Rony Klein explains a few of the reasons why he prefers Gnome over KDE, an article accompanied by screenshots illustrating his case.
Some Reasons Why I Prefer Gnome over KDE
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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Why are we still having these silly little flamewars? Both KDE 3.2 and Gnome 2.4 (soon to be 2.6) are both great, and I like them both. I mainly use KDE, but I certainly like GNOME too. They are both mature, and useable.
I won’t say anymore on this article, someone could just as easily write why they prefer KDE over Gnome. Most major distributions offer both, and some even offer others. Just choose the one you like. Most of these “issues” have been fixed in KDE CVS anyway (like a new theme manager for example)
…to pick just the features/goodies of your desktop like emblems (btw the emblem wish on bugs.kde.org got only votes from two people so nobody needs them?) which the other desktop hasn’t. Even the usability argument on Evolution (not part of GNOME btw) can be countered with a simple screenshot of GNOME’s desktop trashcan context menu.
It’s all just personal preference. I won’t knock one of the other because I love to have the choice. With advancements in both who is to say I won’t prefer a different one next year.
I still run Flux. I like it better than both Gnome or KDE, although Dropline Gnome is pretty good and I use it off and on.
I’m not one to support only one browser, desktop environment, text editor or terminal in a distrobution. I love the choice. And chocie is what sets linux above windows.
Yeah, this guy was quite obviously trying to portray KDE as extremely cluttered. It isn’t. It _is_ cluttered compared to GNOME however.
Konqueror isn’t overblown compared to most file managers on Windows. It is overblown compared to Nautilus. From my experience, most people with minimal knowledge with Windows explorer can use Konqueror fine.
The appearance settings are a valid concern. In KDE 3.3 they will turn into the Theme Manager. See http://www.kde-apps.org/content/show.php?content=9838
The KDE panel resizing icons that small on a ‘tiny’ panel might be a valid concern. However, they are certainly NOT unusable as he said. The buttons have padding around it, and care for fitt’s law has been kept so that you can click on the top of the screen and it will click on the button.
I didn’t see how Evolution was more usable than Kontact. There seemed to be a small bug in korganizer in Fedora that makes the times misalign though. I don’t get this bug in Debian.
In short, I don’t think this guy has much experience with usability at all. He seems to be (yet) another ‘armchair’ usability ‘specialist’.
But some people think that they have to force or push their opinions on others. Just like you are pushing your opinion that he is incorrect. Touche’?
“I won’t say anymore on this article, someone could just as easily write why they prefer KDE over Gnome.”
I hope someone does. That way we can see the strengths and weakenesses of each. It is my personal take that Gnome has an easier more intuitive interface. The hig certainly helps. In many ways kde is just plain confusing. On the other hand kde has much better integration betweem apps. I hope both learn from each other. Articles like this have their place.
Hi
1)Dont use bluecurve.
We need to see the default look and feel and compare them both too.
2) dont concentrate on petty issues
3) the konqueror ui options has already been fixed in cvs
4) kcontrol has already been replaced in cvs
5) what are the specific real issues here?
regards
Jess
He doesn’t compare the standard menus of KDE and GNOME but the one of a Fedora polished GNOME shipped with the distribution and unpolished first-time Feroda KDE update packages. Konqueror can also start without the sidebar enabled if preferred, toolbar icons can be removed. Half of the shown Konqueror options are for webbrowsing only. And he “reviewed” the first (and last, see http://developer.kde.org/~lukas/kthememanager/) KDE version without a theme manager, so it can’t be a reason why he didn’t like KDE in the past.
Hi
“In many ways kde is just plain confusing. On the other hand kde has much better integration betweem apps. ”
when you say kde is just confusing to you please be specific. i use kde around 12 hours a day and i dont find it confusing. there are something that could be improved. sure. now come up with your *specific* arguments.
regards
Jess
full ack!
He wrotes:
> it can do almost everything for you. But who really needs that.
Than he should install Windows if he don’t want an OS/DE who can almost for him!
Use whatever DE you prefer. Since you like the simplicity of Gnome, then by all means enjoy it. I don’t believe your article puts forth compelling arguments for using Gnome. It really just states your personal preference for a simpler and possibly a less flexible DE. Since both DE’s do the job, what do you care what anyone else uses.
Now if you did a real world performance comparison or if you pointed out serious flaws in one of the DE’s or if you demonstrated that one DE has a significantly better feature set, I wouldn’t have anything to say here. Alas, you didn’t. So, reading your article has been somewhat of a waste of time.
I agree with this article in that KDE does need to simplify their user interface. Gnome adopted a strict set of Human Interface Guidelines (HIG) that were the result of a usability study funded by Sun. As Gnome began to adhere to these guidelines, they really simplified their interface and made it more consistent. KDE needs to do the same thing.
There is a nice article on Ars Technica that demonstrates the benefits to Gnome by taking this step. What the author of this article is noticing, are the fruits of these labors. This is one key reason that Gnome is winning hearts and minds with enterprise companies like Sun, HP, and IBM.
KDE does have some interesting technical merits, it is disappointing to see the project suffer from a lack of discipline when it comes to their UI. I hope they do clean it up going forward, it will surely make their environment better!
Most annoyingly, it has no particular identity or aim. The aim of gnome is, “get the threat”. The threat varies – it was KDE at first, then it was .NET. Point is, Gnome is motivated by FSF zealots who think c is the greatest, GNU awesome, and that they have to jihad everybody else into submission. Therefore there’s little focus in the Gnome community on just making a good desktop, damn it, with decent technologies and well integrated. Instead, they make out that OpenOffice and Mozilla and so on are “Gnome projects”, and they don’t interoperate well *at all* with the rest of the desktop. Even actual Gnome applications have poor interoperability.
I want solidity, I want features, I want a powerful desktop technologically and in terms fo ease of use. Unfortunately, Gnome hasn’t the resources to develop the features of KDE, but that’s okay, they have managed to make a mantra of having no features as itself being a feature. Give us a break, and ship that filechooser already, damn it.
if it’s matter of present l screenshots of desktop so please present the true one’s konquerour can preview video file but in his l screenshots he doesn’t show that (altough nautilus make it better) what makes it another useless flamewar of kde gnome.
I’m not one to support only one browser, desktop environment, text editor or terminal in a distrobution. I love the choice. And chocie is what sets linux above windows.
Amen.
When I first checked Linux (SuSE 7.x), KDE was the default desktop. I was unhappy with it and looked for an alternative which I found in WindowMaker. I got bored of it and checked Enlightenment (e16). I even wanted/needed less “comfort” and went to Blackbox -> FluxBox -> and finally Openbox3. I plan to check Gnome 2.6 and e17 once they’re finished and mature.
Like you said. It’s all about choice.
@Anonymous
Agreed. Another flame inducing armchair critic type article. These were interesting the first time. Ok the second. But now it’s just tedious.
@Jess
3) the konqueror ui options has already been fixed in cvs
4) kcontrol has already been replaced in cvs
I can’t stand this comeback. This is like saying:
Windows has a hardware ui compositor in beta.
Windows has a database filesystem in beta.
etc
If it’s in cvs only, it’s not out yet. Sure, it’s promising, but it’s not a *solution*. The issues described are still issues *now*, and are very real. Just because the next version will fix them doesn’t invalidate the critique. Gnome has a crappy file selector now as well. Any Gnome user will tell you that. Sure, a new version is “in cvs”, but I won’t be seeing it for a while, so a crappy file selector is still a real issue and valid crituque of the current GNOME.
“Point is, Gnome is motivated by FSF zealots who think c is the greatest, GNU awesome, and that they have to jihad everybody else into submission.”
Companies like Sun, HP, Redhat, and Novell/Ximian are all FSF zealots? They all have members sitting on the board of the Gnome foundation. Inflammatory statements like this are not based on the merits of either environment, and aren’t really constructive forms of criticism.
As for the interoperability, I don’t agree, as I have found that the GTK-2 aware versions of these applications (ie. OpenOffice, Mozilla Firefox) have worked very, very well.
Duh, that would explain the startmenu etc.. If you look at KDE-Distros like Suse or Mandrake some of the things he complains about are not valid anymore.
And he seems to have a weird german/english mixture on his desktop, maybe he should get that straight before publishing 😉 ( Hint: Try to install kde-i18n-de )
I think reviewer comparing DEs should install from source. It is not that hard ….
Cheers
BTW: I’m a gnome-user, but i like KDE too.
Hi
“Gnome is winning hearts and minds with enterprise companies like Sun, HP, and IBM. ”
wrong on multiple things really.
Sun choose gnome because it had c developers more than c++. HP hasnt taken a position on this. IBM is actually more involved in KDE than gnome. You shouldnt choose some DE because some big companies do that.
KDE has a better development environment. compare kdevelop with anjuta(isnt gnome anyway). compare kparts with bonobo.
dbus?
artsd?
dcop?
ioslaves?
kiosk mode? http://www.kde.org/areas/sysadmin/
kate and k3b are really good.
kde could use some UI improvements in konqueror, helpcenter and control center but there isnt a major reason being stated here.
Jess
Hi
”
I can’t stand this comeback. This is like saying:
Windows has a hardware ui compositor in beta.
Windows has a database filesystem in beta.
etc
If it’s in cvs only, it’s not out yet. Sure, it’s promising, but it’s not a *solution*. The issues described are still issues *now*, and are very real. Just because the next version will fix them doesn’t invalidate the critique. Gnome has a crappy file selector now as well. Any Gnome user will tell you that. Sure, a new version is “in cvs”, but I won’t be seeing it for a while, so a crappy file selector is still a real issue and valid crituque of the current GNOME.”
kde cvs has a already working solution and so does gnome cvs in filemanager. when you complain you must complain taking current available solutions in mind. these are known problems and they have been fixed. its important to realise that you arent a good critique if you keep repeating the same things. you can keep saying gnome file manager sucks but the code is already there. next time people do a review please bring out some unique points. dont rehash the same thing over and over. its boring. its terribly annoying and it brings about obsolutely nothing into the table
regards
Jess
Jess, you realise that whatever arguments anyone provides about KDE being confusing, no matter how specific, you’ll dismiss as irrelevent (otherwise you wouldn’t be using KDE 12 hours a day)? It’s very funny watching people try to be so objective and rational when making decisions about UIs, where everyone has their own heirarchy of considerations. Why do you think vi/emacs, gnome/kde, debian/gentoo flamewars exist?
“Sun choose gnome because it had c developers more than c++. HP hasnt taken a position on this. IBM is actually more involved in KDE than gnome.”
