesktop.org sucks we won’t use any of their standars.
TrollTech: We must cooperate with FreeDesktop.org
KDE developers: Yes Master.
Use case 3:
KDE developers: LSB? bah Who needs them is not going to be succefull w/o us.
TrollTech: Now tha LSN is an ISO standar we need to get involt with them
KDE developers: Yes Master.
Use case 4:
KDE developers: Porting KDE apps to Windows? no way, we need our user to be locked in our desktop.
TrollTech: Now that Qt4 is going to be GPL for Windows we need you to port KDE apps so we can sell more expensive licenses.
KDE developers: Yes Master.
2005-11-20 11:17 pm
Anonymous
KDE has a problem and its obvious denie it won’t help and the problem is and will be the the Qt licensing problem this has only bring frustrations to KDE, they should get rid of Qt, the technical merits of Qt are not questionable but its licensing is, by now KDE hasn’t been succesull enought thanks to its atachment to TrollTech, LSB, Mayor Linux Distributors and the list goes and goes, and instead of fix the problem they simple denie it and blame others like any meciocre would do, and they blame GNOME for lack of KDE developers vision, don’t look the problem in GNOME look for them in your own camp.
And this has bring frustration to the developers too, and they are exploting, but of course they will denie it, the frustration they have found in the KDE/TrollTech relation has made them to a totally retarded troll behavior:
http://phi.lv/wp-content/harald_sitter.txt
And of course there will be many reactions and I will be labeled as a troll, but the problem will remain and ignore it won’t help.
KDE will never win simple as long its attached to TrollTech.
2005-11-21 5:54 am
archiesteel
I am NOT trying to start a flamewar. I’ve repeated many, many times that I think that both Gnome and KDE are good desktops. I also stated my preferences for KDE apps, saying that I thought they represented the best apps of their kind, but also mentioned Gtk apps which I thought were the best of their kind.
I am certainly NOT a fanboy, considering I’ve used Gnome for almost a year and think it’s a very good DE. What’s your fscking problem, dude?
If there’s one person trying to start a flamewar here, it’s you, not me. Stop trying to put words in my mouth.
Edited 2005-11-21 05:56
2005-11-21 8:50 am
archiesteel
Muine and Banshee are great apps, but they lack some of amaroK’s features, such as song lyrics and Wikipedia info. Also, the queue manager is quite useful for me, and “script” extensions (such as Alarm, Desktop album covers and Shouter) make amaroK a very powerful app. That’s why the app is used by many Gnome users as well.
As far cd/dvd burning integration goes, there is the burn:/ kio slave, which comes with KDE in a few distros (such as Mandriva). It is pretty much identical to the Nautilus cd/dvd burner. However, I think you’re being a bit dishonest by underlining the fact that K3b does not come as part of the basic KDE desktop. While that may be true, K3b is still a KDE app. Whether it comes with the basic KDE “set” is irrelevant or not.
I think it’s great that both KDE and Gnome have all these great apps, and it’s fine if KDE does better for some apps and Gnome does better for others. The great thing about Linux (or *nix) is that you can easily use Gtk/Gnome apps with KDE and Qt/KDE apps with Gnome. I think that this is one of Linux’s strength, and that we shouldn’t fight over this. Unfortunately, some people feel otherwise, like those who hijacked this thread to attack KDE (I would denounce them as well if it had been the other way around, by the way).
KDE people just get worse every time.
Can’t we just all get along? There’s really no need to lump people all in one group. We’re all *nix users, let’s just say that there are great apps in both DEs.
2005-11-21 9:21 am
SlackerJack
No I dont think we can, espeically when GNOME invite a KDE dev in good faith and that person turns out to be a spy, then slags off GNOME. I’ve noticed the GNOME Vs KDE get worse and worse and I dont see it getting any better, infact it may make both better in the form of innvoation as we are seeing.
2005-11-21 9:51 am
2005-11-21 4:12 pm
Anonymous
“However, at no stage has chaos theory ever proved Newton’s laws of physics wrong – quite the opposite in fact.”
you have no idea what you’re talking about. i didn’t say ALL of them, because there are loads. part of the basis of newtons laws said that complex stimuli always leads to complex effects and simple stimuli always leads to simple effects. choas theory proved that simple changes can result in complex effects. thereby disproving it. stick to what you know and shut the f up about what you don’t.
