Last week, some developers disagreeing with the direction of the GNOME Project decided to create what appears to be the beginning of a fork of the project — GoneME. *Updated*Like many from KDE Project and elsewhere in the community, GoneME’s major complaints boil down to what has proven to be GNOME’s most controversial move: simplifying the user interface. While naysayers, including the GoneME developers, seem to feel that the simplification of the interface, undertaken with the encouragement of such GNOME leaders as Havoc Pennington of Red Hat, is actually just “dumbing down” the interface, I think these critics are actually missing the point completely. Read the rest of my commentary to find out why I think GNOME’s got it right.
Tim Butler and Ed Hurst have discussed GNOME quite a bit. Tim likes the current trend, and Ed doesn’t. Read Ed’s alternate perspective at OfB.biz.
Finally, an article that’s got it right…
..I can get a default gnome install to behave like Red hat’s blue curve?
I think the standart “start button” and task bar locations in KDE are one of the reasons so many people prefer it to gnome.
At the end someone thinks like me
. This fork is pretty necessary I agree with most of their ideas.
Simplicity! That is the reason why GNOME is my default desktop now. After years of configuring KDE I like the simplicity and it finally just works. And with the simple theme-installing I can even get GNOME ´flashy´. Don´t ruin GNOMEs simplicity, because that is what the average guy like me wants.
A computer should do work for you, and not be work in itself. Brilliantly put. I never could find the words to express why Gnome is my desktop and has been since 2.2, but there it is.
Thank you very much for writing this artical. With all the whining and crying about Gnome going on lately by those who align themselves with GoneME, it’s good to see someone who agrees with me that Gnome has just gotten better.
thanks for this article.
We had enough of people complaining about button order, no “apply” button, and so on..
if you want to look like windows, try KDE not Gone(WITH_THE_WIND)ME, which btw, is not a fork, the guy there hopes that he will proven to be right and the gnome devs will include his “patches”
instead of complaining about problems, why dont they side with the gnome developers and work with them and suggest change from the inside? if every time someone dont like a project forks it, and develops it, there will never be a time that linux comes close to being the desktop ‘standard’ too many forks and not enough spoons if you ask me.
if i dont like a product, i email a few developers and suggest fixes or layout changes that make it easier to use, if they disagree. tine. ill use it and be content with their decisions. or use something else. :: gasp ::
This guy begins his article saying he will argue the point that the direction GNOME is headed in is correct, in spite of a fork that was recently announced. So one would expect him to show evidence to prove his point, comparing stock GNOME to this newly announced fork.
Instead, he slams KDE in the body of his article. He complains how so many apps have been added to KDE. Isn’t that was DO_NOT_COMPILE is for? The he claims GNOME is hiding the Unix complexity in the desktop. So? Two days ago I sat a Windows XP user in front of a KDE 3.2.2 desktop & he had no problem whatsoever figuring out how to use it. Next, he complains about the KDE Control Center. You know if you prefer less choice in desktop configuration just say so. It doesn’t mean we ALL prefer less choice. Likewise, if you prefer less choice of apps in your desktop, then by all means, stick with GNOME. Just be aware, some of us like having many apps to choose from. It allows us to find our favorites. Then he says he doesn’t want his desktop to be “work in itself.” It makes one wonder if he has ever used KDE. Either that or I am some freak of nature, using a KDE desktop and NEVER having to work on it. Next, he says:
“It is good that GNOME is going for the user who finds computing a means rather than an end.”
In what way is KDE a means to an end? I use it. It works. It doesn’t require me to work on it.
This entire article is a troll, claiming it will prove stock GNOME to be better than the GoneME GNOME fork, when the only point he really wishes to make, is to trash KDE.
Let’s face it, the GoneME people wants things to be in a certain way, is that such a bad thing? Why can’t we let them have something they like? Why must there be a way that is the only way, and anyone who thinks otherwise somehow is wrong? Let’s face it, I could easily pick a group of 5 people who wanted things done differently enough that we couldn’t even use the same OS, yet we could still let the others use what they want.
Since 2.6, Gnome is my desktop, replacing plain WMaker+xterm.
I think that a GUI has to allow me to get things done straightforward: no tons of buttons to click and fields to check.
When I want more control there’s nothing like the command line.
The default install of KDE is so cluttered that I have room to have exactly 2 windows open before the entire task bar is consumed. The KDE install running on my system now does not look or perform anything like a stock install.
I still prefer GNOME to KDE. Although KDE has many more apps, most of the applications I actually use are GTK.
I find konq to be unusable.
personaly i think the article is somewhat bull. there is talk of evolution vs kontakt, well kontakt is a inhouse kde app while evolution was made by ximian that took gnome and applyed its own twist to it and tryed to sell it back to corps looking for a windows replacement desktop. the same was done with nautilus, it was a company that got fired up and tryed to sell off nautilus, when they folded nautilus got put into the main gnome tree. then there is talk of integrating openoffice and mozilla, 2 free standing prodjects that happen to use gtk as a gui toolkit. this is like a corp buying some other corp for its assets and useing them to bolster its own brands of products. nothing bad in the corporate world, but totaly useless in the open source community.
Ugh, I really tried to stay out of this all this time, but this yet another “why gnome rulez and got it right” finally got me
.
Can we please stop pushing this BS? I think software, especially such as major DE should speak for itself and let users figure out just what they want and whethere this particular one is right *for them*. That, instead of being faced with numerous “articles” on why you should do it my way.
Yea, I know, “you should use kde”. Actually I do use kde (mostly apps on top of flux
anyway). However my plea is not about gnome vs gonme vs kde vs whatever. It is strictly about flood of these articles popping up like every day. So, can we please stop these flames and get back to business please??
So… why is he complaining that Apple is using the term “Dashboard” for something different than GNOME’s use of the term? esp. since Apple’s use of the term makes more sense (to me) than GNOME’s use of it. I don’t understand.