We shall see… I stand by my argument that Gnome has a larger presence in the enterprise desktop space, I think most people would agree.
“You shouldnt choose some DE because some big companies do that.”
In the enterprise space I would disagree with this. When largest UNIX vendors start to offer support for a solution, you tend to benefit by going with it.
“KDE has a better development environment. compare kdevelop with anjuta(isnt gnome anyway). compare kparts with bonobo.”
You are correct here, currently KDE does have a more robust IDE, and it is easier to develop applications for. Gnome needs to catch up in this area, which is what the Mono project is all about.
“kate and k3b are really good.”
Yes they are very good, I happen to agree. KDE does ship with some nice applications. KDE does have some interesting technology. It is just frustrating that their user interface doesn’t have the polish and consistency of other interfaces out there, like Gnome or MacOS. This doesn’t mean it will always be so.
It will be interesting to see where these two projects are at 12 months from now. Right now, because of its nicer UI (in my opinion) Gnome has the edge.
Hi
“Jess, you realise that whatever arguments anyone provides about KDE being confusing, no matter how specific, you’ll dismiss as irrelevent”
No. I wouldnt dismiss it at all. You cant just assume that. I am a long time KDE users but i have spend considerable time in bugs.kde.org and usability list telling developers how to improve it. I am very open to hearing people complaints if only they are specific about their issue and they bring new complaints into the discussions
current problems
KDE control center – tree view is being replaced by a task based view with seperate options, new theme manager and better categorisation
KDE help center – tree view is confusing and should be better implemented
konqueror UI options isnt specific to the profile. regardless of whether you use it as filemanager of browser you get the same options
Good stuff
Better development enviroment
Powerful options like ioslaves etc which wasnt mentioned before
Quanta,kdevelop,kate and k3b are best in their category
regards
Jess
Hi
” It is just frustrating that their user interface doesn’t have the polish and consistency of other interfaces out there”
It might lack polish in some areas as i mentioned above but its not inconsistent. If you find inconsistency I would like to hear examples of that
regards
Jess
Hi
“”You shouldnt choose some DE because some big companies do that.”
In the enterprise space I would disagree with this. When largest UNIX vendors start to offer support for a solution, you tend to benefit by going with it. ”
what large UNIX vendor is supporting gnome. I would like to hear the extend of support offered by them and if there are any cases where you have benifited by their support. Do they hand hold you?. do they answer your development related queries?. do they leverage existing options to deliver custom solutions?
regards
Jess
“what large UNIX vendor is supporting gnome. I would like to hear the extend of support offered by them and if there are any cases where you have benifited by their support. Do they hand hold you?. do they answer your development related queries?. do they leverage existing options to deliver custom solutions?”
http://wwws.sun.com/software/javadesktopsystem/index.html
The Sun Java Desktop system is based on Gnome.
http://support-central.de/jds/support.jsp?Country=US
Here is the support portal for the US for Their desktop system.
JDS is designed to be deployed in large enterprise environments.
Personally, I don’t have the opportunity to use Linux as a desktop system where I work. So while I have not personally benefitted from the support offered by companies like Sun, all Gnome users benefit from the work these companies do in improving the Gnome UI.
It was Sun, for example, that spent money funding usability studies that lead to the Gnome Human Interface Guidelines I mentioned earlier:
http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/
IBM still uses CDE on AIX, and as far as I know, aren’t working on their own desktop solution.
I also think Ximian has played a very large role in helping to improve Gnome and make it more usable for enterprise usage. Ditto for Redhat.
I know that comapnies like SuSE and Mandrake are trying to do the same thing for KDE, and here is hoping that they succeed.
Interesting. When he brought up the Word / Latex comparision, I thought: “For sure, he means that KDE is Latex and Gnome is Word. If one wants to do it the limited but more accessible way, Word’s the way to go. If one wants to do it the flexible, fully-featured way at the cost of easyness, it’s KDE.”
Alright, I’m tired and under-caffeinated. Replace KDE with Latex in the last sentence.
Don’t you know that any/every thread about GNOME is about KDE and any about KDE is about GNOME. People just cannot stop comparing them, they must feel one is *better* to feel secure about their choice. The moment there is a new release they must be reassured. Infact this is one of the ways Linux is subconciously quite stressful, ther are so many choices that there is always a stress on you about your choice. Even when you go to the supermarket and have a choice between two detergents there is measurable stress, even though you will not feel it. Choices make us scared and they make us different, which in turn makes us unique. This uniqueness is a mixed blessing, it is just as easily admired as it rises jelousy, prejudice and even violence such as in the civil rights movement, the crusades. Uniqueness The only way to deal with it is to believe that the one you chose was by far the best and has little use otherwards. If you do not, ther will always be a strain on you and you may feel compelled to try the other all the time losing productivity.
Of course that does not mean choices are *bad* and everyone’s choices should be predetermined, that would be a big step backward, as it is these choices that give rise to genial ideas. However we also cannot ignore that it is these very choices that are some of the biggest stressors there can be and many will feel much more comfortable without having so many. Many may like to live on a farm in a stable life than be a high tech worker where their job is very competitive and many choices are made everyday. It is those who accept their place in society and are completely sure that what they are doing is the most that they can be doing and the only thing that will be under the least amount of stress and unfortunately usually their impact on our world will be unnoticed.
So you see, there will always be flame wars about different things such as KDE vs GNOME, BMW vs Mercedes, Bush vs Kerry etc. and at it’s core will be insecuirity. One who is really comfortable with their choice does not participate in such things and does not say anything but their experience with the product in discussion. There is no need for mudslinging and in general it is worthless to advise someone on something if they do not ask you because than they really couldn’t care less about your advice.
Hi
You might feel insecure about your choices. I am not. I am trying to discuss the shortcoming of possible choices and participating in how we can improve them. Just Speak for yourself
Regards
Jess
Hi
“http://wwws.sun.com/software/javadesktopsystem/index.html“
You must understand that Sun is pushing java here more than gnome. its called java desktop system because of the branding. if gnome is directly supported by any large UNIX vendor you can quote it as a possible advantage over KDE as far as enterprise are concerned.
regards
Jess
Constructive discourse and debate is healthy, as long as the tone is civil. I for one would like to see both environments excel. The competition between the two helps both projects grow faster than they would otherwise.
Hi
Yes. It definitely would. I promise I would keep my arguments very clear and civil. I am still interested in any specific arguments towards gnome or kde in a major way.
regards
Jess
“You must understand that Sun is pushing java here more than gnome. its called java desktop system because of the branding. if gnome is directly supported by any large UNIX vendor you can quote it as a possible advantage over KDE as far as enterprise are concerned.”
GTK bindings to Java are apparently very limited. They call it the Java Desktop system for branding. From what I hear, Sun is actually quite nervous about the upcoming Mono project, which Novell/Ximian is pushing, as it uses C# instead of Java.
http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=5746
Check this story out… for an interesting angle on the whole Mono thing.
If Sun would open source Java… things could work out very differently. Exciting times ahead.
3.1 looked like a pimp, 3.2.1 looks more like a desktop, that`t the only thing that have keept me away from kde- the 3.1 and <- looked like a theme from a porn movie from 80`s.
kde has more going for it in terms of config gui 3.2 vs 2.4, but alot is comming, like grubconf etc. what a desktop should look like is dropline gnome, however with some more gnome apps included. Or ximian also with more apps included.
What I hope for is this: that one can install kde or gnome and one can choose witch to use and get gnome or kde theme. What I hope for in the future is in intergration- chooice is great, but if one want to make linux into a perfect desktop replacemeant for windows one have to work togetter. Bring bouth of best worlds togetter, my mom don`t care if it`s gnoem or kde that`s the stuff is buildt on, she needs stuff that works, a theme she likes and stuff that work togetter, and menues that come togetter.
This will possible be a thing that can happen with the freedesktop rules. And then one can work on making x better, maby use the same programing language on bouth kde/gnome and x- that would rock my world, and have a “backup” server that works if a user fucks up.
It’s been said that GNOME is written by “FSF zealots”. True, I’d actualy call them guru’s, but it’s a matter of taste. What about Sun, Ximian and RedHat, do they seam like FSF zealots to you? Odd…
.NET is the threat… Doubt-it see the GTK# and mono projects.
GNOME is not a desktop which uses it’s lack of features as a feature. It’s not the big_bug==feature case here. GNOME is very polished in respect to it’s interface. There is a very strict set of Human Interface Guidelines.
Some KDE advocates say that feature X, missing from KDE since it started, is already in CVS. To late for me. If I’ve had-it in GNOME since i’ve used GNOME (in the pre-1.0 era). I just love-it because it’s clear.
KDE has one big problem: do less with more.
Others say that KDE has a better development cycle. I’m not familiar with it, but the one GNOME has is absolutely excelent. They do not miss targets.
Applications not integrated? What about GAIM/GnomeMeeting/Evolution/clock_applet/god_knows_what_other_app (and nautilus if that bounty was solved).
Are you saying that KDE is better? Explain this to me:
If, hypotheticaly, am a twm(anything but GNOME or KDE should do also) user because of, maybe poor hardware configuration, and want to start an e-mail client, such as, K-Mail, hmm, almost the whole of KDE starts up in the background.
Think QT is better? Maybe it’s easier. But compile la Hello_World in QT and one in GTK, and see which one compiles faster. Now imagine this happening with something the size of, let’s say, GIMP, or Mozilla or OpenOffice (provided they would be ported to any one of the listed tool-kits). Don’t mean to sound like a “FSF zealot”, but I can use GTK on Windows/Linux/MacOS/BeOS/etc for free, but QT, only on Linux and similar O.S’s, and it’s not Free (or is it?), it’s royalty-free.
Still want arguments?
KDE is bigger, but not better in my opinion. It’s not that I don’t like having a lot of options. I just want to have them hidden, until I select advanced, or something. I hate click-ing on Apply for trivial settings change (as in, not a posible source for problems), such as background change.
And before I go, Nautilus has a file-change monitor. It uses SGI fam just like the whole GNOME DE does.
Oh and BTW bonobo is dead, see egg.
And another cool thing about GNOME is the HUDGE number of bindings to other programing languages (C++/C#/Java/ADA/Python/PERL/Pascal/etc.). It’s so cool.