-
cm__
> part of the basis of newtons laws said that complex
> stimuli always leads to complex effects and simple
> stimuli always leads to simple effects.
Where do they do so? Please provide a source.
The laws commonly known as Newton’s laws don’t talk about simplicity vs. complexity at all. They are about mass and motion. And you don’t need any simplicity vs. complexity arguments for them. They are knowledge “condensed” from observations how bodies behave when forces act upon them.
And these laws hold true even for chaotic processes that involve mass and motion, for example in the case of a ferromagnetic pendulum moving in a field created by three magnets placed below it.
2005-11-21 5:48 pm
archiesteel
choas theory proved that simple changes can result in complex effects.
It also makes a point of underlining the unpredictability of such effects, which would tend to support my position on UI design: too simple interface for complex applications will lead to unexpected results.
I’m with segedunum, here. I don’t think you really know what you’re talking about. You certainly haven’t convinced me, which leads me to think you should reformulate your argument, or perhaps point us to some paper on the use of Chaos Theory in UI design. Right now it all sounds like a lot of hogwash.
2005-11-21 6:48 pm
Anonymous
Quick scan, no Ubuntu/Kubuntu. GNOME vs. KDE, as usual;-)
A question for developer among us: what do you prefer?
I for myself don’t care about which de. Tools matter. Give me more emacs, eclipse, highlevel languages…, less gnome/kde. Please.
Thanks.
I don’t get those weird version numbers. Why 5.04 and 6.04 instead of 5.0 and 6.0?
6.04 means it will be released April 2006. Check FAQ.
So why isn’t this “preview release” named (K)Ubuntu 5.11? It isn’t yet April 2006. Check calendar.
So why isn’t this “preview release” named (K)Ubuntu 5.11? It isn’t yet April 2006. Check calendar.
Because the final release version will come out in April 2006.
Edited 2005-11-19 18:44
Ahh, so then this explains what all us critics have said all along. Linux and their distros do anything to get some publicity. Even if that includes releasing 10 alphas, 10 betas, 10 RCs and 10 flights?
Gee, now I just wait to see “My review Ubuntu 6.04RC5” and then “3 days with ubuntu 6.04RC5” and preferably from 5 different people where they explain the new patched Gnome (available on every other *Nix distro) is working like expected.
I wonder why I have trouble taking Linux seriously….
You must be trolling. No one is this stupid.
LOL! And MS doesn’t do that. Last time I looked MS has been putting out Alphas, Betas and rewrites of Longhorn/Vista or whatever the name is now for like 4 years!
And we are supposed to take that serious. At least with Ubuntu they actually put out a working product on a regular! On top of that according to MS Vista will be their last major release or Windows and from now on they will do like Apple and Linux and do small release and feature updates!
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9593_22-5915900.html
Even the big boys know that this is the way to keep people interested in your products.
“So why isn’t this “preview release” named (K)Ubuntu 5.11? It isn’t yet April 2006. Check calendar.”
Because of the month/year naming system Ubuntu employs. The release version is 5 (as in 2005) and 11 (corresponding to the 11th month, November)
Because 5.04 and 6.04 not like bring order into the release numbers but also show clearly in which month and year the release was.
Kde looks like a toy desktop now i know why Suse has rid off this nonsense.
I think the KDE and GNOME both have there merits.
IMHO
GNOME is clean and to the point
KDE is rich in features
Redhat 9 Showed us that you can make them look the same.
Choice seems to be a good thing !
Mostly the same. Redhat still hasn’t fixed the window border. It doesn’t as good as metacity.
Novel has not removed KDE from SUSE. If you do not like KDE then simply use something else instead of posting such rubbish. I do not like GNOME for various reasons, but I do not feel the urge to call it nonsense. People have different preferences and choice is good thing IMHO.
I still can’t get over the decision to switch browser-mode nautilus (yuck) to default. Guess I switched to slack just in time. More on topic, I’m not sure I get the point of kubuntu. It looks like every other KDE distro out there–why make a new one?
