“Linux software vendor Red Hat plans to fortify its desktop Linux lineup by shipping Red Hat Linux 8.1 in April, a 32-bit technical workstation this quarter and a full-fledged corporate desktop in the next six to 12 months, the company confirmed. While the company plans to continue to position its Red Hat Linux 8.0 as a consumer-oriented product, it is gearing up for a corporate desktop in late 2003, said Mark De Visser, Red Hat’s chief marketing officer.” Read the news at CRN.
Red Hat Linux 8.1 To Ship in April, Corporate Desktop Due In Late 2003
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Thanks for the great link Eugenia.
I would say that I am excited about RedHat’s moves. I hope Mandrake and SuSE can keep up.
RedHat I think will slow down there release cycle at the end of this year. With kernel 2.6 I hope Linux will finally have all the pieces of the puzzle to make a good corporate Desktop especially with all the work Redhat is doing to make it as friendly as possible.
Now please can the commercial apps start being ported to Linux. Please use QT or GTK and if possible statically link them for installation on most systems.
We’ll see this time next year.
Why should Mandrake or SUSE keep up ? They are already far superior over RedHat because they use a native KDE implementation as their default Desktop Environment and no halfbacked unfinished mixture of GNOME, KDE and other apps. What the SUSE and Mandrake customer at the end get is:
– a full integrated,
– comple working,
– consitent looking,
– pixelexact,
– intuitive,
– standardized,
– windows like,
Desktop Environment. I know the GNOME people gonna deny it over and over again but even they must admit that KDE is definately far superior. I like to see GNOME to keep up but somehow I can’t belive this to happen. So nothing wrong with SUSE or Mandrake from my point of view.
” I know the GNOME people gonna deny it over and over again but even they must admit that KDE is definately far superior”
lightyears ahead of gnome.
I been using gnome for over 2 years.
KDE 3.1 is amazing
Maybe their spending too much time with go-mono
While reading the Article I found 2 paragraphs inside that I would like to correct and comment (from my knowledge) since they are not entirely reflecting the truth.
> The update offers an enhanced BlueCurve GUI that
> made its debut in version 8.0 in September
From what I know it’s a THEME and no GUI. Themes are meant to give a GUI some sorts of style e.g. how they look etc. We all know that the BlueCurve Theme was meant to hit some bridge between KDE and GNOME to have a unified Look. Regardless of this fact it may change the Look but not the feel of the two completely different Desktops.
> It also offers new features such as font viewing,
They are mostly refering to fontilus here. A simple Window/Dialog embedded as Nautilusview into Nautilus to show fonts. Maximum development time for such a tool might be half a day (in it’s worst). A little unshiny Dialog with 20 lines of code that get more glamour than it really weights.
> the ability to burn files to CDs
They are mostly refering here to Nautilus-CD-Burner you enter burn:// in Nautilus and nothing happens. That’s what this app exactly does here. I may be using it wrong but since there are no signs of howto use this kind of Application I got totally lost with it. On the other side I like to mention that KDE offers burning files to CD for quite some time now, you simply click on some directories within Konqueror, select MakeISO or BurnCD from the Menu and you are prompted with one CD-Burner application, all files are sorted in it already, you only need to put in the blank CD and press burn.
> KDE 3.1 and GNOME 2.2 graphical desktops.
What they put in phoebe was only pre-releases of both Desktops neither KDE 3.1 or GNOME 2.2 are out as of now.
> The enhanced GNOME file manager, Nautilus
> 2.1.5, for example, offers a new sidepane layout for
> easier navigation, transparent pointers and built-in
> archiving for groups of files
Well What they want to say is:
Basically Nautilus from GNOME 2.0 and GNOME 2.2 are indentical. Besides named Sidepane, changed preferences menu, the normal amount of *.po file contributions and the few bugfixes nothing much had happened.
What I try to explain is that these little changes Sidepane, Fontilus, Nautilus-CD-Burner are nothing much that impresses me as customer. These are nice features indeed but nothing that would make my life easier or more excited than it is now. From a technical aspect as Programmer these few tweaks are nothing to be worth the hype. Things are differently if we speak about Galeon or Evolution for example which indeed are highlights in the GNOME community.
> industry sources said.
Yes I really like to know about these so called ‘Industry Sources’.