The main reason why I like KDE better then GNOME is, that the underlying technologies are superior. Qt is a very nice toolkit and I really like to write programs with it. kparts and kioslaves are well designed, easy to program and use. And I think, this starts to show. Many of the apps included in KDE3.2 are really good. KDevelop, kate, quanta, konqueror, kmail, konsole, juk, kopete and many others. One sees that it is relatively easy to write good applications using the KDE framework. These applications will be even more polished in KDE3.3 and I really look forward to KDE3.3. And I hope KDE4 brings nice new technologies like a good media framework (arts really sucks). While there are also very good apps for GNOME (in some areas, the GNOME apps are better then their KDE equivalents), I have the feeling that many of the current GNOME technologies are bad choices and do not really support application development. C is certainly not the right choice for GUI application development. Corba might be quiet powerfull, but it seems to be very complex and not often used by developers. Also integration seems to be harder for GNOME as for KDE. And I don’t think that Mono is the right way to go. It certainly is a nice technology, maybe even better then what KDE & Qt offer today, but the patent issues are not clear and in my opinion, central components of Linux (and I consider GNOME as one) should never be based on Mono.
KDE’s UI might not be as polished as GNOMES, but KDE3.2 is improved compared to KDE3.1 and I am sure, KDE3.3 will bring many more usability improvements. KDE will always have more options and more configurability then GNOME because the developpers and most of the users want to have all these functions and configurability. I personally do not understand at all, why people are complaining about configurability. As long as the defaults are sane, what’s the problem with having the option to change things if you don’t like the defaults?
An other point that I really like about KDE is the open development model. In KDE, everyone can contribute, KDE has a very open development model and there are no leaders which dictate the way, KDE goes. This approach has some disadvantages: if a lot of people contribute, you will always have a more cluttered interface, just because people are adding functionality they like, even if it is not important for many people. Also developers tend to develop what is cool for them and not what is useful for the majority of people. It will be very interesting, to see how KDE manages to keep this open development model, but also to improve usability, because I am sure a lot of developers will not like their cool features not to be the default. I really like this development model. I don’t really know much about how GNOME is developed, but it seems to me, that the development process is not as open as KDE’s and that their is a much stricter policiy what can be added and how the programs have to look etc. While this has the advantage that the interfaces look less cluttered, I prefer KDE’s more open way.
I think it will be really interesting to see how everything works out and where KDE and GNOME will be in a year from now.
One word, Aqua.
Those who prefer GNOME are forever boasting of its human interface guidelines, believing that their applications are more consistent.
But there are many cases where the HIG isn’t followed and basic UI considerations have not been fixed. For instance, did you know that in Abiword, Gnumeric, Evolution, and Nautilus, the Preferences menu is located in different places? Such a basic thing ought to be in the same place every time–as it is in KDE.
Also, the GNOME icons are not managed consistently. The icon theme should determine the widget icons not the style. If the user likes the Bluecurve icons but not the Bluecurve style, there is no easy way to do this w/o resorting to editing dot-files.
Nautilus also doesn’t provide a list of recently used URIs which is very annoying to Windows migrants.
And as has been pointed out a number of times, KDE has always had a theme manager. The 3.2 series is the only one since the 0.x days which doesn’t have one. I also hate that I can’t the colours of a GTK style w/o editing the .gtkrc file. But perhaps that’s changed upstream?
Each number corresponds to the comparrisons he gives in order.
1. The “blank” desktops
Here it is clear that he attempts to make the GNOME desktop look cleaner even when he knows that he is not being objective.
– The KDE desktop has 2 programs in the taskbar making it look mor cluttered than GNOME which has none
– The KDE desktop has an additional 2 icons which completely depends on the Redhat configuration also making it look more cluttered
2. The menu comparrison
Again he is showing a poorly configured Kmenu compared to an elegant GNOME menu
– The KDE menu is made to look very cluttered, an unpolished mess. If he were attempting to be objective at all he would have shown the menu of each which includes the same items and same kind of configuration. Instead the KDE menu has about 30 items while the GNOME menu has half that.
– The KDE menu also does not have icons for each program like the GNOME menu, which solely depends on the configuration
– Finally the KDE menu has the true name of the application, the GNOME menu has names symbolic of function. This again is a matter of how the distro configured it.
– The quirks from #1 are still there, there are still more KDE icons.
2.The file manager comparrison
An attempt to make Konqueror much more cluttered and complex than it is.
– The GNOME filemanager is displaying 9 items, the KDE one has 15 items making it appear more complex
– Navigation panel (sidebar) is enabled in KDE file manager again making it look more complex. Sidebar is disabled however in GNOME
– The toolbar of Konqueror is more cluttered than the GNOME toolbar because additional plugins like cervista are installed and again this is amatter of configuration
3. Konqueror options
Here he loses his flow with the comparrisons. Only Konqueror’s options are shown, Nautilus’s are completely omitted. And the sheer number of options does not automatically make something much more difficult.
4. Comparrison of file manager previews
WOW, he forgot to make Konqueror look more complicated to use.
– Unlike in his previous screenshot of Konqueror and Nautilus side by side, he shows a normal Konqueror without the sidebar or the excessive toolbar buttons. Now Konqueror has only 8 toolbar objects and Nautilus 11. In fact Konqueror looks easier.
– However, unlike Nautilus Konqueror only shows the file type for the .avi files. Nautilus shows a clip. Konqueror is perfectly capable of showing the clip preview too. It would only show the file type if the movie was larger in size than it was allowed to preview (which is configurable) or if it is disabled to preview those types of files.
– Only way that Nautilus would have an advantage for this comparrison if it were objective would be the nice shadows for the previews and images. But, this may be a negative for those with slower computers.
5. Themes Comparrison
He shows how much easier it is to install a theme in GNOME.
– Here he does have a point, GNOME has theme files which theme everything that GNOME can theme (which is quite limited, only window decoration, style and icons) automatically. KDE on the otherhand can haved individual configuration for each part such as background, style, icons fonts, splashscreen etc. This is much more flexible, but slower if you want to have eactly the things in the themefile. However, most of the time you would want to keep your icons, splashscreen, fonts, icons etc. so it does not matter all that much. Also noteworthy is that KDE used to have a theme manager like this, it was removed because it had been unmaintained however a a new one which is much more powerful will soon come. It will be able to install fonts, splash screens, icons, styles, color schemes, window decorations, screensavers, etc. all at once.
6. Kontact and Evolution
Another attempt to make KDE look more difficult.
– I am really getting bored of this, again her eit is a matter of configuration, I don’t even see what he finds so incredibly “unusable” about Kontact here.
Bottomline:
KDE is quite clean if it is a default install and without the extragear. Distributions like Fedora don’t ship a completely functional or neat KDE. Also KDE empowers its users and the distributions, few users ever experience a default KDE install, so hte distributions should configure KDE to make it as simple as possible while still retaining its configurability where it makes sense. Anyway in the end it si better to have configurability than have some smart developer think it is too difficult for your weak and simple mind so he removes an essential feature and makes you lose 2 hours every time you try and do some task.
Well… arts vs. gstreamer. Try this for a change. gnome-vfs(don’t know the KDE equivalent) is also very well written.
I agree that GTK+ programing kinda sucks when you start learning it. Then again, for a C++ fan you have GTKmm, a very clean solution in C# is GTK#, JavaGnome is looking promising (if you ignore the 2 nights it took me to get it up and running with j2sdk 1.4.2). PyGTK is also very cool, especialy combined with the other cool bindings in python (i.e. rpmlib), a good application example is anaconda, the fedora core installer. It has very clean code (I personaly doubt that YAST2’s code is that clean), it does everything needed, and it looks cooler.
In my opinion the adoption of gstreamer by KDE, would be the first step into getting the Linux/*BSD/UNIX/etc desktop united.
This is very unfair comparison becose redhat want us to think “kde=shit” and they make a bluecurve edition of kde just to help gnome!!!!!!!!!! (this is why everybody that use kde hate redhat)
GNOME has a theme manager, and you can configure the theme elements individually by pressing Details. You can configure the GTK theme, metacity theme and the one for the icons.
I am not surprised that some applications like Evolution do not comply with the HIG interface yet, as Evolution 1.x predates thos guidelines, while Evolution 2.x is still in development.
“I am not surprised that some applications like Evolution do not comply with the HIG interface yet, as Evolution 1.x predates thos guidelines, while Evolution 2.x is still in development.”
Problem is, though, that Evolution is not the only uncompliant program.
I’ve started with gnome and redhat 6.x something… but after having seen kde 2.2 I switched and its my main de env. ever since. As for gnome I still check it out form time to time but at present I still find that to get the work done kde just works better for me.
As for the article, it just could not start worse. Redhat (fedora) to compare gnome and kde ?! On redhat its damn easy to prefer gnome since its has done everything to give best experience with gnome and is infamous for crippling kde… shit thats one of the reasons I dropped redhat – for their stupid preference of gnome instead of giving both de’s equal starting points.
Abiword is not a GNOME app. It is very cross platform. It runs on Linux, Windows and QNX. It is only a GTK app.
Gnumeric tries to imitate Excel to a large extent, and the current interface predates the HIG. It is a GTK2 port of a GTK1 app.
If you are to ctirique/criticise GNOME apps, at least include only those that are forced to comply because they are part of the release. A lot of apps do follow the HIG even though their aim is not to be part of GNOME e.g. GAIM.
“Problem is, though, that Evolution is not the only uncompliant program.”
It is a process, that is underway, a process that has brought great benefit to the Gnome desktop.
http://arstechnica.com/reviews/003/software/gnome-2.4/gnome2.4-1.ht…
I agree that GNOME has better language bindings. For some people this might be a big advantage. For KDE/Qt language bindings are much more difficult because of C++.
I don’t really like to see gstreamer used in KDE. gstreamer is based on glib and does not really fit will in the KDE framework. I would prefer to see NMM (http://www.networkmultimedia.org/NMM/). But as far as I know, know decision for the one or other is made and the decision probably depends on the fact what the developers want to have:-)
Those who prefer GNOME are forever boasting of its human interface guidelines, believing that their applications are more consistent.
I wouldn’t say that. Most people should understand that usually pure KDE applications are much more consistent, because they use a lot of “standard widgets”.
The “selling point” of the HIG isn’t that it leads to more consistend applications (which is nice though), but that it contains intelligent and detailed advise on how to create actually usable interfaces. While the HIG doesn’t automatically guarantee good UI, it certainly helps and is usually a good start. This has shown on many many GNOME applications, which people appreciate. You can ignore that but it won’t make anyone smarter.
Also often when people rave about the wonders of the HIG, what they really mean is the generally improved usability of many GNOME applications. For example Epiphany isn’t so nice just because it follows the HIG, but because someone actually cares and works hard for creating a sane interface. Same for gossip, Muine, Rhythmbox, Nautilus, and so on. There is a lot of interface work going on which even more people appreciate. You might not care for it, but many people do and that’s a fact.