————
so that you wont complain that gnome ripped off apple’s trademarks?
then there is talk of integrating openoffice and mozilla, 2 free standing prodjects that happen to use gtk as a gui toolkit. this is like a corp buying some other corp for its assets and useing them to bolster its own brands of products. nothing bad in the corporate world, but totaly useless in the open source community.
—————
its useful for the end users to have better integration. firefox has it. now openoffice has it too.to try this checkout the differences between the ximian customised version and the download from openoffice.org
Thanks for those of you who posted kind remarks about the article. I really appreciate it.
Concerning talking about GoneME and then “slamming” KDE, I simply used KDE as an example based on what GoneME seems to want to do with GNOME. I see plenty of room for KDE in the community, however, I feel it is fool hardy to suggest GNOME should follow the same road KDE has chosen. And yes, I have used KDE, just as my article states. If you do a search on KDE Dot News, you’ll notice I have written pro-KDE articles in the past and also was a contributor to Kernel Cousin KDE a few years back.
Re: Dashboard. This was not a cut at Apple, simply a note, because I could anticipate some (who hadn’t previously heard of GNOME’s Dashboard tool) arguing that GNOME was trying to knock Apple off. I’m a big fan of Apple.
More Gnome people confusing “user friendliness” and “simplicity” with “completely denuded of features and options”.
If I have to muck about for ages and ages in Gnome to get it to behave the way I want it to (ie, to make Nautilus not spacial, to make Epiphany block popups properly, to change colours here and there because I’m colourblind, whatever) and doing this involves fighting past Gnome’s attempts to force me to do it one way, because some developer thinks that is more usable, it is not in fact more usable, but a lot less usable.
I’d be fine with Gnome if it aimed for simplicity, without extracting all usefulness and taking power away from more advanced users. Even windows has “advanced” tabs all over the place, perhaps Gnome could learn from them, instead of aiming to become the ultimate unusable but oh-so-simple desktop.
OpenOffice — essentially the only real choice for a Free Software office suite
quite so. AbiWord comes to mind, too.
Jim (IP: —.bflony.adelphia.net):
get a default gnome install to behave like Red hat’s blue curve?
I have never used bluecurve, but if you like the KDE panel layout more, drag the items you need from the top panel to the bottom panel (using the middle mouse button or shift + left button) and then delete the top panel.
And i have the impression that there are quite some people here who have read the article but haven’t really tried to understand it, they rather like like to take parts of it, quote them out of context and call the author (who has made a good point) a troll. I suggest you try to get a life, no one is forcing you to use Gnome.
“…while evolution was made by ximian that took gnome and applyed its own twist to it and tryed to sell it back to corps looking for a windows replacement desktop.”
About Ximian and Gnome: The pioneer Miguel de Icaza is central here. He has been involved with starting up GNOME, and starting up Ximian. Ximian has also been deeply involved with Gnome development, and now we’re seeing that Evolution is heading into the Desktop as well.
And, the Gnome desktop is GPL, so noone can be accused of immorality regarding twists and resales.
Making things simplier is a good idea, to an extent. I think the red hat got it wrong, when they made it so simple, that it actually became difficult. Who is to say that editing a simple bash script is not easy? I find CLI easier than a GUI file manager. Some people find GUI easier, and that is what makes linux the best, because you have the power to chose. So, I say gnoME is a good thing, and so is gnome. Another choice.
Well done!
Your assertions on GNOME are spot on. I agree with you completely in that GNOME is a simple and elegant UI that is rapidly evolving into something truly special. I too switched to GNOME as my primary desktop (ditching Windwos XP at the beginning of the year). I have never regretted that decision.
I am keenly anticipating the upcoming GNOME 2.8 release. If anything, I know I will be able to read the super in-depth Ars Technica review on it 😉 I do hope Evolution 2.0 makes it this time, as well as GNOME volume manager.
I earnestly hope that the GNOME folks stick to the vision that they are laying out. You cannot please everyone, but if you do have vision and you stick to it, you will end up with a great product in the end. That my friends, is called leadership. The GNOME people seem to have it in spades. The next twelve months promise to be very exciting for desktop penguin lovers everywhere 🙂
Go GNOME!
I agree with you, these articles are very lame. We are lucky to have choice in the opensource world. If you prefer one project over another, I don’t think it’s right to citicise others because other people may not agree with your views and prefer the other project. Both GNOME and KDE have strengths and weaknesses so choose the one you want to use and stop flaming the one you don’t like.
The next twelve months promise to be very exciting for desktop penguin lovers everywhere 🙂
No, it’s only going to be exciting for the ~200 people who don’t cry “button ordering! dumbified! lag! it sucks!” all the time.
The others will have a very stressful time ranting on everything that it has changed respectively hasn’t changed – whichever applies.
Thanks for the tip, now I just need to rename “* Applications” and “Actions” to something shorter and I’ll be set.
“so choose the one you want to use and stop flaming the one you don’t like.”
But don’t you know, GNOME is BETTER, because it’s SPATIAL, it’s not CONFUSING, and YOU don’t know how you want your desktop. Those decisions are much better made by the DEVELOPERS, because they KNOW you’re an IDIOT!
Can’t wait to get modded down…. That’s all they can do, make stable and nonpatronizing desktop is beyond their abilities!
You can also add the “Main menu” – i think that’s its name – to the panel, it gives you just an icon which pops up a menu with the Applications and Actions menu inside it. In the panel it is similar to the K menu in KDE, and it behaves wuite like the Windows “Start” menu.
The thing that annoys me most about kde is that if you add a package, it doesn’t necessarily appear in the start (?) menu. I’m in agreement with the author when he says that integration of such large packages into gnome is important. I think it’s importnatn no matter what your desktop environment is!
The apps do appear in the kmenu. KDE adheres to the freedesktop.org standard of doing this as does gnome.
*sigh*
Just when you thought osnews couldn’t get any worse they will allways prove you wrong.
What I’d like is a Gnome that wasn’t made for Aunt Nellie.
Until then, I’ll keep using *box.
They give us more choice and they inspire some competition within Open Source. Not sure about that name “GoneME” though.