Im glad that their are so many people who like and support open source projects like KDE, but whats exciting here is that Redhat may have a REAL chance at finally making Linux an exceptable corporate desktop choice! Corporate buyers don’t care about desktop evangalism or any such trivial things. Lets face it, both KDE and Gnome, and several other alternatives, are GOOD ENOUGH for the corporate desktop, and that is where the debate should end for discussions on Linux for the corporate desktop.
I prefer KDE too. That is actually the thing that worries me most about Redhat.
Instead of keep up, I should have been more specific because tight now I agree they are behind in many areas. I mean with the way they are looking at the user experience. They seem to be focused more on the experience the system offers normal users than SuSE and Mandrake.
Personally I really like the Xandros philosophy for the word desktop.
Mono is very important for Linux and RedHat contributes more to the Linux developement than any other Linux distro vendor.
At least RedHat has actually become a profitable businness unlike Mandrake which has to BEG for money to stay alive.
> RedHat controls more of the Linux developement
> than any other Linux distro vendor.
Absolutely right
<I allowed myself to change your quote to reflect the reality that I see a bit more. Ok I admit you can’t own GPL/LGPL programms only to clarify this but RedHat hired a bunch of programmers from tactical important Linuxprojects which gives them a lot of power to influence the future Linuxprojects and development dramatically in their own direction and vision. Maybe in 5 years they influenced other Projects so much that Linux may not be the same anymore as we used to know and love. So above changed quote is valid again. From a companies view this is legitimate and absolutely correct.>
> At least RedHat has actually become a profitable
> businness unlike Mandrake which has to BEG for
> money to stay alive.
Absolute correct otherwise it doesn’t make any sense running a company without any monetary target in mind. They are probably making good money with the work of so many volunteers who live in the illusion that software has to cost no money.
My own opinnion after some years is that the GPL/LGPL is a legitimate free ticket for companies to make profit with other peoples work. A legal “rape” to have it said harsh but everyone is agreeing with that situation so there is nothing wrong at the end. Wait another couple of years and compare the market again. Who knows about the future at the end
From what I know it’s a THEME and no GUI.
Typical you. So what? GUI actually can mean a lot of things.
Regardless of this fact it may change the Look but not the feel of the two completely different Desktops.
Au contraire. Take for example the icons on its desktop. Normal KDE it would be single click, under RH it would be double click.
A little unshiny Dialog with 20 lines of code that get more glamour than it really weights.
Uhhh, so? It was one of the most wanted features for RH 8.0, so what if it took RH 3 years to make it or a afternoon?
They are mostly refering here to Nautilus-CD-Burner you enter burn:// in Nautilus and nothing happens.
Works for me. Same with KDE 3.1’s burning feature. Well, I never actually installed GNOME 2.2, onlye Phoebe B1.
What they put in phoebe was only pre-releases of both Desktops neither KDE 3.1 or GNOME 2.2 are out as of now.
IIRC, both releases are planned for before April, so the betas only have prereleases.
Basically Nautilus from GNOME 2.0 and GNOME 2.2 are indentical.
True, from the UI. But reading the mailing list, a lot more have changed underneath. Besides, the amount of changes is as much as Windows Explorer from Windows 2k to Windows XP or Finder from 10.1 to 10.2 (meaning enough to market).
What I try to explain is that these little changes Sidepane, Fontilus, Nautilus-CD-Burner are nothing much that impresses me as customer.
Well, this may shock you – you were never in RH’s target market. RH does’t target KDE fans. Never did, never will.
Yes I really like to know about these so called ‘Industry Sources’.
Most industry sources like to keep announmynous to keep their jobs.
Besides, I’m a KDE user. I used GNOME 2.0 a lot, but now I am using KDE 3.1 RC3 a lot more. Personally, I feel that Red Hat should have invested in Harmony (name?) TK than in GNOME, they would get to the market much faster. (Harmony was then writing a replacement for Qt).
But now, it makes little difference. Corporate buyers aren’t going to convert in masses if RH used KDE.
I want native support of the XFS file system and the default compilation are less be a 586 or even a 686…God forget that 386…
who wants install red hat in and old machine have knowledge of how to do it…
the corporate edition later this year will offer an e-mail client that can access Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes.
Looks like this RH Corporate Desktop will feature Ximian Connector, unless Mitch Kapor’s PIM becomes ready in time.
I downloaded and looked at the code and, while not a huge project, it is a whole lot more than 20 lines and more complex than a simple dialog. Sounds like you are talking out of your ass, dude.