Abiword is most definitely a GNOME app. If you think otherwise, you haven’t followed its development very closely as I have. Yes, it’s cross-platform but it derives its inspiration from the GNOME project. And Gnumeric is supposed to do so as well.
http://www.gnome.org/gnome-office/
That’s actually one of the problems I have w/GNOME. It doesn’t know whether to be original, copy the Mac, or copy Windows. I have no problem with any of these choices but they are not being pursued consistently. If you want to emulate Macs, then don’t put the Preferences in the Tools menu. If you want to copy M$, then don’t put the OK button on the bottom right.
why is the usage of glib a problem for the KDE “framework” ?
what’s the problem? with the same argument you could claim that the program isn’t well suited for KDE because it uses libc or STL.
btw, gphoto2 is well integrated in KDE apps.
ok i agree, i’d like to see something like MAS
( http://www.mediaapplicationserver.net/ ) additionally to gstreamer ;o)
“Abiword is most definitely a GNOME app. If you think otherwise, you haven’t followed its development very closely as I have. Yes, it’s cross-platform but it derives its inspiration from the GNOME project. And Gnumeric is supposed to do so as well.
http://www.gnome.org/gnome-office/“
It still takes time to port all of these applications to GTK2… and to bring them in compliance with the HIG. Many apps are being ported now, for example, the upcoming GIMP-2.0 release which is based on GTK-2. It is not like these things happen overnight.
How many developer cycles are Abiword and Gnumeric getting these days? Ximian for example, forsook these solutions, and started to work on modifying OpenOffice instead. (Nice modifications too, I emerged the Ximian version of OO onto my Gentoo box).
Be reasonable.
Doesn’t all distros include glib?
Even though I prefer both KDE and XFce over Gnome, I agree that the KDE interface has been badly designed in many ways. At least they need to have a simple/advanced option because the menu’s and toolbars are filled with thing you’d never use. For example in the Konqueror “Go” menu there’s items for “Back” and “Forward”. Why? Is there anyone who uses those, or are they just there as a reminder which shortcuts they have?
There’s alot of these little things in the UI and they make it harder to find the things that you are looking for. KDE is overall nice, and the apps are very consistant, but they seriously need to clean up the among the options.
> For example in the Konqueror “Go” menu there’s items for “Back” and “Forward”. Why? Is there anyone who uses those, or are they just there as a reminder which shortcuts they have?
Because it’s stipulated in KDE’s style guide. All toolbar buttons must also be placed in menus.
Terrible article. Doesn’t compare stock gnome with stock kde.
In the end, it’s no better than the opinionated rantings it sets out to objectively prove – because it’s too subjective.
First he says KDE’s file manager is too complicated, and shows this screenshot:
http://www.ronny-klein.de/linux/archives/files_kde.html
Then, later, he shows the same KDE file manager without all the extra stuff:
http://www.ronny-klein.de/linux/archives/picture_kde.html
So, if you can turn off the extra stuff that you don’t like, what’s the point of complaining about it?
NOTICE: I do not use KDE or Gnome.
That’s actually one of the problems I have w/GNOME. It doesn’t know whether to be original, copy the Mac, or copy Windows. I have no problem with any of these choices but they are not being pursued consistently. If you want to emulate Macs, then don’t put the Preferences in the Tools menu. If you want to copy M$, then don’t put the OK button on the bottom right.
And if they just want to do something else? Since when they can’t borrow stuff here and there? Why should they try to carbon copy one of them? I really don’t see the problem, if there is one.
Why is it these discussions always seem to be some variant of ‘my dad’s stronger than your dad’. I read in one of the previous posts about the need to justify ones own choice and I think it has lots of truth in it.
Still, I guess they have a way of getting attention to weaknesses and push development forward. I just hope they keep their current profiles so we don’t end up with two very similar DE’s.
And whether you’re a Gnome or Kde user, there is a new major Gnome release just around the corner, and it will be very exciting.
Me want to comment on this too…;)
Also I happen to like GNOME a bit more than KDE. The reasons for prefering GNOME can be summed up in three words: simplicity, clarity & usability.
Here are somme GNOME issues though:
Some KDE apps have much more and better features, that also the corresponding GNOME apps should have. Simplicity shouldn’t be everything, you know, people may also want to have lots of extra features that could ease their work. KDE seems much more open to that sort of development. Maybe the best example is KDE’s Quanta, GNOME has no web editing app that could even distantly be compared to Quanta in features.
Also KDE icon themes are much better than the GNOME icons themes (whether you like Crystal icon theme or not). The default GNOME icon theme sucks aesthetically…, (e.g. the various icons look too different in style from each other, and they are not scalable). But the alternative GNOME icon themes are far from being perfect too as they usually lack even more than half of the essential icons for GNOME apps.
But anyway, bugs and instability of both GNOME and KDE (at least many KDE/GNOME applications) still make me pull my hair quite often… So, please, make those desktop environments and their default apps as stable as possible, and that surely enhances the usability a lot too. For example, the much simpler XFce4 often seems much more stable than both KDE and GNOME (though maybe that is only my highly subjective experience?)
Others say that KDE has a better development cycle. I’m not familiar with it, but the one GNOME has is absolutely excelent. They do not miss targets.
Can’t agree with you. The new file selector was first planned to be in 2.4: it’ll be in 2.6. Totem, gstreamer and Evolution were also supposed to be included in 2.4 and they won’t even be included in 2.6! Don’t get me wrong: I’m a GNOME user and I love it. However, they do miss some targets sometimes… like most developers.
That’s just the mentality in the open source developer community. They can’t agree on anything, so everyone goes off to make their own thing. I suppose us open source users should be grateful that there are so few major desktop environments. It’s not like they inter-operate well, GNOME and KDE can’t even read each other’s settings and blend in with each other. How hard is that? The source is available!
I spend many hours in front of my computer every day, and I can’t remember the last time one of the apps crashed. I had a few machine lock-ups using some windows driver wrapper for my wireless card a little while back, but that’s to be expected.
And I agree you shouldn’t completely remove features. What I would like to see is some form of plugin like interface that let’s people develop extensions to applications if they want them. This way the default DE setup can be as clean and simple as the developers want and instead of removing features you don’t want, you would be adding those you do want.
And I really think the selected icon theme should apply for applications (GTK) as well. At least have a checkbox or some place to decide whether or not to overrun the default icon set. And Gnome and Kde should use the same icon themes, and by the same, I mean the same.
And also, someone please make a gtk-engine for qt. The gtk-qt project is a very nice project, maybe they could even be combined to one. It’s on freedesktop.org afterall.
To Chris Dunphy:
If Sun, HP et al are sitting in on GNOME foundation, then there are countless companies which are bringing the linux desktop to the end-user (hey! its not GNOME??? What about usability???) and these are ALL based on KDE. Name one company that has a decend grandma-friendly desktop that is based on GNOME. All the companies that you name are server-based companies — including redhat (now!)
Take Xandros, LindowsOS, Lycoris, Ark, Mepis, etc etc etc are all riding on the KDE desktop onto the end-users PC … so stop the name dropping already 😉
Hi
“That’s just the mentality in the open source developer community. They can’t agree on anything, so everyone goes off to make their own thing. I suppose us open source users should be grateful that there are so few major desktop environments. It’s not like they inter-operate well, GNOME and KDE can’t even read each other’s settings and blend in with each other. How hard is that? The source is available!”
dont blame everything else. there are several good open source projects out there. why dont apple and microsoft agree with each other? eh?
there is freedesktop.org for settings that can be shared. some settings are unique to the desktops and cannot be shared. they use different toolkits. just because the source is available everything cannot be merged into one monolithic thing like windows. choices will be available. you can learn to choose one of them and use it
regards
Jess
What exactly is wrong with that KDE-menu?
Where did the gnome-menu put the other multimedia applications? (especially realplayer since that’s the only one i recognice as a windows 98 user)Or can’t i use these other programs?
Was the review done on the same pc with the same programs installed or one pc with lesser/one with more programs?
Sorry if my questions sound stupid, but i’m interested since i don’t wanna upgrade to windows (higher xp or later) and linux (with gnome or kde) seems to be the best alternative. In the meanwhile i try to stay as long as possible with ’98Se.
Why I prefer “Perl over Python”?
Why I prefer “Vim over Emacs”?
Why I prefer “Java over C++”?
Why I prefer “Linux over Windows”?
There is one common word — PREFER. That is what the whole OS thing is about. Choice. KDE does some things well, GNOME does some things well. Blah blah, etc. etc. finito.
Coming to think of it the author as *some* reasons why he prefers GNOME over KDE but I have *many many* reasons to prefer KDE over GNOME 🙂
“f Sun, HP et al are sitting in on GNOME foundation, then there are countless companies which are bringing the linux desktop to the end-user (hey! its not GNOME??? What about usability???) and these are ALL based on KDE. Name one company that has a decend grandma-friendly desktop that is based on GNOME. All the companies that you name are server-based companies — including redhat (now!)
Take Xandros, LindowsOS, Lycoris, Ark, Mepis, etc etc etc are all riding on the KDE desktop onto the end-users PC … so stop the name dropping already ;-)”
KDE can be made to more closely resemble Windows, so that Windows users switching to Linux would have less to unlearn. Companies Lindows and Xandros spend a lot of time polishing up the default KDE interface to make is as simple as possible. Lycoris has worked hard to make KDE look like Windows XP. You are correct, in the consumer space, KDE does seem to be dominant. Corel seemed to start this trend, a good while ago.
That is not the case in the enterprise space however. Companies like Redhat, Sun, and Ximian have made Gnome highly desireable for large organizations looking to deploy Linux workstations.
I am not saying Gnome is hands down better than KDE btw, I just prefer the Gnome interface when looking at the current incarnation of the two desktops.
Because it’s stipulated in KDE’s style guide. All toolbar buttons must also be placed in menus.
Then, what they need to do is to reconsider this.
I must say it is brave to address a subject like this. Unfortunately the article is not very good. Some of the problems he mentions comes from Fedora and are not true KDE problems. He merely tells us that it doesn’t feel right but gives us little information on what’s wrong.
Now let me tell you what I as a long time KDE user think could be made better in KDE. Unfortunately I haven’t access to a standard KDE compiled from source so some of comments may be wrong. Just like some views in the article was biased by the use of Fedora.
1)The artwork of the standard theme. They lack graphical definition. Compare to gnome graphics where you easily can distinguish one type of items from another just by looking at the contours of the icon. Compare the folder icons in Gnome and KDE. In KDE it is in shades of blue that fades out in almost white, surrounded by thin folder outlines.