I’m sad and stunned to see such a personal report solely consisting of mindless propaganda alike playing seemingly rivaling but actually peacefully coexisting open source projects off against each other on that site.
Why, oh why are those gnome defenders unable to address the things that are really criticized instead of allways dodging the issues, pretending the critics wanted millions of options, bloat and an unusable desktop and then shatter the critics based on that false assumption?
**************************************
it’s the american school system, they don’t read, they don’t think, they just believe any fool that comes along.
GNOME deserves major kudos for it’s simple, clean, Zen-like interface design. It’s easier at first to use GNOME and GNOME apps than it is in KDE.
However, KDE has the much more elegant, simple, easy to use, and efficient framework upon which to build the DE and apps.
While GNOME offers simple elegance on the surface, it’s a bit of a jumbled mess underneath the hood. With GNOME, you’ve got to worry about C, GTK+ libraries, GNOME libraries, GObject, Bonobo, and CORBA. All of it thrown together to approximate OOP and resuable code objects, which is really needed in some form or another for a GUI library. With KDE, all you have to worry about are C++ and QT. And QT is practically the standard bearer for building GUI libraries, and for top notch OOP design.
This is why KDE is faster and less memory intensive than GNOME, because GNOME has so much more stuff running under the hood to accomplish it’s mission than KDE does. It’s also why there are so many more features and apps and more configurability in KDE, because it’s a much easier and productive framework for developers to build on. Anyone who has programmed on both would tend to agree.
All that said, both GNOME and KDE are great and both have their strengths and weaknesses (KDE’s weekness is interface clutter).
While I use both regularily, I tend to favor KDE for it’s superior speed and less memory usage, as well as it’s greater number of cool apps and it’s great configurability.
Weird, firefox in particular has never worked for me in either gentoo or mandrake.
Why do people always have to justify their choices? Do you like GNOME, that’s OK. I very much prefer KDE apps, look and features but I quite understand that many people do not want or like the same things. Stop these pointless rants and use whatever is right for you.
if you want bluecurve in gentoo, just do “emerge redhat-artwork” and bluecurve will show up in gnome and kde’s config panels.
Stop these pointless rants and use whatever is right for you
Bingo!!!
You know each window manager or desktop environment has its place. I could not make my self like gnome, I like something that gives control to change the environment in an easy way, xfce dose the job for me. I even like the file manager. With that said I see the way gnome is headed, the changes make sense for a corporate situation where you have lots of users and you don’t need to do lots of system administering and gconf seems to make sense for central control. I guess it all what you like.
Firstly I found the article by Timothy Butler to be insightful and I believe he hits the nail on the head in his description of whats happening with the development of GNOME and what it is succeeding at. Simply put GNOME has made the first major steps towards becoming a simple and elegant desktop environment for Linux something that has been sorely missing for many, many years.
The first desktop environment in the FOSS world which attempted to do this was KDE-but the days have long since passed where someone would use adjectives like “simple and elegant” to describe KDE. KDE is arguably the most powerful desktop environment in the FOSS world-it is technically amazing-but the price at which this power comes, the price of complexity is a price which only those who really need this power and can use it effectively are willing to pay.
What so many people fail to grasp is that a tool is most effective when it recedes into the background of our perception and merely becomes an extension to our way of working and playing-if you have to think to much about the tool what you are using the tool for suffers. Linux will always be different from something like windows or OS X- the real power of Linux will always lie in the the CLI and will always be there for people who need and can effectively use this power.
Nautilus doesn’t try to be a graphical equivalent of everything that the CLI is -unlike Konquerer-arguably the most power file manger in existance. In my day to day use of Linux I alawys have a CLI open to do things which are best suited for on the command line-certain file operations are ideally suited for file managers and Nautilus is more than sufficient to do these kinds of tasks.
There are occassions where I do use Konqueror but it is a classic example of overkill-simply moving files from one place to another, deleting files or renaming them does not require the hundreds of options with which the use is accosted the moment they open up Konqueror. The sheer mass of information which bombards one when one opens up Konqueror is itself already distracting-which is one of the reasons that the “dumbed-down” spatial nautilus appeals to me-I open it and I see files and folders and virtually nothing else-and after all that is what I want to see when I use a file manager. I don’t need 20 icons and 6 menus with over 40 different menu entries when I want to do the relatively simple tasks for which something like Nautilus was created-things which are actually more dfficult to do with the CLI.
What I really like about GNOME and the direction it is heading in is how difficult it is do something that you did not intend to do-it means that I don’t accidentally do something due to situation where the power of the application is not matched by the maturity of the interface. I say this as a sys admin personally-it means a lot to me-but such means 10 times more for the overwhelming majority of computer users who rarely grasp how computers and operating systems work and who inevitably click somewhere causing something which happens without even having meant to do so-sometimes with very serious consequences.
As a sys admin responsible for desktops used by hundreds of people this is an incredible advantage over KDE- the sheer number of accidentental mistakes made by users who do not fully grasp the software and interfaces they use drops dramatically in switching from KDE to GNOME-I know this from experience with LTSP where we used KDE before and now use GNOME -the exposed preferences and clicakble things in GNOME provide a much, much safer environment where inexperienced users can play around in without ending up regretting it. These kind of factors mean that the GNOME environment succeeds in receding enough into the background that users can go about there task without a) feeling overwhelmed b) being afraid of clicking on something c) being confronted with things which they don’t understand.
In the three months siince I swithced from GNOME 2.4 to 2.6 on my LTSP server not a single person has felt the need to ask a single question about how to use spatial nautilus-under the old KDE desktop (3.1) the vast majority of users avoided Konqueror because they did not have a clue as to how to use it. There are still a lot of rough edges in GNOME but they are lessening quickly.
I am also pleasantly surprised by the maturity being shown in the GNOME community in being confronted with oGalaxy’s GoneME effort-particularly after years of rabid trolling and public denouncement of GNOME and many GNOME developers by Ali. The press Ali has recieved-which is far more proportionally than what is ever likely to come of his efforts and those who support him- has had an air of professionalism which has been quite rare in the FOSS world.