We all know KDE is a great stuff,but the probelm is licensing of underlying QT.I guess people who write non-GPL compatible code will have to adopt GNOME/GTK rather than KDE/QT .I guess finally that matters.
I guess people who write non-GPL compatible code will have to adopt GNOME/GTK rather than KDE/QT
Um, unless you’re Opera. They use QT. The license is only about 2 grand, which is really not much if you’re making anything. The only problem with QT as I see it is that anyone who has no clue as to how the market will react to their product will be afraid to make any investement and thus avoid QT. Otherwise, the cost is quite minimal.
As far as Redhat’s support of KDE, sure it could be better, but I would never use Gnome (Every release puts windows on top of each other and I just give up) but am running Redhat 8.0 now. I’m quite happy with it and will continue to tell others how wonderful Redhat is as long as an up to date KDE is part of the disrto. Of course it’s obvious why they would keep Gnome as the default since they make their money off of support…
I agree with you to a very small extend. However, $2000 isn’t much for something that would reduce R&D cost by a whole much. Because not only they would be making a Linux version, but a Windows and Mac OS port would be extremely easy if you use Qt.
Opera is an example of a user of Qt. Another is Hancom. Yet another is Borland. Another is theKompany. I could go on and on, but facts is that 2 grand isn’t all that much. Especially if you are targeting 3 major desktop platforms.
Besides, if Red Hat had placed their money behind Harmony instead of GNOME when there was a backlash against Qt because of QPL, there won’t be any licensing cost, and they would reach their market much faster.
1. The move from GTK/GLIB from 2.0.x to 2.2.x does not require any re-writing or re-compiling. There has been only one component of gnome affected by the move and that was a gnome lib which had a bug which wasn’t exposed until it was compiled against GTK 2.2.x
2. QT 3.0.x to 3.1.x does not require a re-write or recompile. IIRC, 3.1.x has backwards compatibility.
3. GNOME 2.0.3, which I am running on FreeBSD 4.7p3 is faster and more responsive than KDE 3.0.x. Having run KDE for a while, I thought maybe it was something I would have to put up with. I re-installed FreeBSD 4.7, updated the ports and kernel via cvsup and recompiled XFree86 4.2.1 and GNOME 2.0.3 to see if there was a difference between KDE and GNOME. Believe me, after running GNOME for two weeks, I am very happy. Nautilus is extremely fast, the multimedia applications included are no feature bloated. Evolution 1.2.0 works fabulous, and I am looking forward to the GTK2 release, aka, Evolution 1.4 code named Monkey.
4. I am running Mozilla 1.2.1 + GTK2 + XFT and the fonts are awsome. Clean and clear. Fonts are smooth, yet, readable. btw, when you make freetype from the ports, hinting patch is applied automatically during the build process.
5. FreeBSD 5.0 should be an interesting development. I am personally looking forward to the release of GNOME 2.2. I’ll probably be a little chicken and wait a few days to see if there are any x.0 bugs. Normally I wait till the first revision, aka, 2.2.1, however, if it turns out to be stable, I’ll go for it.
6. Nautilus is improved out of site. What I have noticed is that nautilus code with each release is becoming smaller and smaller and GTK2 becoming bigger, so I assume alot of the parts of Nautilus are going to become features accessible to all applications.
7. Is only of any use if you are running it on linux. On anything else, tonnes of features that are available on Linux aren’t available on any other operating system. Also, C++ code compiles really crap on *NIX based computers, hence, you can see the end result when you have a whole desktop based on a language that is compiled poorly resulting in crappy performance. Having run KDE on Linux and FreeBSD, I am never going through the same pain and suffering.
When is it predicted that it will be out?
Summer of 2003. Linus already told CNet 1-2 months ago.
Personally, I find KDE 3.1 RC3 with Qt 3.1.0 compiled with GCC 3.2 rather more responsive than GNOME 2.1.0 (thing of upgrading to 2.1.2). This is of course on XFree86 4.3 beta and on Linux 2.4.19.
Well, 2.4 was released way after the predicted time frame, I guess we would never know. It is pretty hard for even Linus to predict when would 2.6 be released. The proper answer would be “When it is ready”.