It is almost like the designer wanted to camoflage the folder, as making contours less evident is one of the most important ingredients in camoflage. Have you ever wondered why a zebra is striped. This is the reason. It is not just the folders that have this problem, just look at the Trashcan or the home icon. All of them less distinct in shape than what they could have bin. In fact the old classic KDE theme was much better in this respect.
2)Unnecessary graphics: Why is there a KDE image to the right of the KDE menu? This have no function in KDE other than imitate windows. In windows it have the function of branding, Microsoft want their customers to know that they have got the latest and greatest, and all people looking over the shoulder of the user should feel envy an run home to buy it to. But KDE is free software there is no need for such things and it should be turned off by default.
Another example is the default KDE background image. Why does it need to say KDE on the desktop? Of course the KDE logo could serve as a landmark. E.g. a user could say I placed the file just to the right of the KDE logo. But if this is the purpose it should be much more discrete. The SuSE desktop consists of a faint blue check pattern of some fairly large slightly overlapping semitransparant blue squares that is much more unobtrusive than the standard KDE background image.
3)The default shadows on filenames on the desktop. The shadowing makes the files significantly harder to read.
The Gnome way of having a colored background is much better. KDE support this as well but it is not the default behavior. However the background in KDE is not nicely rounded as in Gnome but have sharp ugly edges.
And why are filenames underlined by default? It reduces the readability. I suppose that they are underlined as to indicate that they are clickable just like links on a web page. But many modern webpages remove the underlining of links, so why do we have them in KDE where it is so much easier to realize that they are clickable than on a web page.
4)The move copy & link behavior. If you drag a file from one folder to another a menu turns up as you drop the file in the new folder. The menu contains four items, “Move Here”, “Copy Here”, “Link Here” and “Cancel” All items but the first have menu icons. The icon of the cancel item is bright read and very visible. This means that the first thing a user will look at when dropping a file is just that cancel item. But cancel is probably the least probable alternative needed by the user when he drops the file.
This also creates an inconsistency problem as no other menus have cancel items. In KDE 3.2 the order of the menu items was changed so that “Move Here” was the first alternative (instead of “Copy Here”) This is an improvement but the menu is still a hidden behavior.
A user that want to create a link can’t brows true the various menus in Konqueror and find a menu item that allows him to create the link. He have to move the file and drop it where he wants the link to get a menuitem that does what he wants. This sort of breaks the desktop metaphore moving a paper on your desk does not create copies or links.
In a user study I performed the pop up menu was so unexpected that they didn’t even notice it and the believed that they had copied the file as soon as they dropped it on the drop target, and continued to the next file. The most interesting part of that study was that advanced users liked the menu as they believed that the menu should be useful to unexperienced users. While unexperienced users disliked it as it was too much in their way. This was probably because inexperienced users had no idea how to select multiple files, and was exposed to the menu much more often than those with more experience.
It would probably be better if drag & drop of files just handled move and linking and copying had been handled by the right mouse button context menu.
5)Single click activation: When studying users new to KDE they usually have problems with the default single click behavior. The open things by mistake and have difficulties to select files. So why do single click work well on a web page but not on the desktop? My guess is that a link on a webpage have another meaning than a clickable filename in the filemanager or the desktop. On the desktop it is the name of an object that you mentally can pick up and manipulate. Having single click makes that pick up procedure to difficult as it is too easy to activate something by mistake.
6)The titlebar of windows using the default keramik theme is very hard to read as the frame around the text steal to much attention. The fact that the text is shadowed makes things even worse.
7)Like the author of the article I think that Konqueror have too many bells and wistles to be usable. To make thins worse it uses icons without explaining text. Tooltips are not enough. Sometimes the icons are badly chosen. Just look at the textsize change icons and the search icon. They all consists of a magnifying glass with various attributes. If we use a magnifying glass to zoom the size of the text, you should definitively have some other symbol for searching, a pair of binoculars perhaps.
Another badly chosen icon is the TT icon for font selection. First the TT could easily be interpreted as representing true type fonts only, while in reality it handles all types of fonts. Second some people may interpret the TT as some sort of antenna symbol. A double AA would probably be better as it have a more distinctive shape. I also guess that A as in alphabet works on more languages than T as in Text or Typeface.
8) The handling of the Trash:
Why is there one menu item on the the right menu button context menu that says “Delete” and one that says “Move to Trash” It would be much better if there only was a “Trash” item, and the behavior of that action should be configured from the context menu of the Trash can just like it is done in windows.
Many of these problems can be handled by changing the settings, but to have good usability you it really doesn’t matter if you can change it.
It should be good by default.
The argument he makes is valid only to the point where it is his preference. I agree that there is a lot more to KDE that can make it seem as though it is cluttered but by using Konqueror everyday and KDE 3.2 I find that the difference between the two (I use GNOME on servers at work) almost minimal to find one significantly better than the other, and just one thought, what was he saying when renaming a file or copying one in Konqueror was difficult? I’m still scratching my head on that one, microsoft should have trained him long ago about the right click mouse button.
It is unstable. Crashes a lot on me. That alone sucks !
I am running two monitors on a dual head setup and I don’t know if it’s just that but I can run GNOME non-stop. It always crashes. I as on fluxbox a little while ago and gnome-terminal crashed under stress. KDE seems a lot more stable for me.
And you know what ? Knoppix’s creator, Klaus Knopper, thinks that GNOME is very unstable too. I saw some messages by him on the debian mailling lists.
Set #1: wow, they look very similar, but That seems to be a RedHat problem (the icons don’t appear that way using kde’s defaults. *valid only on redhat
Set #2: RedHat tidied up the Gnome menu, ok, and they messed with what KDE has for defaults of entries: Discription (program name) (eg: “IRC Client (KSirc)” “Instant Messenger (Kopete)”) I don’t believe KDE based distros mess this up, just RedHat. *valid only on redhat
Set #3: Either he added stuff or Nautilus is hiding folders named evolution, and some others. I can’t tell, and I certainly wouldn’t want the file manager to hide files that don’t begin with a dot without me expressly telling it to. Opening clicking + next to devices brings up all the cds, floppies, and mount points (smb, nfs mounts) which means it’s faster to access. *semi valid-opinion
(If you don’t like the way it starts up, close that box, then save the changes. Does GNOME even have a feature like that? )
Set #4: OK, so he doesn’t have the right things installed to do that in KDE, which is the distro’s problem. *redhat specific issue
(also, what’s with the location bar being on the same level as the toolbar? that’s not default, so he must have changed it: see set #3, it’s on a seperate level)
Set #5:
Kcontrol & Themes: OK, the theming has not been redone for a while and needs to be. *valid complaint.
Set #6:
Note: Evolution really isn’t part of GNOME, RedHat (and lots of others) just tie them in (IHMO: gnome really needs them to be tied in because it’s not that useful without all the tie-ins).
“But, the first impression is that at least Korganizer is a pain in your eyes and seems therefore quite unusable.”
He even says that he didn’t try to change the look, and says nothing of the actual USE of the program. Looking pretty != Usablility, though it can be a componet. *opinion with no evidence-invalid
(Own small experence with the two, I tried evolution recently on RHEL 3, after playing with it for a while (and trying to solve a sendmail config issue. I really started to get fed up with it. It looked pretty but for me was not usable. Now, had I worked with it longer it might have become more usable for me, but KDE’s stuff works for me, and I saw no reason to continue the evolution experement. This seems to be more in-depth than the article’s use of Kontact, which is exceedingly sad.)
So: One valid complaint (being addressed), 3 RedHat specifi issues, 1 semi-valid opinions & 1 invalid opinion being purely opinion, with nothing behind it. I am willing to bet that in kcontrol, which honestly is IMO well layed out, and doesn’t require switching to text files to configure it’s DE if it does get too advanced, there is an option to change most anything the person wants.
Every half of a year or so, I install the newest KDE just to give it a try. But, after playing around for several minutes, I’ve always decided to rpm -e the KDE packages again.
Okay, let’s assume you did spend more than a few minutes on KDE – that wouldn’t be fair to KDE. You are annoyed by the minor quirks of KDE before you even get to the nice parts that would keep you in KDE. Even a couple of days is bad. When I tried GNOME 2.2 for an entire week and mildly criticized it on OSNews, GNOME fans got angry. But the other way around, it is okay?
However, a little annoying is the fact that the KDE panel does not shrink the icons correctly. They are far to small in this example and almost unusable.
At that size, Crystal icons look okay. Why doesn’t Fedora icons scale well in KDE? Perhaps *gasp* it is Fedora’s fault? Perish the thought! Yes, KDE is somewhat at fault here, by having the same border space as it does for the big icon sets, but clearly the icons aren’t suitable for 16×16.
I’m wondering, wouldn’t it be much better for youif you choosed the second-smallest icon size for Kicker? The icons would be the same size as in the GNOME screenshot but Kicker would be a couple of pixels thicker.
In order to launch an application one would usually open the start menu and look for the specific entry. The next shots show the start menu of both DEs. Although the difference is rather small, the Gnome menu seems to be a little more polished and tidied up than the KDE menu.
Fedora’s fault. Get GNOME from its source and you would see the menu is not much different. It’s Fedora’s menus there you seeing in GNOME, not GNOME’s menus. One thing you fail to point out is that on top of the menu in KDE is your frequently used applications. Would save you a lot of time going through the menus, take it from a XP user.
As one can see, Konqueror – the file manager of KDE – is just overkill. Sure, this application is like a Swiss knife: it can do almost everything for you. But who really needs that.
A lot of people, apparently. After using Konqueror for extended periods of time, I have withdrawal issues. But you see in that screenshot is the default placed by KDE developers meant for KDE users that would get the source and compile it themselves (or the very least, install the builds themselves). They can switch off features they don’t like, they don’t need.
And Fedora can in that regards. They can by default switch off the sidebar and much of the icons on the toolbars. After all, they manage to find the time to change the defaults of many GNOME applications, why can’t they do the same for Fedora?
Nautilus, instead, gives one just the plain file manager tasks, but in a beautiful and smart manner. In particular, I like the possibility of adding emblems to my folders, and the picture preview:
On the picture preview (which I find tad slower than Konqui) is similar to that in KDE. The difference is unneeded eye candy. As for the emblems, it is a nice idea. But throughout my time of using Nautilus, the only time I placed emblems was the first time I used it, when I was trying it out. While I used it extensively, I never found much use for emblems other than aesthetics.
A further thing which really annoys me everytime when I try to configure KDE is the way how they handle the different appearance options. Instead of providing an overall theme manager, one has to change every bit on one’s own. In Gnome, one click is enough to change the appearance of the desktop totally.