As projects reach the level of significance and size like GNOME has it becomes increasingly difficult to avoid the alienation of independent developers/hackers with the growing importance of corporate contributors to such projects. The fear and cynism is quite justified: none of us want these project to become mere showcases for for-profit entities like Redhat and Sun-just like we don’t want the Linux kernel to become a mere tool in the hands of giants like IBM.
I do not belong to the development community-so I cannot see all of what is going on in the GNOME development community, but from what I do see GNOME has not yet become hostile towards independent developers/hackers-but it has become a project which demands a broader level of consensus than that which it use to have-and this is a demand on all of those who wish to participate-it certainly is a price to be paid-but it is a price which may well pay off in spades for all Linux users.
I don’t agree with him, at all, but I do think that his position is logical and internally self-consistant. It again shows me precisely why we have two different projects — because different people fundementally don’t see eye to eye about how things should be done.
I’d like to address one point specifically:
Why would I ever want to switch to a “dumbed down” interface? The reason itself is simple: I want my machine to get work done for me, not be work in itself.
I agree with the second statement completely, but because of it I reach the exact opposite conclusion. I don’t use a dumbed down interface precisely because I won’t my machine to get work done for me, not be work in itself.
Those who use their computers a lot can afford to customize their environment to increase their productivity. Do the math. KDE makes a new release every 6 months. Assuming that an engineer or programmer uses their computer for 40 hours a week (I wish it was that low!) that adds up to over 1000 hours in that time period. If customizing your environment takes 3 hours and makes you even 1% more productive, you’ve still got a net gain of 7 hours on that period.
I’d like to address one point specifically:
Why would I ever want to switch to a “dumbed down” interface? The reason itself is simple: I want my machine to get work done for me, not be work in itself.
I agree with the second statement completely, but because of it I reach the exact opposite conclusion. I don’t use a dumbed down interface precisely because I won’t my machine to get work done for me, not be work in itself.
I see it from both points of view. I’m an explorer … I like to experiment with all kinds of things that the “average user” doesn’t care about. But despite all the playing around that I do on my own, I couldn’t stand to go through any of that for someone else’s system. For my wife, I just want to install a Desktop Manager for her and be done with it.
My wife couldn’t care less about Linux, GPL, BSD, proprietary, Window Manager, Open Source, widgets, etc… Those words mean nothing to her. She just wants to click on a clearly labled, easy to recognize icon that has a picture of an envolope on it so she can check her e-mail. She wants to click on a clearly labled, easy to recognize icon that has a picture depicting something musical so she can listen to her music.
If she *had to* (was forced to in order to make use of her computer) mess with 1/10th of the stuff that I mess with in order to use her system, she would never touch a computer.
Does that make her less “productive” than me? No, I don’t think so.
as in subject
just what we need, another linux ideological split
———–
kde and gnome are not idealogical splits and neither are they dependant on linux. so completely wrong
“So basically if i go spam & troll on semi-tech blogs how some project sucks and that i’ll fork it to solve “important issues” while i have a personal jihad against the developers of the project then this shows a lack of heading to a good direction of the project i’m forking? Wake up!”
Uh, I don’t believe I mentioned one word about the developer of the fork in my original post. Wake up! My point was about the arguments presented in the linked article, which is the topic here, correct?
“Besides, anyone can fork GNOME or KDE! There is nothing wrong with that from a legal point of view.”
Agreed.
“Not to say that he has the rights to fork, and that i’m looking forward to any productive work. But he has been overdramatizing in his announcements, spamming and trolling around while there’s nothing much more than nada. His history also doesn’t speak in a positive manner on regards of the whole soap.”
Agreed. I will take him seriously when I see the code.
“Please get informed on the person who forked GNOME and his backgrounds.”
Never did I argue in my original post in his favor. I only have one thing to say about this developer of the fork. Show me the code.
“I have done this.”
So surely you must be the only one who has?
“So far, what i’ve found is that he has never been an important GNOME developer, he has never been taken seriously by the GNOME developers because of his severe paranoia, trolling and manipulative ways drive throught his opinions.”
Agreed. Show me the code.
“It would be wise, from an objective point of view, to search for information yourself.”
It would be wise, from an objective point of view, to comprehend my original post, rather than write your response based on the self-created strawman you present here.
“Even if you don’t agree with what i say here above.”
It’s not about whether I agree. I just don’t see how your comments are on topic to my post.
“Nickname: oGALAXYo
Realname: Ali Akcaagac
Website: http://www.akcaagac.com“
Seen ’em all. Know exactly who he is. Show me the code.
The author is just mumbling about how great Gnome is while saying he was using KDE most of the time he’s used Linux.
He doesn’t provide any valid arguments as to why Gnome has to be dumbified like it is now.
Just saying it’s easier for new users isn’t a good enought reason to ruin Gnome for the rest of long time Linux users.
I don’t see any grandmas flocking to Gnome right now and can’t see that happening in near or distant future.
There is no reason why Gnome can’t satisfy both new and experienced users by providing advanced configuration and options via “Advanced” button in its Controll Panel.
Gconf is not the answer and is difficult to use even for advance users just like the Windows registry is.
Until Gnome changes it’s totalitarian attitude toward its users and caters also to advanced Linux users I fully support the fork and hope GoneME project thrives and succedes Gnome as a viable replacement for dumbidied DE that once had so much pottential but is now unusable to advanced Linux users.
Long live GoneME!
As they exist today, neither OpenOffice nor Mozilla use GTK as the toolkit, despite all the efforts by the Gnome information ministries to claim that these are “Gnome apps”. You have been trolled,my friend.
Karl, you make very good points about the cleanliness and beautiful, productive simplicity of GNOME.
KDE would be very well served by trying to clean up standard interfaces with KDE applications. I’m currently typing this post in Konqueror. I’ve configured the interface of Konqueror to clean up the toolbars, getting rid of a bunch of unneeded icons (which expose functionality that is already within the menus). This has made it easier for me.