After installing Redhat 8.1 b
Here is my observation
When u login in to Gnome
Gnome starts up really fast
menu display is very responsive
Majority (i think all) of KDE applications in the menu have NO ICON on them
Mouse responds like i’m running Window2000
“Extra” folder is near the bottom of the menu (very good, although I hate extra folder)
loggin out – you have 3 options (log out, restart, shutdown)
Login into KDE
starts up normally
menu display is normal
All of Gnomes applications in the menu have icons on them
Mouse slow
“Extra” folder is near the top of the menu
loggin out – no option (either yes or no)
Redhat did you classic job of butchering KDE this time.
I wonder why Redhat even bother to include KDE.
I hope Redhat stop including KDE as an option if they are going to screw them like this. Imagine the impression newbies will walk away with KDE after using Redhat.
Redhat did you classic job of butchering KDE this time.
I wonder why Redhat even bother to include KDE.
I hope Redhat stop including KDE as an option if they are going to screw them like this. Imagine the impression newbies will walk away with KDE after using Redhat.
That’s why it’s a beta. Maybe they are re-designing the icons? They are using beta software in a beta release and you are complaining… Redhat 8.0 beta 1 was also like this and they made a very nice final release.
@Chris Parker
> I downloaded and looked at the code and, while
> not a huge project, it is a whole lot more than 20
> lines and more complex than a simple dialog.
You are refering to Fontilus again only to clarify this. Whenever you read one line that says ’20 lines + not worth the hype’ then it usually sumarrizes up that Applications like this are not really worth the hype. To say it most of the code deals with Gnome-VFS-URI’s, e.g. opening files, reading files and closing files. If that app was written in C++ using QT/KDE then it would have been 1/3 the size of code (only an assumption).
@Matthew Gardiner
Yes definately true and I don’t say aynthing else. GNOME 2.0.x is faster in loadup time than KDE 3.0.x but is GNOME also as usable, integrated and consistent as KDE is ? I totally doubt this. Also note that many GNOME apps are written in different languages. C, C++, Perl, Python and soon C# which may be not really faster either. But be said that KDE is mostly written in C++ and the problems for the speed is more related to Binutils, GCC (C++ part) rather than the Environment itself. All this has changed TOTALLY in KDE 3.1 (3.2 CVS). If you use the most recent official release of Binutils, GCC, GLIBC then you realize how much noticeable faster KDE is today.
People still uses the QT License criteria (which is a non criteria at all) to argue negatively about KDE (which is an entirely different Project). If we count the time back then I must ask why the GNOME developers didn’t simply had coded an opensource immitation of QT (Free-QT) rather than re-inventing the wheel with a new Desktop Environment. The Free-QT could have been used to work together on one BIG cool Desktop Environment. Today the KDE developers reached that target on their single own which deserves all my respects. Someone was posting a link on some other page which I found some days ago. That link contained writings from Miguel de Icaza that I have read. He introduces it as ‘Why UNIX sucks’ or something which should point all the negative sides about UNIX but rather than doing this 2/3 of the Text concentrates about OT things such as explaining Bonobo and the first times of GNOME. But he also wrote some words about that the POS Licensing of QT made him write a new Desktop Environment in the means of Freedom and he is also talking a lot about consistences, intuitive, easy to navigate interfaces basically all this what KDE offers today and which GNOME is still failing in all situations. Said this KDE is what he basically wants and targets with his vision and GNOME is what came out at the end. The GNOME today contains more the vision of other people than the vision of Icaza (this is also an assumption and my opinion).
http://primates.ximian.com/~miguel/bongo-bong.html
Here the Link so you can read it on your own.
>Also, C++ code compiles really crap on *NIX based >computers, hence, you can see the end result when you
>have a whole desktop based on a language that is compiled
>poorly resulting in crappy performance.
I don’t like KDE that much either and I agree with most of your other points, but you’re spreading ignorance with this one. The issue with C++ on Linux is GCC, not C++. Specifically, GCC’s support for C++ has been in flux over the past couple of years as support has been added for new language features. So different versions of GCC accept different dialects of C++. GCC doesn’t generate the absolute fastest C++ code, but in general it’s decent.
My only gripe with using C++ is that many UNIX vendors charge a ton of money for their C++ compilers. Of course you can always install GCC or find a binary.
>> “If that app was written in C++ using QT/KDE then it would have been 1/3 the size of code (only an assumption).”
And it would have been nearly 1/2 the size when written using Gtkmm2 + the STL-like helper methods.