There’s pros and cons about doing it the GNOME way. Using GNOME’s method you can’t have a specific colour scheme for example. Or change the icon set from the theme’s icon set. Unless of course you go the GConf way, which is IMHO a tad more harder to stomach than a disorganized KControl.
I’m not an artist, and everytime I try to adjust the theme under KDE it looks a little amateurish.
Unless you really have absolutely no taste, I don’t see how anything that suites you would look a little amateurish. Remember, it is your desktop, it should be the way you want it to be with the colours you like, the fonts you like, the icons you like, etc. It is what makes you comfortable that matters, not what looks professionally designed. Spending an extra 10 minutes picking out something you like really goes a long way.
Granted, KDE should have something like GNOME as a optional default. And indeed there is, in the KDE 3.3.
The next comparison is a good example of the better usability of Gnome. The pictures below show the default organizer of KDE (Kontact) and Gnome (Evolution).
Other than the weird choice of icons in Kontact, and what appears to be a font bug (for the time, on the lower right column, where the time conflicts with the divider), I would say I would much prefer to use Kontact. Perhaps I’m not all that used to Outlook’s way of doing things, nor am I a IMAP user (KMail and its problems with IMAP), but it is a frank opinion.
Take for example the sidebar in Evo. It takes up a lot more space than it does in Kontact. It may be aesthetically pleasing to some, but for me, it seems like a waste of screen real estate.
Then it is also how I like KDE dividing each hour into columns – within an hour you can have more than one appointment. Make sense to be able to keep them both there. On the other hand, I like how Evo gives the hours more space instead of cramming it up. But I doubt I would want to remove that calendar on the left, it would be rather useful.
Pictures say more than words. In my opinion, the focus on usability among the Gnome developers really makes a difference. Instead of overblown applications and a jungle of configuration options, one gets a clean working environment which does not stand in your way.
I much rather having something standing in my way before I start using an enviroment and end up for the next few months having a productive desktop than having a bunch of Sun employees dictating what should be the best defaults for me and making me jump through hoops to change it. Half of your complains are personal opinions (most stark of which is the Kontact example), some are KDE faults (the theming portion), and mostly, it is Fedora’s fault.
Take a whirl on Xandros 2.0, and you would see it is possible to have KDE with sensible defaults. Fedora just never bothered. Can’t blame them though, they are a GNOME-centered distribution. But it is a tad unfair for you to compare KDE and GNOME in that Amanner. I would have every GNOME user against me if I compared GNOME and KDE from SuSE – it wouldn’t be a fair comparison at all.
There is nothing wrong with comparing two things which compete with each other. First of all you have to think: “why do i want to do this”? Well, because of a good review, various points can be made: users can learn which one they’d prefer, developers can learn what needs to be improved. Or not. But no marketing, please!
In this case, the reviewer didn’t do his homework.
I happen to be a user of neither DE, i’m a user of a certain WM. I use both DE’s every once in a while though. Here’s a few points i’d like to make. I’m not an expert. Why? Because i have my own favorite WM and when using a DE i’m using XFce4, that’s it.
He admits:
“Every half of a year or so, I install the newest KDE just to give it a try. But, after playing around for several minutes, I’ve always decided to rpm -e the KDE packages again.”
If we take the “several minutes” with a grain of salt one still can’t make a relatively objective judgement. One cannot after a short while make conclusions; deep research is needed, actually using the damn things for ~ an equal amount of time. Being objective is the goal, a dream which cannot be achieved, but work can be done to be as near as possible to that. Important when comparing! First of all unmount any emotional attachements; i care rats for what KDE/GNOME flamewarriors claim elsewhere, i want to see a good review, quality, learning.
He also doesn’t seem to understand that KDE is build upon an entirely different philosophy than GNOME. A thing to learn about before using it? IMO it is. These philosophies and their differences is quite extensive and complicated, but can be found in examples like Galeon (or Mozilla) versus Konqueror. Galeon and Mozilla have been made strictly according to the correct standards; on the contrary, Konqueror is made according to the “most popular” standards instead which could just as well be MSIE-specific, iow “making it just work”.
“As one can see, Konqueror – the file manager of KDE – is just overkill. Sure, this application is like a Swiss knife: it can do almost everything for you. But who really needs that. I’m always getting confused when I open the Konqueror just to copy a folder and rename some files. What makes things worst is the configuration options of Konqueror as seen in the next picture”
He could have tried here trying to switch this off in combination with thinking about what the newbie user wants. The experienced user easily customizes this. The newbie user wants might want to see all the options available instead. There’s a grey area somewhere between that, and apparantly he’s a newbie user who is technically inclined yet didn’t do research to find out wether and/or how this can be customized.
Use the best tool for the best job. Having (ie.) Konqueror-Embedded on your GNOME system just in case a your Galeon doesn’t work on a homepage is a pragmatic and wise example of allowing yourself a choice.
One who states his/her opinion should make sure his/her opinion actually matters. Therefore do research. Not the case here IMO; i’ve seen far better reviews of and comparisions between a bag of DE’s and WM’s. If you haven’t read the review yet, you haven’t missed anything. Sorry.
“5)Single click activation: When studying users new to KDE they usually have problems with the default single click behavior. The open things by mistake and have difficulties to select files. So why do single click work well on a web page but not on the desktop? My guess is that a link on a webpage have another meaning than a clickable filename in the filemanager or the desktop. On the desktop it is the name of an object that you mentally can pick up and manipulate. Having single click makes that pick up procedure to difficult as it is too easy to activate something by mistake.”
Sorry, pal. But single-click has been shown in repeated studies to be the preferred way of doing things among noobs. Most beginners take a long time to learn how to double click. I know this having taught several hundred people the basics of computing. Some infrequent users actually never really get the manual motions down very well at all.
That is why KDE uses single-click. The only reason that the other DE’s don’t is because existing users are too set in their ways. New users “untainted” by the Windows/Mac defaults take to single-click like a duck to water.
I like both, and I switch back and forth. I also use fluxbox on my laptop due to flux’ kindness to low resolution screens. Right now I am using KDE 3.2.1, I couldn’t stand KDE 3.2 it was buggy and slow. But 3.2.1 seems to be a nice fix.
I loved Gnome 2.4, the only problem is that menu icons don’t load well. This and there aren’t quite as nice of themes and icon sets, but all in all it’s pretty equal.
KDE does something cool that Gnome doesn’t. KDE provides a very complete environment to develop, write papers, presentations, play a cheesy game, browse the web, and communicate. Some of the apps are lacking, but KDE provides one to to virtually everything none the less.
The cool thing about Gnome is that it has an extremely polished feature set. I prefer the Gnome way of doing things, but atm I am likin KDE (maybe it’s cause it’s new, who knows I switch almost weekly).
The lighter wm’s are beautiful on older systems with fewer resources. I don’t really find KDE or Gnome inneficient, they simply use more RAM and screen space (which is beautiful if you have the resources to spare: more than 256MB RAM IMO).
But yea the flame wars are stupid. This is all about personal preferences. If you want to war, fight over the HIG. That’s a real subject to have arguments about.
Oh, and VI rocks!
rain: Because it’s stipulated in KDE’s style guide. All toolbar buttons must also be placed in menus.
Then, what they need to do is to reconsider this.
There is a problem with that: what if the user does not have a mouse? If the item is not in the menu how do they get to it? Maybe it’s just me, but things should be usable without a mouse, harder perhaps, but still usable. Plus, how else are you going to make users aware of what the shortcut is? Tooltips?
FYI: even Firefox has Back and Forward in it’s “Go” menu. Nor does it list the shortcut in the tooltip, but it does in the Menu.
What about GNUStep?
This guy calls some parts of KDE overkill?! As opposed to very few preferences in GNOME? GNOME isn’t that usable to me as it was hard to navigate, not as easy to configure, etc.
I use Mac OS X most of the time, but when I use Linux I pretty much have to use KDE as it’s the only usable DE to me, I’m about the opposite as this guy every now and then I try GNOME and try to dig through it and eventually switch back over to KDE.
I’ll give him the themes part, some things are all over the place, but GNOME suffers from this as well because many options/prefs I want are all over the place.
As for the apps Korganizer and Evolution it doesn’t matter I can run Evolution in KDE but I can’t run Korganizer in GNOME and that makes a BIG difference to me… freedom.
However in comparison to Aqua in Mac OS X, both pai but KDE appears to be making welcome changes and very much ahead of GNOME… assuming more than 3 prefs options doesn’t confuse you.
That’s quite an facile editorial but you can’t expect better from normal users. My screenshot looks better than yours. Evolution is better than KMail, GNOME looks more polished than KDE and so on. I do use XChat, Abiword, Rhythmbox….
…usually you get stuff like these from normal users. And this is ok since you can’t blame them for stuff they simply don’t know about or don’t have a slighest knowledge about.
Such editorials are hard to take serious since they are build up on basicly NO deeper knowledge of the matter. Most people I met so far are full of prejudices and seek for excuses or explaination why they prefer the one over the other while in reality they have no slightest clue on what parameters they compare the things.
If people do like the gance ICONS over the functionality then it’s quite ok but that’s absolutely NO framework to do such comparisons.
I do come from the GNOME architecture and spent the last 5 years on it. I also spent a lot of time (nearly 1 year now if I sum everything up) on KDE 3.x architecture including the latest KDE 3.2 (please note I still do use GNOME and I am up to CVS 2.6 release myself).
Although calling myself a GNOME vetaran I am also not shy to criticise GNOME and I do this in the public as well. Ok I got told from a couple of people if I don’t like GNOME that I simply should switch and so on. But these are usually people who have a tunnelview and do not want to see or understand the problems around GNOME.
Speaking as a developer with nearly 23years of programming skills on my back I can tell you that GNOME may look polished on the first view but on the second view it isn’t.
Technically GNOME is quite a messy architecture with a lot of unfinished, half polished and half working stuff inside. Given here are examples like broken gnome-vfs, half implementations of things (GStreamer still half implemented into GNOME (if you can call it an implementation at all)) rapid changes of things that make it hard for developers to catch up and a never ending bughunting. While it is questionable if some stuff can simply be fixed with patches while it’s more required to publicly talk about the Framework itself.
Sure GNOME will become better but the time developers spent fixing all the stuff is the time that speaks for KDE to really improve it with needed features. We here on GNOME are only walking in the circle but don’t have a real progress in true usability (not that farce people talk to one person and then to the next). Real usability here is using the features provided by the architecture that is when I as scientists want to do UML stuff that I seriously find an application written for that framework that can do it. When I eye over to the KDE architecture then as strange it sounds I do find more of these needed tools than I can find on GNOME. This can be continued in many areas where I find more scientific Software to do my work and Software that works reliable and not crash or misbehave or behave unexpected.