The point is, the KDE designers/developers need to look at cleaning up the defaults.
But I still prefer KDE, for it’s efficiency, plethora of apps, and configurability.
While KDE’s options might overwhelm the new user in some cases, it allows users in the long run to be more productive, because they can make it “just so” for their own preferences and productivity.
One word for you: kiosktool.
If you were running KDE in an LTSP environment, it was your responsibility to create an appropriate baseline that was comfortable for your users. Don’t dismiss before trying kiosktool because I run an LTSP environment and KDE has been wonderful. Everybody loves it.
People are already declaring that GoneME is a sucess. That’s a pretty powerful project!
You know, for all the ongoing attacks on Ali, he seems to at least have done something for Gnome, however much the current developers want to minimize his contribution.
And he is doing what any sane person who cares about a project would do, which is to chart his own path. Whether this path leads to a sunny beach remains to be seen, but I applaud the effort.
It reminds me of the shit that Theo had to put up with when he forked NetBSD because they removed access to CVS, demonized him in public and would only accept his patches through a third party. After months, of trying to get CVS access and after months of waiting for a reason as to why CVS access was suddenly removed, he went on his own and we are all the better for it because OpenBSD kicks ass.
Let Ali do whatever he wants to do and stop thrashing the guy. I bet you a bunch of you would be less prone to personal attacks if you had to face the person.
Osnews: News for Trolls, Stuff that Rattles.
forks are bad. just in general, they result in a splintered development and user base which means alot of duplication of effort and time. sometimes a fork is nessicary, what the arguements comming up right now are about is whether this is nessicary or not.
the author of this article was talking about the direction of gnome vs the direction of kde, and he he finds the direction of Gnome a good thing, and in his opinion goneme is an attempt to take gnome and push it in the kde direction.
i happen to agree with him, if he wants that sort of thing kde is a FAR better option, if i approached it from a purly tech point of view there is absolutely no reason to use gnome. the reasons to use gnome are alot of the problems that oGALAXYo has issues with, namely usability being the prime focus, not features.
If usability is such a high point for Gnome, can you tell me which Gnome tool allows me to set up desktop policies that provide a uniform baseline across thousands of desktops?
And I am asking here for something provided by Gnome itself, not Sun or Red Hat.
Kde has that: kiosktool.
If the average user is so important to Gnome, where’s all the educational software for average users with families. There is very little of it and that is if you are willing to consider G.R.A.M.P.S (my favorite Gnome app) as a piece of educational software.
KDE has keduca, which provides tons of already very advanced educational software.
If the average user is so important, why is it that Rhythmbox is still a buggy mess, when in the same time JuK has become a fast and stable music player with the best tagger of any OS that I have seen?
If the average user is so important, why is it that the current file dialogs, and I am referring to the new ones in 2.7, remain a horrible mess when compared to KDE’s or dare I say it, even windows. Watch users interact for a while with opening files in a Gnome and KDE desktop, don’t just speak on their behalf. Watch them! I work with your mythical “average users” every day and I see that they cannot tolerate Gnome, but most of them are productive in KDE.
Is Gnome all bad? No, not at all. Its accessibility framework kicks ass and one of our users with poor vision uses Gnome for this reason. The same tools, by the way, exist today in KDE, but Gnome certainly has the edge here. You want to know what the focus of the current KDE conference is: accessibility and usability.
I could go on and on, but people just talk about generalities, but nobody has ever told me where the architectural or even aesthetic problems with KDE lie. Can it be improved? Yes and *it is* being improved.
Goneme seems like a worthless project to me. One example where they contradict themselves: they say they don’t want their window button placement to be like OSX, but then they claim OSX’s window layout is perfected and superb. So they want to make their window layout more confusing just to cater to people already familiar with other Unix desktop environments? You’re going to sacrifice your usability because some other guys in the past threw together a worse UI? Totally backwards!
…like users give a damn about Qt, KIO, Kparts and family.
Give them an excellent presentation layer that enables them solve complex problems easily, stimulate their creativity, and propel the next breakthrough in human existence.
Users want applications that operate without fuzz. Not one that you have to configure to become useful. Sheesh…geeks! Yesterday, it was button order.
And my definition of users encompasses novice users, average users, expert users and most importantly developers. A well designed system should be usable by all, not just a selected self-proclaimed elitist few.
How silly will it be if I had to reconfigure the osnews comment section to post a comment? Or if I needed special knowledge to navigate the site?
Well designed systems never need to be reconfigured! Perfect design is the ultimate challenge for problem solvers. And I’d wager, that in the least, GNOME is headed in the right direction.
Some you are buried under needless, shallow and short sighted details that you fail ponder upon the bigger picture–the future. To the point where, it appears, you get turned on by reading toolkit manuals. Really pathetic!
The future of desktop computing rests on how seamlessly anyone can interact with a computer with an uncomfort level infinitely approaching zero. The keyword in my last sentence is, “anyone.” Let me echo that neither GNOME nor KDE have reached that status.
But when I examine projects like, Gstreamer, Storage, Beagel, iFolder, and many other projects on freedesktop.org that GNOME is purposefully adopting and tirelessly promoting, it gives me hope that at least one free software project is seeing beyond the trivial mundaness exhibited in the comment section here at osnews and elsewhere in popular geek kingdom!
What particular attracts me to GNOME isn’t its technology, but its philosophy and goals. A project without goals, philosophy and some semblence of structure, is like a ship without a destination.
Grow up and stop this silly taunts! Desktop platforms should be designed to solve problems in efficient and creative ways, not to satisfy geeky desires and/or orgasms.
Gnome is plagued by a bunch of zealots that feel the need to attack KDE constantly.
Pot calls the kettle black…
KDE is a true community project, whereas Gnome has become a facade for Sun and Red Hat.