-bytecoder
The point of KUbuntu is to give you all the features of Ubuntu with the KDE desktop.
In the future there will be more changes made to KUbuntu now that its an oficial part of the Ubuntu tree.
Remember that before KUbuntu was a side project of people that worked for Ubuntu but were KDE fans.
I still can’t get over the decision to switch browser-mode nautilus (yuck) to default. Guess I switched to slack just in time. More on topic, I’m not sure I get the point of kubuntu. It looks like every other KDE distro out there–why make a new one?
Why did I get rated down for asking a question?
-bytecoder
you probably got rated down by the KDE fanboys. don’t worry about it. its the time of the month for them, and to add ot their discomfort and fristration, they’re having to come to terms with the fact that everyone is going with gnome and shunning kde. what do they expect when the user interface is as crap, ugly, cluttered, and unusable as it is on kde. its no wonder nobody takes them seriously.
According to every survey out there, KDE is a more popular desktop than gnome.
As far as ugly goes, it depends how you theme it. You can make it as ugly or as beautiful as you want.
Both DEs are good – stop trying to start flamewars.
only amongst linux advocates. among ordinary users who are mostly familiar with windows, os x, or none, gnome is considerably more popular. the markey research has already been done.
Where is your research on this? From what I see is that almost all the big sellers, Mandrake, Redhat (Even though they use blue curve) Xandros, Linspire etc use KDE by default.
Only Ubuntu (Who know have put KUbuntu in to the main code base because KDE was so popular) and Novell (Who changed their minds real quick on making Gnome the default UI) And Novell was just thinking about costs cause they own Gnome, but found out they would loose a bunch of users or Open Suse would be forked for KDE users!
Granted the QT issue is a mess though!
“From what I see is that almost all the big sellers, Mandrake, Redhat (Even though they use blue curve) Xandros, Linspire etc use KDE by default.”
Mandrake had to file for bankruptcy
Red Hat is a heavy GNOME backer
Xandros has never paid back a $750,000 loan
Linspire has never posted a profit
“Who changed their minds real quick on making Gnome the default UI”
SLES/NLD are both still going to default to GNOME.
“And Novell was just thinking about costs cause they own Gnome”
Novell does not own GNOME.
‘Windows Sucks’ your an idiot.
First of all Mandrake is out of Bankruptcy and has made a profit!
Xandros may not have paid back a loan but they have also made a profit!
On top of that YOU have no clue if Linspire has made a profit or not because Linspire is a private company and does not post its earnings!
I am a major user of SLES 9 and if you do the default install it defaults to KDE not Gnome!
And DUH if you paid attention before you ran your mouth (And then had the nerve to post as anonymous!) Novell bought Ximian the company that Gnome was under and Miguel de Icaza the co creator of Gnome works for Novell!
Read a little before you run your mouth. LOL!
Hundreds of people from all over the world are copyright (copyleft) owners of the code in GNOME. Ximian does not own GNOME, Miguel de Icaza doesn’t own GNOME and Novel doesn’t own GNOME. Please get your facts together.
SLES and Novell Desktop will default to GNOME in future versions. Red Hat defaults to GNOME since they adopted it to replace fvwm95.
As for Lindows (oops), Xandros, etc, these are rather small distributions. Since you care about popularity so much, you should know Red Hat/Fedora, SuSE and Ubuntu are far more popular.
As for Konqueror and others being the best, that’s rather subjective. My opinion:
I refuse to run a file manager that’s also a file browser, that’s just plain bad usability copied from Microsoft Windows 98. I don’t use a CD writer, I use the file manager to write data CD’s and the music player to write audio discs. I never tried Amarok, but Banshee works wonderfully. May I also mention f-spot, that app truly kicks ass.
The point is not – hey you’re wrong, these other apps are actually the best. The point is, stick to what you prefer and stop wasting time attacking other free desktop environments. Do like KDE developers, they cooperate with GNOME.
For example, GNOME has better accessibility support out of the box than Windows. KDE is working on integrating the same framework for KDE 4, so it can be as accessible as GNOME, and ahead of proprietary software.