Comparing Nautilus with Konqueror is pure nonsense, comparing GNOME with KDE is even bigger nonsense. If we get a team of developers on a Table and discuss all the crap we find between KDE and GNOME then I can tell from own experience that the answer is clearly that GNOME will fail horrible here.
We still have many issues on GNOME which are Framework related. We now got the new Fileselector but yet they still act differently in each app. Some still have the old Fileselector, some the new Fileselector, some appearance of new Fileselectors are differently than in other apps that use the new Fileselector code and so on. When people talk about polish and consistency, then I like to ask what kind of consistency and polish is this ? We still have a couple of different ways to open Window in GNOME.
– GTK-Application-Window,
– BonoboUI Window,
– GnomeUI Window,
Then a lot of stuff inside GNOME are hardcoded UI’s, some are using *.glade files (not to mention that GLADE the interface builder is still not aware of the new Widgets in GTK and even not aware of the deprecated ones), then we have *.xml files for BonoboUI windows etc. As you can see it’s a pain to maintain all this junk. These are just a little spot on the entire Mountain. I can countless bring up more stuff. Sure these things are being worked on. No doubt but as I said they WORK on it this means that there is NO real progress for the future since people write new apps for GNOME and probably use old API and then they need to change huge parts of their code only to adopt the new API rather than working on the application itself to bring it forward with better features the user needs.
Why do I say these things in public and still use GNOME. Well when I started, I was developing stuff using the Motif widgetset and during that time around 1999 KDE and GNOME were looking quite similar from features and stuff. So I decided to work on and for GNOME although I am not quite happy with many so called ‘solutions’ inside GNOME and I think that we need to discuss them (on whatever place it is) to make people who like to contribute to GNOME know where the problems are and how we can solve them (if possible).
From my person experience KDE is far far superior of the inferior GNOME when it comes to technical aspects. Even if there are a few Menu entries to much or the Toolbar is overblown in Konqueror these are all cosmetical things that can be changed if needed (and if the developers think it’s a good thing) but looking at the amount of KDE users and applications that got stomped out of nothing I do believe that there are a lot of people simply happy how KDE is as it is now.
If they change the Fileselector in KDE then it’s inherited by other applications. So the author doesn’t need to change huge leaps of code since they simply inherit it. If someone changes the Addressbook object then it’s being inherit in other applications, same for Clock, Bookmarks etc. The Fileselector looks similar in all apps, the Toolbars and Menu look similar in all apps etc. They have quite nifty features that I am missing in GNOME. Even nowadays I ask myself if the developers working on GNOME are still on track of what the user really wants or if they are not caught in a tunnelview here by doing something no-one can really use.
When I hear people talking about all these cool usability studies SUN made then I need to smile here since this thing is laying back a few years now. And SUN already started working on their GLASS Desktop based on JAVA (no it’s not GNOME based). The reason why SUN still works on GNOME is as far as I was told is that they had a 5 years contract with GNOME to do so. Anyways you can’t depend on old usability tests. To warranty true usability these tests needs to be re-done every now and then so you can guarantee some sort of quality assurance that the stuff is still on track and truly usable for people.
Usable not as in which button to press, usable as in ‘can I find the apps I need to do my business work’. or ‘can I copy files and subdirs from FTP and have the stuff arrive correctly on my Desktop’ (gnome-vfs still horrbly fails here).
Well I think people should really do an article based on these things since they are elementary for a Desktop. Neverthless I do believe that both sides KDE and GNOME do work hard on their Desktop but truly I believe that KDE makes better steps forward and imo in the right direction too. Even alternative stuff such as MorphOS or XFCE are far more useroriented and friendlier to use than what GNOME offers today.
I will quote my post:
“WOW, I know it was mentioned this was not meant to be objective, but I would of thought that the author at least attempted objectivity.
Each number corresponds to the comparrisons he gives in order.
1. The “blank” desktops
Here it is clear that he attempts to make the GNOME desktop look cleaner even when he knows that he is not being objective.
– The KDE desktop has 2 programs in the taskbar making it look mor cluttered than GNOME which has none
– The KDE desktop has an additional 2 icons which completely depends on the Redhat configuration also making it look more cluttered
2. The menu comparrison
Again he is showing a poorly configured Kmenu compared to an elegant GNOME menu
– The KDE menu is made to look very cluttered, an unpolished mess. If he were attempting to be objective at all he would have shown the menu of each which includes the same items and same kind of configuration. Instead the KDE menu has about 30 items while the GNOME menu has half that.
– The KDE menu also does not have icons for each program like the GNOME menu, which solely depends on the configuration
– Finally the KDE menu has the true name of the application, the GNOME menu has names symbolic of function. This again is a matter of how the distro configured it.
– The quirks from #1 are still there, there are still more KDE icons.
2.The file manager comparrison
An attempt to make Konqueror much more cluttered and complex than it is.
– The GNOME filemanager is displaying 9 items, the KDE one has 15 items making it appear more complex
– Navigation panel (sidebar) is enabled in KDE file manager again making it look more complex. Sidebar is disabled however in GNOME
– The toolbar of Konqueror is more cluttered than the GNOME toolbar because additional plugins like cervista are installed and again this is amatter of configuration
3. Konqueror options
Here he loses his flow with the comparrisons. Only Konqueror’s options are shown, Nautilus’s are completely omitted. And the sheer number of options does not automatically make something much more difficult.
4. Comparrison of file manager previews
WOW, he forgot to make Konqueror look more complicated to use.
– Unlike in his previous screenshot of Konqueror and Nautilus side by side, he shows a normal Konqueror without the sidebar or the excessive toolbar buttons. Now Konqueror has only 8 toolbar objects and Nautilus 11. In fact Konqueror looks easier.
– However, unlike Nautilus Konqueror only shows the file type for the .avi files. Nautilus shows a clip. Konqueror is perfectly capable of showing the clip preview too. It would only show the file type if the movie was larger in size than it was allowed to preview (which is configurable) or if it is disabled to preview those types of files.
– Only way that Nautilus would have an advantage for this comparrison if it were objective would be the nice shadows for the previews and images. But, this may be a negative for those with slower computers.
5. Themes Comparrison
He shows how much easier it is to install a theme in GNOME.
– Here he does have a point, GNOME has theme files which theme everything that GNOME can theme (which is quite limited, only window decoration, style and icons) automatically. KDE on the otherhand can haved individual configuration for each part such as background, style, icons fonts, splashscreen etc. This is much more flexible, but slower if you want to have eactly the things in the themefile. However, most of the time you would want to keep your icons, splashscreen, fonts, icons etc. so it does not matter all that much. Also noteworthy is that KDE used to have a theme manager like this, it was removed because it had been unmaintained however a a new one which is much more powerful will soon come. It will be able to install fonts, splash screens, icons, styles, color schemes, window decorations, screensavers, etc. all at once.
6. Kontact and Evolution
Another attempt to make KDE look more difficult.
– I am really getting bored of this, again her eit is a matter of configuration, I don’t even see what he finds so incredibly “unusable” about Kontact here.
Bottomline:
KDE is quite clean if it is a default install and without the extragear. Distributions like Fedora don’t ship a completely functional or neat KDE. Also KDE empowers its users and the distributions, few users ever experience a default KDE install, so hte distributions should configure KDE to make it as simple as possible while still retaining its configurability where it makes sense. Anyway in the end it si better to have configurability than have some smart developer think it is too difficult for your weak and simple mind so he removes an essential feature and makes you lose 2 hours every time you try and do some task.
One more important factor is the underlying technology. KDE is much more integrated, much more reusable, it’s technology is superior in virtually everything. For KDE to get where GNOME is it will not be so hard, for GNOME to abandon it’s poor architecture and get where KDE is, that will take years and years.”
If you read this alone, even though there are a dozen other reasons, IT BECOMES CLEAR THAT THE ARTICLE IS BEING UNFAIR TO KDE AND AS HE SAID IT IS COMPLETELY UNOBJECTIVE. END OF ARGUEMENT.
not me…
…gives a bloody shite. Use what you like and stop writing lame ass articles with no real substance about why you like this better than that, blah blah blah. If people spent less time whining about “A is better than B because… waaa waaa waaa” and more time using their preferred software and actually getting things done, including writing software, the world would be better off. Now… where’d I’d put that delicious, nutritious beer…
… the first one wasn’t so damn unstable I couldn’t run an usual app for more than about 30 minutes and it would crash, and the second if the damn GTK(+/-/…)-toolkit was able to present its menus nicely in mixed-language environments.
More elaborate: I really like KDE for its power GNOME for the way its polished. However, KDE has always crashed on me. I don’t know why – friends of mine keep using it for weeks at a time and have no trouble, yet if I try to use it – self-compiled, self-compiled with all optimizations disabled, standard debian packages for stable and for unstable, … – it *always* crashes. Especially konqueror and the whole damn multimedia apps suite (can anyone actually *use* noatun?).
On the other hand, I am using a mixed Japananese-German-English environment. I admit that this is no standard setup, but it does work nicely in desktop environments such as XFCE and window managers such as window maker, icewm, KDE (for this point) etc. But with gtk menus, everything gets mixed – German characters show up as Japanese ones, sometimes menu entries are Japanese, sometimes German, sometimes English… Disgusting and unusable…
So what I came to appreciate is not the suite, but selecting some of the apps. Especially:
– K3B: no better easy-to-use cd burning app out there
– KITEN: great Japanese-multi-language dictionary
– gimp: no alternative there
– xmms: stable, reliable though still with that ugly file selector, but at least it works unlike juk and others…
Problem is – as already pointed out by someone else before – that just starting one of the appllications, especially KDE, takes a very long time due to loading the libraries, DCOP servers and whatever other specialities the corresponding DE has…
To me, XFCE4 has shown as the best DE. It has its shortcomings, but at least it lets me get the work done and doesn’t crash. And that’s what counts most, right? 😉
Now, if I just could find a way to get freedesktop.org’s xserver running on my nvidia geforce 2mx at a higher refresh rate than 60Hz, … XFCE4 looked sooo much nicer in it 😉
If Kde is so much better, why do I and so many with me prefer Gnome over Kde? To me Gnome feels simple, streamlined, easy to use, professional etc etc. I try Kde, and it feels like too many people did too many things. It may be just a feeling, and others may think differently, but I am allowed to think so, and I do. I have reasons, or it wouldn’t happen.