But it has its advantages, you know? Thanks to some corporate backing, most big GNOME or GTK apps have a quite professional look while most KDE apps do really look like community (read: amateur) projects. I would really like to use KDE but I don’t like to navigate in a vomit of useless icons, menus and badly designed UIs. It would be wrong to say that all KDE apps are like this but too many are. Of course, I know I can get rid of most of these annoying things (except the bad UIs) but I would only waste my time as given that I format quite often.
What I find funny (and even ironic) is that these two UIs have opposed problems. I mean, there’s not enough options in GNOME but too many in KDE. Most GNOME/GTK apps have a good UI while most KDE apps are cluttered. The file selector in KDE is quite good (even if it’s pretty much a carbon copy of the one in Windows) while even the new one in GTK sucks. There’s not many GNOME apps (and many are missing) but there’s too many that ships with the default KDE installation. There is a good HIG for GNOME while the one for KDE is so-so. The KDE’s framework is hundreds of miles ahead of GNOME’s patchy one.
Imagine how these DEs would kick ass if they were fixing their own problems…
I could go on and on, but people just talk about generalities, but nobody has ever told me where the architectural or even aesthetic problems with KDE lie. Can it be improved? Yes and *it is* being improved.
I used KDE 1 & 2 a bit and KDE 3.0 & 3.1 for a few months. It seems to me that it’s only getting worse and worse aestherically. Of course, I could submit patches fixing what I don’t like but it would be crazy, especially since the 3rd-party apps are the worst. Honestly, I think the only thing that is really missing in KDE is a good HIG (there’s already one but I don’t think it’s good) and some influencal developers that could put pressure on KDE developers for following it.
By the way, I am just stating my opinion on these two DEs: don’t take them as cold, hard facts. I am DE-agnostic. Like I stated in a previous post, I currently use GNOME but that’s only because all the apps I use are based on GTK. I wouldn’t mind to try KDE once the KDE-version of the applications I use with GNOME are more mature… and once they scrap aRts! At least I don’t need to use ESD in GNOME.
What is “GNOME” and “KDE”?
Do they really deserve this much attention?
I personally think this is very sad.
It’s just going to be an other EMACS<->VI,
TCSH<->BASH, or really, put here what you want…
What important is diversity and choice!
There is not anyone “got it wrong” and “got it right”.
…and don’t mind my pitiful grammar, I’m ESL and it’s late.
First, Mozilla does use GTK. Firefox does too.
Concerning KOffice, it’s great, but it never has and doesn’t appear like it ever will have decent MS Office filters. Or WordPerfect filters. Which makes it no more useful than AbiWord (which many people seem to prefer) for real world usage. KDE people know just as well as GNOME people that OO.o is the answer. That’s why KDE people are working on integrating OO.o into KDE just like the GNOME people are doing it to GNOME.
KDE’s kiosk framework is advanced, but that’s a solution for KIOSKS, not for simplifying the interface. Those are different things.
KDE’s edu package is decent, I’ll give it that, but saying it is “advanced” is just kidding yourself. Windows and Mac OS X edutainment software is far more advanced. Neither project fulfills this role yet, although KDE has the upper hand. GNOME, remember, is much more business oriented, so edu software is less important to it, although it should be offered. Tell me, where is Mac OS X or Windows’s edu software? It isn’t there either.
Regarding Rhythmbox, it is hardly a buggy mess. It’s quite stable actually, in my findings. And, if you don’t like it, use the super duper, power, throw away all the HID guidelines XMMS with all of its plugin glory.
GNOME’s file dialogs in 2.6 are different, but not that different. Mac OS X has different file dialogs too. Different isn’t necessarily bad.
Just to be clear, let me repeat again: I was a big KDE supporter because it was the best available — in my opinion — until GNOME got its act together and simplified things. KDE’s framework is still superior, but that doesn’t matter to the average users — like the clients I work with ever day. I volunteered for KDE projects, wrote opinion pieces about KDE and even moderated a KDE mailing list. I don’t say this to claim that I have done something great — it’s hardly anything. But, I do say it to emphasize that I am not doing this out of a vendetta against KDE. Rather, I do this because I think GNOME has caught the right vision and after a year or more of people attacking that vision of simplicity, I felt it time to state on the record why I think it is right.
I don’t think that there are many happy KDE users caring about GNOME at all.
In general it seems that there are way more GNOME users praising GNOME by bashing how bad KDE is in their opinion than vice-versa at the moment.
I must admit that I did not read the article yet but I believe that Ali still had good points for his GoneME fork. There are some issues that he is raising that I find valid but it seems that too many people are dismissing them because they came from someone they see as a troll (and they ain’t that wrong). Forget the individual and look at the arguments. Some are pretty much useless (button order) but I think others like a general redesign of Gconf or using KHTML (GNOME developers ain’t closed at the idea: maybe Miguel but Havoc seems to be very open-minded) are interesting, to say the least. I am honestly looking for their first release, hoping they didn’t only spewed hot air.
There are too many people who are dismissing everything he said without analysing it or finding counter-arguments. That is sad as I don’t feel that GNOME will progress in a “it’s our way or the highway” philosophy.
“…like users give a damn about Qt, KIO, Kparts and family. ”
In fact, yes they do when they learn that they can get access to their office documents safely by creating an encrypted connection on konqueror.
fish://[email protected]:/home/username.
You show them once and then you bookmark this location as a view profile in konqueror. After that, no matter where they are in the world they can get to their files with a graphical browser in a secure manner. They value security and they value simplicity. I can’t tell you how many of my users have gone on to thank me when they were able to get that file that they forgot by logging in remotely and copying it. It literally saved a conference and made one of our office users so happy that he switched to Linux at home on his own. He showed up with his home laptop on Monday running Suse…
And they do care when they are able to integrate easily different parts of different applications in reports. That’s the visual aspects of kparts.
“Some you are buried under needless, shallow and short sighted details that you fail ponder upon the bigger picture–the future. To the point where, it appears, you get turned on by reading toolkit manuals. Really pathetic! ”
You can denigrate and attack those that you disagree with by calling us short-sighted, but your comments show that you do not work with everyday users day in and day out. Nobody gets turned on by “toolkit manuals”.