> I refuse to run a file manager that’s also a file browser, that’s just plain bad usability copied from Microsoft Windows 98.
Do you have any studies on that?
<rant>
It’s just that by now, I am rather convinced that the words “usability” and “bloat” have lost all their meaning, and are now priced memberers of the buzzword-bingo family.
Everybody seems to be an expert.
Please, if you feel the need to utter those words, think again, or at least qualify as to why the usability is sub-standard in your opinion, or in what regard something is bloated.
</rant>
By the way, there is an interesting opinion piece that I came across (sadly you need to have access to ACMs Digital Library, as I did not find it elsewhere…)
“The misapplication of professional opinion”
http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1096554.1096563
To Quote:
“This design isn’t simple.”
“This design isn’t consistent.”
How many times have we heard these design complaints?
Engineers and marketing managers have heard us squawking about heuristics and they’ve finally found their dictionaries and are squawking back!
Thank you for spending your time to read my little comment.
As for Lindows (oops), Xandros, etc, these are rather small distributions. Since you care about popularity so much, you should know Red Hat/Fedora, SuSE and Ubuntu are far more popular.
Linspire and Xandros are businesses that are going out, doing it and carving themselves out some revenue. Lindows are now keeping themselves ticking over with Click ‘n’ Run revenues and Xandros have revenues which seem to be sustaining them reasonably. Where’s the money coming from at Novell and Sun? Non-existant desktop deployments in China and elsewhere? You can only keep fooling people for so long, and I applaud Red Hat for at least coming out and saying it. Those big desktop distributions are quite a bit smaller than anyone thinks.
Red Hat do not have any business at all with desktops (as they’ve admitted), Suse did make a tidy profit from Suse Linux Professional for enthusiasts and small businesses (KDE based, of course) until some clever people at Novell thought they could make a corporate desktop for customers that do not exist and effectively discontinue Suse Linux. Ubuntu still needs to prove that it is sustainable, but at least Mark Shuttleworth seems to have his head screwed on the right way.
May I also mention f-spot, that app truly kicks ass.
May I also mention that Digikam pisses all over it and gets substantially less hype?
“I refuse to run a file manager that’s also a file browser, that’s just plain bad usability copied from Microsoft Windows 98.”
That isn’t quite correct. KFM (the precursor to Konq) had that feature in mid 1997 IIRC. In late 1997 when beta 2 came out, it was already fairly functional (although slow) as a web browser and very good as a file manager. Network awareness throughout the environment was present. KDE beta 4 was released (Apr 98) and was quite usable as both a browser and a file manager. My only complaints about it were that it was a tad slow compaired to Netscape, sometimes it would seem to just hang while rendering pages on the Internet (maybe that was just my crappy 24.4K connection), and the whole environment was a resource hog compaired to FVWM (still my favorite).
Yum! http://www.speculation.org/~defile/pix/desktops/current.png.
Other than that minor quibble, I absolutely agree with you. Use what suits _you_ on _your_ system.
Mandrake had to file for bankruptcy
Mandriva is now out of bankruptcy, and has started turning out a profit. Note that their financial troubles had nothing to do with KDE vs. GNOME.
Other distros that use KDE:
– Knoppix
– Kubuntu (now used by Mark Shuttleworth instead of Ubuntu
– Mepis
– PCLinuxOS
– Kanotix
Not to mention the fact that the best browser (Konqueror), the best audio player (amaroK) and the best CD/DVD-burning tool (K3b) are all KDE apps…
Both DEs are good, and benefit from the competition with each other. Stop trying to start flamewars you nasty little anonymous troll.
archiesteel, thank you for bringing the facts!
Not to mention the fact that the best browser (Konqueror), the best audio player (amaroK) and the best CD/DVD-burning tool (K3b) are all KDE apps…
Meh. Personally, I don’t like konqueror at all. It does a lot of things, but none of them well. I use rhythmbox as my music player, but only out of lack of an alternative (amaroK fares on better). K3b suffers from the same problems as konqueror.
I’d also like to point out that gnome and KDE are generally equal–they both suck, but at different things.
-bytecoder
Well… Konqueror isn’t better than FireFox, amaroK doesn’t qualify as an audio player (xmms is the only real choice) and nobody with a sane mind would use K3b to burn CDs and DVDs.