And that’s one of the few issues on wich I agree with you, there’s still too much things to do when programming using the C version of Gtk2 (I guess it’s the nature of the C programming language).
C++ is indeed way more productive when looking at it that way.
(and I’m in love with smart pointers
consistences, intuitive, easy to navigate interfaces basically all this what KDE offers today and which GNOME is still failing in all situations.
Oh please, both KDE and Gnome have a terrible UI, that forgets all of the basic Unix principles such as KISS, *decent* scriptability and keep data in easy to access files. For some bizarre reason, they are following the Windows principle of making the filemanager in some sort of “application platform” (ignoring the fact that is something the desktop environment is supposed to do). Oh yes, and use fancy kde/gnome centric VFS techniques to access different kinds of data (such as rpm databases or archives), eventhough it should be brought a level lower.
Gnome and KDE both suck. Gnome sucks somewhat less, in that they realize that they should keep it simple (they only realised it for preferences though, not yet for the global picture). It takes me multiple hours to configure a decent KDE desktop, it takes 5 minutes on Gnome. And Gnome actually realised that just slapping on a button, doesn’t make it userfriendly, and started working on the Gnome HIG. I read both the HIG and KDE’s user interface guide, and the HIG is alot better. Now if they both realise that “more funky features” doesn’t equal “better product”, all would be alot better.
I know GNU/Linux is a hack
but cmon, do i have to actually edit /etc/X11/desktop-menu file
give me a fuckin break
Go look at 8.0, dont tell me KDE is not crippled under RedHat
>> “Go try to customize the menu under gnome”
You’re referring to Gnome 2.0 aren’t you?
its a duck
Lame duck
ok , so redhat released a beta (READ BETA!!!!) and everyone is raging again because they went ahead and “butchered” KDE etc. People, either you have no life or dont want any. I said this before and will say it again, Linux is about choice. You dont like what RH did, fine choose not to use it. I like what they have done so i choose to use it. And for that braindead person who insinuated that RH is making money off of developers that dont get anything, please read around, learn a little and cancel your slashdot account cuz boy you have NO idea of the real world out there.
As for the distros right now. Suse and Mandrake might be more “pure” with KDE, but even they have flaws and bugs and shortcomings. Every distro does. And if RH sticks with the unified look, they WILL win quite a few contracts for corporate desktops cuz thats what corporations want (no i dont mean the 20 people “.com bomb survived” company that builds asp pages, i mean companies with several thousand desktops)
I just think its so lame when people rage against a company that has delivered and developed so much , and actually is making money, meaning they stay alive and continue to develop things (which BTW are all licensed under the GPL). Of course, everyone is entitled to an opinion but again the keyword here is choice.
Dont like it, choose not to use it. Having a so-called “crippled” KDE (sorry, my KDE works fine and i use it daily since i dont like gnome) and a uniform look and maybe a quick visit to freshrpms.net to get the mp3 support and mplayer (what, a 5-6MB download total) beats the hell out of using M$ product .
my 2C (of course ppl will misunderstand this again and start trolling)
> Oh please, both KDE and Gnome have a terrible
> UI, that forgets all of the basic Unix principles such
> as KISS, *decent* scriptability and keep data in
> easy to access files.
You know that you are absolutely wrong don’t you ? In case you don’t know it yet then please allow me to tell you. The problem on the GNOME plattform is:
– Apps embedd the UI hardcoded,
– Apps embedd the UI with GLADE created UI,
– Apps load the UI from GLADE created UI,
– Apps load the UI which was handmade with BonoboWindow XML
I usually tend to compare that from a programmers view and doing UI’s the way as shown above is really bad practice and bad projectplanning. Using external GLADE files or BonoboWindow XML files are good but having all this mixed is only causing trouble in a large project as soon as if comes to UI reviews, consistence and the other stuff. Specially for hardcoded UI’s.
Now let’s face over to KDE for a minute. Most of the programs UI’s are in external .ui files that could easily be reviewed by their UI people. They could load these files into an editor and change them to suit their guidelines. Easy effective and fast. That’s why the whole KDE looks so consistent today. Pixelexact layout of buttons, Dialogs show exact button ordering and pixel exact layout, Menus look identical, Keysequences in Menus are identical and and and.
If you speak about the widgets here QT vs. GTK+ then it’s worth discussing this one. But from your writings it’s obvious to see that you haven’t tried KDE at all or don’t know how it’s organized after all.