That being said, in terms of technical merit, Kde is ahead of Gnome. But I feel Gnome has been through a period of reformation for a while. But with the last couple of major releases it has shown direction and determination in getting things to actually happen. Things are happening, and it may not be exactly what everyone wants, but it’s exciting.
Also, I think the article was pretty bad. It showed some screenshots that really didn’t really show that much. Some of it I can agree with, but to me it’s more the whole experience than the amount of buttons on a konqueror toolbar. The article was kind of like flamebait and imo shouldn’t have been posted to osnews.
And btw, people are pretty much the same now as when the study was conducted. I hardly think we evolve that fast
> If Kde is so much better, why do I and so many with me
> prefer Gnome over Kde?
Yes ? Where do you read that ? When I look back on all types of polls made between KDE and GNOME then I usually count 3x more people choosing KDE over GNOME.
> But I feel Gnome has been through a period of reformation
> for a while. But with the last couple of major releases it
> has shown direction and determination in getting things to
> actually happen.
This is simply NOT true. You shouldn’t ‘feel’ you should ‘know’. Now what big has been done in GNOME that gives you this feel. Can you please explain that ? A lot of stuff haven’t even been elaborated clearly in GNOME and it’s just another GNOME release since 2.0 GNOME is looping in it’s own circle and don’t come out of the nonsense people committing to CVS. I internally have given up on GNOME quite long ago and catching myself in senseless debattes with people doesn’t change much either. It would be much easier to say ‘hey just give up on trying to make a desktop that simply works’ since they never reach that goal. They are permanently changing stuff and fixing things rather than advancing and going in a way that people can truly use the Desktop. Again a lot of people will run away from GNOME once they see the Spatial nonsense and with 2.8 it has been declared that the Navigational way is going to be removed totally.
Here are a few polls that I found on the net that clearly demonstrates the domination of KDE in user acceptance.
http://www.desktoplinux.com/cgi-bin/survey/survey.cgi?view=archive&…
http://www.dslreports.com/poll/vote?qid=1416629&aid=2
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/history/140330
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/poll.php?s=cdc36b681f2b32675cb605593b…
http://www.dogsonacid.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=189515
http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=38449
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?threadid=179…
http://www.fltk.org/poll.php?r13
Yes ? Where do you read that ? When I look back on all types of polls made between KDE and GNOME then I usually count 3x more people choosing KDE over GNOME.
And how many of them were MS Windows switchers? To my experience, most KDE users I know are using it because it looks/acts/smells like their previous OS. Forget the single-click mode, they’ve set their KDE Redmond-style. Some of them are also abusing of the customisability possibilities, making their DE uglier than the inside of the intestin of a rotten ape just because they can. In contrast, most people familiar with Linux or Unix in general I know are rather using GNOME or another minimalist WM.
Anyway, like I said, it’s my experience. Yours may differ. I don’t hate KDE. Hell, I’ve used it ’till quite recently (3.1.2). It just doesn’t look polished at all. I think that QT really look like the ape I metionned above. Perhaps GNOME is a bloody mess inside and KDE is a masterpiece, but does that really matter to the user? Personally, I don’t give a flying duck if my Kapplication 1 can’t interact with my Kapplication as I don’t even use such functionnalities when I use MS Windows.
I agree that you should be able to use the OS without a mouse. However you rarely enter menus to go back and forward with the keyboard. People who only use their keyboard are more likely experienced users who can remember shortcuts a lot better. A good place for a short-cut reminder would be in the Help menu.
But as I said, there could two modes: simple and advanced. Menu items tagged as advanced simply doesn’t show up when you are in simple mode. The same goes for toolbar buttons. Things like Print Frame, Save Frame As, Save Background Image As, Split View, Duplicate Tab, Detatch Tab and Bookmarkfolders aren’t stuff that normal users need to see.
Also, context sensitive menu items should be removed completely when they aren’t used.
Right now I wonder what what will hapen first:
KDE finally gets to know what to do with qt technology instead of bload bload bload.
or
GNOME will get a faster GTK.
KDE desktop could be great for me with the qt technology, they just need to put some direction on the polish, till then, I’ll stick to GNOME.
+++
——
Yes ? Where do you read that ? When I look back on all types of polls made between KDE and GNOME then I usually count 3x more people choosing KDE over GNOME.
——
And how many of them were MS Windows switchers? To my experience, most KDE users I know are using it because it looks/acts/smells like their previous OS. Forget the single-click mode, they’ve set their KDE Redmond-style. Some of them are also abusing of the customisability possibilities, making their DE uglier than the inside of the intestin of a rotten ape just because they can. In contrast, most people familiar with Linux or Unix in general I know are rather using GNOME or another minimalist WM.
+++
And how many GNOME users run RedHat or Fedora ? Guess what, not everyone speaks English and lives in the US. A DE has to let you change configurations easily, as KDE does.
> Perhaps GNOME is a bloody mess inside and KDE is a
> masterpiece, but does that really matter to the user?
Yes it does matter. We today place the stones for the road tomorrow. And we should decide wisely which stones we lay on that road. Should be go for an inferior Desktop which stagnates because developers are messing around in the Framework or should we go for a technical supperior Desktop ? Yes USERS do care a lot and it matters a lot of them as well. Since these users want to use polished applications, applications that are tightly integrated, that share one database for their Addressbooks, one database for their Bookmarks, they simply want to put all their Addresses in one database and be sure they can use these things in their Word like application (serial letters) in their Cellphone syncing app, in their Palm or PowerPC syncing app, in their Email client and so on. It matters a lot for the user if he can reliable use a FTP client or Filemanager to copy a bunch of files from A to B without worrying whether the stuff appeared correctly or not. And yes it matters a lot for the user whether he can be sure that new applications can rapidely be developed (even by himself) in a short time due to taking objects. And yes it also matters for us all whether a nice Desktop is being used which works reliable in all areas and guarantees new applications since we wanted to demonstrate outside world (non Linux people) how far Linux and the Desktop really are. How can we demonstrate the world outside that KDE is in many areas even far supperior over WindowsXP (in Desktop functionality) if we show people how nice icons GNOME has and as soon they start using it figure out that it’s a mess ?
And yes, there is nothing wrong for KDE being similar to Windows. I want Windows for Linux. At least it offers me a cool Desktop with similar functionality and cool stuff. Hell I don’t even come from Windows I used to be an AmigaOS person before that.
Better a Windows look and behave like rather than a Desktop that fit’s nowhere where people and industry needs to spend hours and probably millions of Dollars into teaching their people how to do simpliest things. Now tell your customers who pay for your service how to use gconftool-2 for example. They will chop your testi**es off and put them in a glass with alcoholics.
Although this person raises some issues, those issues are VENDOR SPECIFIC and nothing to do with KDE. The whole point of PAYING for a distribution is not only for the nice little box but for the distributor to customise and tweak the interface.
If there is a problem with the default menu layout/theme/icon/submenu/etc, it is the VENDOR *NOT* KDE whose should be tweaking it. That is what customers pay for, the tweaking. KDE creates the base, vendors tweak it, making it more userfriendly, and thus, the concept of “value added service” has been added to it.
As for KDE right now, I remember using pre-1.0 back in the days of the early slackware and redhat distributions. In just a few years, KDE has made MASSIVE leaps from there to now. KDE 3.2 from a technical/programming and end user stand point, is a great piece of software which delivers to the end user everything one needs to be productive.
From KOffice, to Kroupware, Quanta, Konqueror etc etc. It provides a uniform and integrated end to end solution. The Office is feature packed yet easy to use (and fast), Quanta is almost Dreamweaver quality and Kroupware is a usability dream come true.
how to do simpliest things. Now tell your customers who pay for your service how to use gconftool-2 for example. They will chop your testi**es off and put them in a glass with alcoholics.
What are you talking about? Just look at the three view on the Kpanel, It sucks as much as gconfig, the difference is that Gconfig it is aimed for advanced users and Kpanel for general use.
I don’t want I windows on Linux, the reason I use Linux is to get off MS, and what about Mac users who don’t like Windows and want something else?.
> the difference is that Gconfig it is aimed for advanced
> users and Kpanel for general use.
And here is the problem. GNOME these days aims for the unexperienced users. Quite a contradictorily to the aims of GNOME don’t you think. Most important settings are simply hidden behind GConf (and not Gconfig better you get off and learn some basics before teaching knowledged people what the differences are).
> I don’t want I windows on Linux, the reason I use Linux is
> to get off MS, and what about Mac users who don’t like
> Windows and want something else?.
Honestly, KDE is closer to both of them than GNOME. KDE offers the MacOSX way of Menu system (Top Menu), KDE has a cool Liquid Theme, KDE can look quite close to anything you like. It can even look like MorphOS.
But back to a normal conversation. You should look back in the mid 80’s and compare the things today. Most Desktop solutions are all the same.
– Window
– Window can be moved,
– Icon on Desktop,
– Icon on Desktop can be moved,
– Filemanager,
– Filemanager can do things,
– Panel, Toolbar, Top Menu
So saying that Mac Users won’t like KDE is plain stupid, the same stupid way saying Windows users don’t like KDE etc. There can also be people who do like GNOME, there is no problem. But we should clearly look for the superior Desktop solution and it should be even clear to you that KDE is technically FAR superior. It’s so much superior that comparing KDE and GNOME is plain wrong. It’s like comparing a Ferrari with an Austin Mini.
KDE has a much better framework/tech under the hood that makes it a lot easier to develop apps for. All this superficial stuf that this guy is going on about can be tweaked easily, but the underlying framework of Gnome will take years of work to get it up to par with KDE(if ever). I’ll continue to use KDE for my desktop, but I think we’ll see Gnome become the dominant desktop in the corporate environment. And no, it’s not the holier than thou HIG that Gnome people are always babbling about. It’s the QT license.
What are you talking about? Just look at the three view on the Kpanel, It sucks as much as gconfig, the difference is that Gconfig it is aimed for advanced users and Kpanel for general use.
I’m sorry, how does KPanel (which died along with KDE 1, replaced with Kicker) has anything to do with GConfig? Granted, it was a little confusing, having two different panels by default (one as a task bar, another holding icons to apps, applets, etc.), but how does that have anything to do with GConfig?
Okay, I know you mean KControl. KControl is overwhelming. But a user can brave it. They don’t need help files, they can easily find their way around. May take some time though before they find what they are looking for, but certainly they are able to find their way around without needing a help find.
Now, editing gconf on the other hand is a way different story. For the non-geeks it isn’t only intimidating, but is practically impossible. But regardless, in both cases, it doesn’t matter. Linux is set to grow in the Enterprise market, a lot of admins would block their users from changing desktop settings.