(DISCLAIMER: This was written only to show how lame archiesteel’s post was… personally I’d prefer KDE with Gnome taste, but until it’s possible I’ll stick to Gnome – even though it has some annoying flaws… And it does have those!)
archiesteel > you are starting flamewars while trying to say you’re not.
Look at your posts!
Always, some facts about both DE’s and then a line about not starting flamewars and then you start a flamewar by coming with stupid statements about one KDE-app or the other being better than any Gnome-app.
Sorry guys, but I just can’t accept that just because YOU prefer a certain KDE-apps, it should automatically mean that this app is also the best for me. Personally I prefer VLC and XMMS. And in regard to DE’s I’m not even sure about GUI’s being a good idea
What is best for you isn’t nescessarily the best for me.
It seems to me that KDE is more used in Europe, and Gnome more used in USA. Personally I consider EDE to be quite interesting (at least in terms of simplicity and low system requirements).
Funny. archiesteel tries to start a flamewar, and gets 3 points up. i point out he’s trying to start a flamewar and gets one point down.
It’s sad. We were so close to a decent tone in here, and then certain fan-boys on both sides ruin everything.
Redhat uses Gnome by default, not KDE. Thier Gnome installation uses the thier own Bluecurve theme.
No, in fact KDE is often cited as the preferred DE of people coming in from Windows, while GNOME is often preferred by Mac users.
Also, GNOME leads (by a small margin) in the U.S. while KDE leads outside of it.
Stop trying to start flamewars, you nasty little troll. Both DEs are good, though KDE is superior from a purely technical standpoint (DCOP, kio_slaves, and such).
archisteel,
It’s funny how every reply trying to stop the flame wars is clearly putting in your own opinion that you prefer KDE.
Haha!
No, in fact KDE is often cited as the preferred DE of people coming in from Windows, while GNOME is often preferred by Mac users.
People say this because GNOME has taken a lot of inspiration from Mac OS lately, while KDE is still closer to Windows in some (mostly superficial) areas. Nobody has any clue what those user groups actually prefer.
Stop trying to start flamewars, you nasty little troll. Both DEs are good, though KDE is superior from a purely technical standpoint (DCOP, kio_slaves, and such).
Don’t you feel rather hypocritical? KDE certainly has technical strengths, but so has GNOME. Although most of them are developed in a desktop-agnostic fassion these days. In the end, what really matters is what technology is used, not which project it “belongs” to.
Edited 2005-11-19 21:47
Trolling 1: Because you complain about a default setting and argues that that’s the chief reason to sitch to another distro.
Trolling 2: The ancient “why make another distro” question. People like choice, people are free to do what they want, live with it!
Also, you didn’t ask a question – you made a statement and put a question mark at the end of it.
> More on topic, I’m not sure I get the point of kubuntu. It looks like
> every other KDE distro out there–why make a new one?
Ubuntu has regular scheduled releases and support periods, commercial support available, a free CD distribution scheme and a commitment to make Linux “friendly”. They have the advantage of building on Debian as a foundation but aim to move more quickly in their release schedule.
And some people want those things with a KDE desktop… It still looks like KDE, of course, but the underlying system has some of the same “It Just Works” magic you get from standard Ubuntu. Personally I was annoyed with some niggles with SuSE and Fedora, so I switched to Kubuntu to see if it was better; I’ve been quite impressed so far.
And some people want those things with a KDE desktop… It still looks like KDE, of course, but the underlying system has some of the same “It Just Works” magic you get from standard Ubuntu. Personally I was annoyed with some niggles with SuSE and Fedora, so I switched to Kubuntu to see if it was better; I’ve been quite impressed so far.
I don’t usually like to complain about bugs in distros but the Kaffeine media player they shipped with the latest Kubuntu managed to crash or hang with just about every file it was given, and with either backend. It was obviously left almost fully untested.
There were also some other minor but obvious gliches which IMHO should not have made it into a stable release. I’d urge the kubuntu team to put more emphasis on testing. The ‘”It Just Works” magic’ really is there, though, when it happens to work.