> Gnome and KDE both suck. Gnome sucks
> somewhat less, in that they realize that they should
> keep it simple (they only realised it for preferences
> though, not yet for the global picture).
What a limited sight of the global picture you have. Don’t you ?
> It takes me multiple hours to configure a decent
> KDE desktop, it takes 5 minutes on Gnome.
Well, that is absolutely untrue. KDE is as ready to use as GNOME in the first run. You are doing configuration ONE time (maybe in a week or in a month and you review them every now and then). Here we come to another couple of bad project plannings within the GNOME Desktop. Speaking of GConf and the way you need to:
– Search for they KEY’s you want to change,
– Knowing what the KEY actually does,
– Knowing it’s the right KEY you actually like to change,
– and so on.
Your 5 Minutes just expanded to 50 Minutes. You may deny the fact as much you want but everyone I met so far touched the Registry because he liked to change some values. Looking at the Capplets you don’t have features such as ‘Default’ for default values, or ‘Apply’ to apply the just changed values or ‘cancel’ to revert back to old values. The whole principles of the Engine is to have ‘Instant Apply’ you hit it and you have no possibilities to revert to the old default.
> And Gnome started working on the Gnome HIG. I
> read both the HIG and KDE’s user interface guide,
> and the HIG is alot better.
Yes I must admit that the HIG was a long needed guide for developers. So things are finally decided and could be used (regardless from the fact that some of the writings inside the HIG are plain stupid). Now we hit the theory and practical aspects a bit closer. Compare all GNOME capplets Windows and look how inconsistent they are. Some buttons are 5 pixels away from the bottom corners and some are 10 pixels, some notebook widgets (when it comes to TAB’s) are 5 pixel from the border and some 10 pixels. Then the HIG sugessts to order the Buttons the way Apple does with MAC instead the way KDE, Mircosoft, BeOS, AmigaOS, MorphOS, Motif, … <fill your own toolkit here>.. does. And now we have GNOME to be as inconsisitent to everything else and as alienate as everything else present on Linux as XFree application. All this is highly inadequate and I could easily expand this list more and more but I don’t want to spot all inadequate decissions here to not anger the developers.
I’m interested which parts of the KDE Guide you think are bad so I may actually look at it, compare it with the GNOME HIG and may then at least be able to comment on them. Simply saying that the KDE’s one is not good enough doesn’t say anything since you need to come up with at least one example so we may find a direct link of discussion.
To anyone who hasn’t tried Gnome neither KDE:
When deciding, don’t read these long threads. They’re usually written by hardcore gnome/kde users (I use Gnome myself, but well…).
Instead, do this: install and try the two desktops, then decide. Knowing how many lines of code were they written from, or if they’re done in C++ or C won’t help you decide which one is the most usable.
Just try and decide.
My 0.2 cents.
P.S.: Galaxy, don’t you ever get tired?
“Red Hat 8.1 was released to the Web in beta form late last month. The update offers an enhanced BlueCurve GUI that made its debut in version 8.0 in September and an updated Linux 2.4.20-2.2. kernel. It also offers new features such as font viewing, the ability to burn files to CDs, a new themes applet, an updated Mozilla 1.2 browser and KDE 3.1 and GNOME 2.2 graphical desktops. ”
Sweet so you mean I’ll actually be able to burn files to CD’s in Redhat 8.1? Cool maybe Redhat 8.2 will come with the ability to read and send email as well!
*scarcasm*
Re: gnome vd Kde
Wow some things never change. No matter how much time goes by the biased users of each WM contine to act like children saying mine is better then yours. Grow up already, the grandstanding was boring four years ago and its boring now.
“They may have a technical workstation, but they don’t want to compete head on against Microsoft,” said George Weiss, vice president at Gartner. ”
So…Exactly who are they going up against then? The other vendor who has 90% of the desktop market? Got to love Gartner.
“Oh please, both KDE and Gnome have a terrible UI, that forgets all of the basic Unix principles such as KISS, *decent* scriptability and keep data in easy to access files. For some bizarre reason, they are following the Windows principle of making the filemanager in some sort of “application platform” (ignoring the fact that is something the desktop environment is supposed to do). Oh yes, and use fancy kde/gnome centric VFS techniques to access different kinds of data (such as rpm databases or archives), eventhough it should be brought a level lower.”