I have given you concrete examples of the ways that the KDE architecture serves to advance usability. You dismiss it because either you do not understand it and have bought into the same propaganda and fud that gets spread around about KDE or worse, you do understand it and knowingly and complicitly take part in this nauseating attacks.
“Concerning KOffice, it’s great, but it never has and doesn’t appear like it ever will have decent MS Office filters. Or WordPerfect filters.”
Wrong, Koffice shares the worperfect filters via a library with OpenOffice and it will soon share the MS Office filters, which means that in this sense will be on par with OpenOffice.org.
By the way, my favorite application in this realm is Lyx.
“KDE’s kiosk framework is advanced, but that’s a solution for KIOSKS, not for simplifying the interface. Those are different things. ”
Wrong again, you obviously have not used it. It allows you to configure all and any options and to lock them, or to remove options that are not needed and to lock a system down pretty hard. It allows for uniform policies to be created across an enterprise or organization. How do I know?
I am using it right now with Suse 9.1 at a community center and it’s worked out great!
“Regarding Rhythmbox, it is hardly a buggy mess. It’s quite stable actually, in my findings. And, if you don’t like it, use the super duper, power, throw away all the HID guidelines XMMS with all of its plugin glory. ”
Nope, I prefer Juk and I explained why. But I’ll do it again.
It scans thousands of tunes (mp3s and oggs) in seconds.
It never ever crashes. It watches a folder for added tunes which appear automatically on my library. It creates dynamic playlists based on search (which RThmbox also does) and it has the best built-in tagger of any multimedia app in any operating system.
But if you need to be reminded, Rhythmbox doesn’t even have a tagger right now and is potentially mired in serious legal issues due to Apple’s silly patenting of the itunes interface. Don’t software patents suck! But that’s where we are.
By the way, I keep an eye on both Gnome and KDE and I wish them both the best, but I feel a need to balance much of what has been said based on what I know as someone who uses Linux day in and day out both professionally and at home.
And here’s a challenge that I offer anyone, particularly you Tim. Come down to Florida and I’ll show you around our community computer lab. Watch everyday moms and the staff at the community lab interact with their KDE desktops and then, maybe, re-write this article
KDE’s framework is still superior, but that doesn’t matter to the average users
Fast, bug free apps matter to the average user, and that’s what is usually the result of programming with a superior framework (QT), instead of a messy, complicated one (GTK+).
Of course, the actual programmer and their code matters the most, more than the framework upon which the progammer is building their application. But a superior framework makes it much, much easier to produce fast, bug free applications.
And, in my experience, KDE apps are faster and more bug free than GNOME apps, generally speaking.
No, average users don’t care about technical details, GUI libraries, or application frameworks. They care about good software – and a superior framework makes the programmer more able to produce good software.
Sigh, as a person who has floated around quite a bit between desktops window managers and such, I really don’t see why people feel the need to start big flamewars like this.
If you don’t like Gnome, don’t use it, don’t read about it, forget that it even exists. It obviously doesn’t matter to you, why do you feel the need to evangelize constantly about how crappy you think Gnome is, and how superior you feel KDE is? Do you really think you’re really swaying anyone to your side in this argument?
Personally I’m completely indifferent to KDE, if theres a theme I can use, or a technology developed in KDE that Gnome can use, great. I could really care less about the billion and a half reasons you think KDE is better. I happen to like the uncluttered nautilus, I like muine and rhythmbox even if I can’t edit tags, because all my music was autotagged when I ripped it, I use the gimp quite heavily, I’m following the development of Beagle and Dashboard, and gconf presents no problems for me configuring things as I want them.
You wont find me trolling in KDE forums. I use Gnome, because I like Gnome, not because I dislike KDE.
Since when is Osnews a KDE forum?
If you had taken the time to read the article by T. Butler, you would have realized that discussing the relative merits of KDE and Gnome is what this article and this discussion is about.
So you are saying that you like Gnome because you like gnome. Brilliant reasoning!
No, I use gnome, because I like gnome. I don’t use gnome because I dislike KDE. I know OSnews isn’t a KDE forum, or a Gnome forum for that matter, but it seems no matter what, Gnome and KDE stories here all tend to degrade into mudslinging competitions.
I use gnome for several reasons, some of which are simple personal preference, some of which are historical. To cut a long story short, I had enough hard drive for either Gnome or KDE, but not KDE + GTK and other requirements, So I just went with Gnome.
As for why I like Gnome: I like the spatial nautilus, I like Gnome’s HIG philosophy, I like that no applications that I use have a individual theme, I find Gnome fast enough for me (its not as fast as blackbox, but then what could be?), and I like having the applications that I normally use all look and behave the same.
Sure, there are other reasons, and these do seem kind of silly, but hey, this is basically all personal taste.
Don’t be silly! I am both a KDE and GNOME user. You don’t need to advertise the merits and drawbacks of either of them to me.
We all have stories to tell, but if being able to access documents on a remote network is one of the highlights of your KDE shabangs, then I think you might need to reevaluate many of your judgements.
And did you call Konqueror simple? I beg to differ, it doesn’t get any more complex than Konqueror. I have used KDE for some years now, and I can tell you that there’s a lot of features in Konqueror that I have yet to discover and many that I don’t know how to use(read: cryptographic config options?).
You want a simple browser, look no further than Epiphany. You want a simple file manager, look no further than Nautilus. You want a complex, feature obessed, multi-purpose swiss knife application, I present to you Konqueror.
Now arguing that Epiphany and Nautilus is better than Konqueror is absurd. Much as arguing that KDE is better than GNOME is equally repugnant.
Just from the design of Epiphany and Nautilus you can see the goals of the GNOME community. Equally so, from the design of Konqueror, you can see the KDE team’s objective. Whose design is better? The answer is all of them and none of them. Why? Because we all don’t share the same philosophies!
While many people admire the GNOME way, several other will be infuriated by it. But what annoys me are the few ignorant pricks who are who blatantly extreemist and see colors only in black or white. The mindless fanatics. For them everything about Konqueror is evil, which is false, or everything about Epiphany is wrong, which again is false.