Sadly, everything I just said seems to apply to other KDE distros as well, to some extent.
have you tried changing it to xine for some strange reason they use gstreamer. try install the kaffein-xine and then chang eit in you preference that solved the problem for me. it
On Breezy I’ve had similar problems playing movies. Hoary worked fine. Weird…
SuSE has an *extremely* high degree of “it just works”ness, especially in terms of hardware support. Possibly higher than that of (K)Ubuntu, actually. But all distros have some kind of limitation, so whenever I get fed up of one I play “switch the distro” again 😉
Hopefully Kubuntu Dapper will have better testing due to being part of the main Ubuntu thang…
Yeah, I know. Thank god you switched to Slack just in time to avoid the laborous task of clicking 4 things on the screen to switch Nautilus back to default.
Although you are right, installing Gnome seperately from the distro is SOOOO much easier than changing a simple setting.
Actually, that wasn’t the reason. I’m just glad I did it because ubuntu appears to be heading in a different direction than it once was, plus I don’t like apt-get at all (I switched because it b0rked my system upgrading to the latest release this fall).
-bytecoder
Hm, I’ve just checked all screenshots. Can’t see anything really new. What I see is GNOME and KDE
What are the most important things that will be changed in the future?
Greetings
Mike
Wow
http://packages.ubuntu.com/dapper/x11/xserver-xgl
Apparently some people in the Ubuntu forum have got it running. Now I must ‘dist-upgrade’ to see for myself…
…I hope they change the splash screen before release. I find it rather dark and bleak looking.
KDE has a problem and its obvious denie it won’t help and the problem is and will be the the Qt licesing problem this has only bring frustrations to KDE, thy should get rid of Qt, the technical merits of Qt are not questionable but its licensing is, by now KDE hasn’t been succesull enought thanks to its atachment to TrollTech, LSB, Mayor Linux Distributors and the list goes and goes, and instead of fix the problem they simple denie it and blame others like any meciocre would do, and they blame GNOME for lack of KDE developers vision, don’t look for the problem in GNOME look for them in your own camp.
And this has bring frustration to the developers too, and they are exploting, but of course they will denie it, the frutration they have found in the KDE/TrollTech relation has made them to a totally retarded troll behavior:
http://phi.lv/wp-content/harald_sitter.txt
And of course there will be many reactions and I will be labeled as a troll, but the problem will remain and ignore it won’t help.
KDE will never win simple as long its attached to TrollTech.
KDE is simple ruled by Trolltech’s.
Thank you for your insight, and thanks for posting it twice so I could read it twice.
whoa what is your problem. Who is talking about winning . Both gnome and KDE are good for what they are made. My familiy would of never moved to linux until I showed them some fancy stuff that KDE had they just did not like the look of gnome. I use gnome for one of my workstation that uses softimage. They are both good for different reasons and I think that we should grow up and stop fighthing within ourselves and should just support both of them.
KDE has a problem and its obvious denie it won’t help and the problem is and will be the the Qt licesing problem this has only bring frustrations to KDE, thy should get rid of Qt, the technical merits of Qt are not questionable but its licensing is, by now KDE hasn’t been succesull enought thanks to its atachment to TrollTech, LSB, Mayor Linux Distributors and the list goes and goes, and instead of fix the problem they simple denie it and blame others like any meciocre would do, and they blame GNOME for lack of KDE developers vision, don’t look for the problem in GNOME look for them in your own camp.
And this has bring frustration to the developers too, and they are exploting, but of course they will denie it, the frutration they have found in the KDE/TrollTech relation has made them to a totally retarded troll behavior:
http://phi.lv/wp-content/harald_sitter.txt
And of course there will be many reactions and I will be labeled as a troll, but the problem will remain and ignore it won’t help.
KDE will never win simple as long its attached to TrollTech.
KDE is simple ruled by TrollTech.
Actually, both Gnome and KDE are doomed. KDE is just doomed a little sooner than Gnome. http://antizealot.blogspot.com
For calling your blog “antizealot” you sound pretty fanatical…or perhaps instead of being against zealots you are simply “the anti-zealot”
(may I ask what your number is…666 seems to be already taken 😉