You don’t like them, then don’t use them. Make your own desktop or better yet use the FRIGGIN CONSOLE (NO GUI’S no nothin) and be like the hardcore loser linux geeks who pee in their pants everytime they view 3D graphic images in ASCII.
JUST MY OPINION
http://linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net/info/redhat.html
There ya go
when i read the comments, it astounds me how
people will praise red hate for the butcher
job they do to KDE. when red hate makes u pay
for every computer installation dont whine
and complain. that time is coming soon.
>> “when red hate makes u pay for every computer installation dont whine and complain. that time is coming soon.”
Don’t make up things by yourself, it doesn’t make you look good.
“Lets face it, both KDE and Gnome, and several other alternatives, are GOOD ENOUGH for the corporate desktop, and that is where the debate should end for discussions on Linux for the corporate desktop.”
KDE and Gnome are desktop enviroments and aren’t good for shit by themselves, but as for Linux as a whole …
When it comes to corporate desktops, Linux has a slightly different problem than it does on the home desktop front …
My stepmom works at an business which uses all the ‘bread and butter’ apps that Linux would handle just fine. However, it is a law office and they have some software specifically dealing with law/lawyers, with books and such accessible on CD. Now, I’m not saying that Linux doesn’t have something like this (I’m not sure if it does or not), but I AM saying that a lot of businesses are going to be running some sort of ‘specialty’ apps that Linux is going to have to deal with.
The company I currently work for uses a custom built solution – part of it uses ActiveX in IE and part of it is a Windows-only executable, so in order to make the jump, they’d either have to get everything working in Wine or else port the applications over and switch from ActiveX to Java (or whatever). Personally, I don’t see them doing either one, as there just isn’t enough ‘perceived’ value to have to uninstall Win2k on 150+ workstations and install Linux, and train the IT staff (or hire new ones) on how to use Linux, along with all of the CS reps.
The problem you brought up is concerning the applications, not the desktop enviroments itself. Meaning though matter how much KDE is or GNOME is, it wouldn’t change the fact that until these apps come for Linux, neither can be used.
I’m not saying Linux (or whatever OS KDE or GNOME would run on) is ready for the corporate desktop but rather KDE and GNOME is ready for the corporate desktop. The last I checked, the lack of apps can’t be blamed on either project that they only fill on certain part of the overall OS.
My point is that if these speciallity apps were available on Linux, either desktop would be fine.
Anyway, strange to see a lawyer with a son that use warez software…
Jeez, let’s try and clear up some of the impressions on this thread shall we?
– Fontilus. This really rocks. It was certainly not half a days work, Fontilus lets you view and install fonts by dragging and dropping. It’s a VFS extension, not a nautilus view, they are quite different. It is possible due to the complete revamped X font system (fontconfig, xft2 and xrender). There will also be nautilus-rpm, GStreamer views etc.
– KDE vs GNOME. Please, go home trolls. My KDE3 desktop is frozen in time because the night I decided to see what all the fuss over GNOME2 was about I decided to stay. Neither is clearly superior to the other anymore. KDE may have more features, but GNOME is faster, feels cleaner and has well applied standard usability guidelines. As of 2.2 it uses GStreamer, which is a totally kickass media framework (like quicktime or directshow) and as of 2.4 it’ll be a part of the developer platform. The HIG is new, not every gnome UI is compliant yet. 2.2 features more compliant uis.
– There have been lots of changes between 2.0 and 2.2, nothing major but it’s only a 6 month release cycle. Nautilus has had lots of under the hood improvements and the desktop continues to be cleaned up and made HIG compliant. As I said, the addition of GStreamer is quite a big change.
– CD Burning. This is NOT finished yet, please grow up. It lets you drag and drop files into a special url, and then burn them to CD. It’s designed to be simple. It’s rather different from the Konqueror “integration”, which afaik is an external app hooking into the menus, this offers direct integration. I think it’ll do audio CDs from oggs as well (but not sure).
– GConf. The instant apply GUI is done for a good reason, namely that it feels great and is 90% of the time more usable than having “Apply”, “OK” and “Cancel”. Usually if you made a change to a dialog, and then couldn’t remember how to set it back to what it was before, that means the dialog was badly designed UI wise.
GConf as a system is great, especially for networked scenarios where you may be logged in more than once. The editor looks like a registry, but that’s basically where the similarity ends, I can’t believe the amount of FUD that goes around about this system based purely on the GUI of an editor app.
Mike Hearn writes:
“KDE may have more features, but GNOME is faster, feels cleaner and has well applied standard usability guidelines. ”
I spent several months evaluating for personal use Mandrake 9 (KDE UI) vs. Redhat 8 (Gnome UI). Although Mandrake 9 did a better job configuring my PC for sound, I found it unbearably slow for Web browsing and newsgroup reading. Red Hat 8, by contrast, I found to be as fast as Windows XP and sometimes faster.
In short, I found Linux unusable, as implemented in KDE on the Mandrake 9 platform, whereas my Redhat experience with Gnome has been sufficiently productive that I’m now trying to move as many functions as I can from XP over to Linux.
That rocks and its easy
Hi Richard,
Your reply is partially written with anger but I’m understanding you perfectly. You have also a lot of smattering in this area. The main intention wasn’t to talk about the usability of applications since we all have different needs and different tasks to come along with.
The problems that should get pointed out in the first place is to show the attentive readers all the wrong design decisions that where made and that these could have easily be avoided to a certain case if it was thought in pre-gnome2.0 phase. And to point out that the initial Article which this Topic is pointing at contains a lot of smattering as well. This is more a marketing strategy of those responsible for that Article than what it reflects in reality.
– The HIG should have been there before start of gnome2.0 so a lot of issues could have been avoided before the development started.
– The HIG as written in many replies (which you seem to have skipped) has a bunch of wrong design decisions which will alienate GNOME from the rest of the XFree applications and as more apps gonna immigrate with the HIG, as more alienate applications will come up. This shouldn’t mean that the HIG in general is wrong. It only means that some decisions in it are plain wrong, which is my opinion and the opinion of many other people that I read replies from.
– The changes in GNOME are something where opinions wander in different directions. I certainly wished that GNOME 2.2 will be a mature final release of something but unfortunately it’s not. The developers working on GNOME doesn’t give it the same care as for example the KDE people does. Half-baked is the correct answer for this and therefore it doesn’t reflect to the initial Article’s comment. A bunch of people argue how much more polished GNOME 2.2 is. But is it really that polished ?
Look at my above comment with the Dialogs and how the UI is embedded into certain applications. This makes it really hard for UI reviewers to nail out all issues to have a pixel exact layout of the interface. That’s what I call a wrong design decision for example. Or look at the requirements for GNOME 2.2, you need libgnomeprint 2.0 and 2.2 same for libgnomeprintui. You know that only gnome-media as module is ported to GStreamer the rest of GNOME is NOT it still requires ESD and Audiofile bcause GStreamer’s API is not yet 100% finished.
As for embedding applications into Nautilus there is a big Thread on http://www.gnomesupport.org/ where people talk about the pros and cons about such implementations and most people agreed that it’s better to have little applications for these tasks rather than stuffing Nautilus full with useless garbage.
That’s the whole point behind my replies and worries. I have tried to bring these points up to the Usability List more than just one time but you have hard times convincing the same 4-5 People that are replying on all these lists about these issues. The reply I was getting often is ‘you have valid points’ and that was it. Nothing happened to solve these points even if they were good.
The reason why I think KDE is more mature, more usable AND has more apps is simple. They made a bunch of really good design decisions which makes it easy for Developers to follow strikt rules and have their applications seamingles embedded into the whole Desktop Environment. Giving the enduser the feeling to use something complete. Right now on GNOME people still discuss about such designs and therefore they are unproductive and therefore there is no real progress.
There is no need for GNOME to stuff new features into it. But there is a HUGE need to seamingless integrate GNOME itself. The libraries are there. Capable programmers seem to be there too but as long as they still discuss about design decisions there will be no real progress and that what we get looks unfinished from major release to major release. Problems and issues are being inherited.
When I first came upon linux a few years back, the first desktop that I used was GNOME under redhat. I wanted to contribute to the project so I took the liberty of learning GNOME and a little Qt (even though I may not be the best of programmers).
What made switch to KDE was that the project seemed to have a sense of direction; I really like the existence of KDE standards from the start. I agree with most if not all the points made by oGALAXYo; it is just utterly frustrating to support a project that seems to stagnate because of the lack of guidelines. HIG in my opinion IS TOO LATE a decision. I highly respect GNOME developers for their talent but they should have known better from the start.