The diligent observer is objective enough to understand they bought have merits as well as drawbacks and that none of either is better than the other. In other words, they shine at different tasks and under different situations. While some users will identify better with GNOME, many others will relate better to KDE. Hence, the need for the promotion of both projects.
That’s why I view most of the comments in this section as petty. Because the future of desktop computing exceeds way beyond the petty silly things we argue over. The future of desktop computing blurs the line between the desktop, the the internet, applications and data. Have a look at these videos to have an idea of what we are competing against.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/Longhorn/productinfo/conceptvid/default.a…
Then you’d realize why these pissing contests are so frustrating. Konqueror can retrieve documents over a remote network. Big deal! How does that improve humanity? How does that stir creativity? How does that quadriple productivity? How does that inspire innovation? What konqueror just did, is a twenty year old technology. Konqueror just provides you with a nicer(or uglier)GUI, as the case maybe, to make you and I feel special.
We have bigger problems to solve!
Yep you’ve touch the point, while these boys and girls discuss trivial issues and matters, Apple and Microsoft go way ahead in their concepts and respective implementation.
This KDE/Gnome fork shouldn’t even exist, if they are to match Windows or MacOSX in desktop then all the work should be focused in a single point, in a single DE and when this DE is at their pace then yes create various DE for various tastes, but, until that day comes there should be one DE only so all efforts are made to match these desktops.
If Linux is meant to be a server OS then this discussion is pointless as well since a server OS doesn’t need a DE or if it needs it’s a fast, lightwight, and small DE, something like TWM and alike not Gnome or KDE.
So if KDE and Gnome exist is because the goal is to make Linux a Desktop OS, and for that goal to be achieved the work must be focused in a single DE and put some intensive work at it or else you will be always playing catch up with these OS.
PS: I didn’t use the subject ‘we’ cause it seems to makes the flames of hell raise in OS News.
“The diligent observer is objective enough to understand they bought have merits as well as drawbacks and that none of either is better than the other. In other words, they shine at different tasks and under different situations.”
If you read my comments, you will see that I also stated that there are areas where different projects shine. Indeed, I stated that some of our users use Gnome because its accessibility framework is currently a bit better than KDE’s.
But let us not forget that this article was about how Gnome got it right and, by implication, KDE got it wrong. And the thrust of my arguments is precisely what you stated, that it isn’t quite that clear and that if we had to speak in absolute terms, I find that KDE gets more things right more of the time than Gnome. Having said this, I am happy to see both projects advance and evolve as they surely do.
“Konqueror can retrieve documents over a remote network. Big deal! How does that improve humanity?”
Providing a way to store connection profiles that allows the average user to reach their server in a secure way by clicking on a single button is not a big deal as in “wow we just discovered some new relational properties between neutrinos that may lead to new insights into the making of the universe”, but it is something that no other desktop yet provides. And it is a huge boom in one simple area: secure off-site access using the tools that the user is already familiar with: The file browser.
And finally on the question of complexity, you fail to heed the point that the admin can disable, remove as much as necessary, although I don’t remove anything from konqueror and no one’s ever complained that is hard to use and we have some first-time computer users among the crowd.
Having said all of the above, I do agree we have bigger problems to solve, but I think our major hurdles are not technological, but political. The current legislative climate that allows for software patents is the biggest threat that free software faces. We can face the technological challenges, just fine.
A project does NOT evolve faster by throwing more developers at the problem. In fact, beyond a certain point, quite the opposite is true. There is a huge amount of literature on code development methodologies and you would be advised to read on it before telling people how to optimize their strategy.
Has it occurred to you that by having two desktops, Linux can go on if one of them gets bugged down on some crazy legal battle?
Has it occurred to you that Gnome and KDE developers would not work on the same project because their interests differ? And has it occurred to you that there is no single instance dictating the direction in which Linux or open source moves, which is just fine because that gives us a single of point of failure, something which is neither desirable under the current political conditions nor possible?
And above all, has it occured to you that KDE made its first released in late 1998 and that its pace of development has far outdone anything that Microsoft has ever done? Compare the 1998-2004 evolution in Microsoft’s GUI and KDE. In the same amount of time, we have created a whole desktop environment, educational titles, office suites, management and administration tools…
Finally, has it occured to you that at the end of the day, many free software developers will settle for gaining 20% of the desktop, that this isn’t an either or proposition and that many of us only want a more balanced IT infrastructure and lanscape?
Just some things to think about. Thanks for listening.
The future of desktop computing blurs the line between the desktop, the the internet, applications and data. Have a look at these videos to have an idea of what we are competing against.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/Longhorn/productinfo/conceptvid/default.a…
IMO, the Windows XP/Longhorn desktop interface is something that Linux desktops should NOT imitate. It’s clearly a failure — it’s confusing and difficult to use and it takes power and control away from users.
>We had enough of people complaining about button order, no “apply” button, and so on..
>If you want to look like windows, try KDE not Gone(WITH_THE_WIND)ME, which btw, is not a fork, the guy there hopes that he will proven to be right and the gnome devs will include his “patches”
Well, I don’t know what do you mean but as a Windows user I felt a lot more confortable with Gnome than with KDE…
Leo.
KDE’s framework is still superior, but that doesn’t matter to the average users
Fast, bug free apps matter to the average user, and that’s what is usually the result of programming with a superior framework (QT), instead of a messy, complicated one (GTK+).
It doesn’t matter if the average user cant use them, due to a too complicated or clunky user interface. But you are right it is much easier to kill bugs in KDE than in Gnome. I could fix my first bug in KDE in less than an hour. In gnome I don’t even know where to start.
Perhaps its time for a KDE fork, where everything look like Gnome but is built on QT. Then we could have the best of both worlds.
From the article:
“Projects like Twister, which would have made Kontact — the Outlook-like PIM that premiered in the last release — a reality several years before it finally came out, were looked over”
Maybe, but this functionality now has been added. So what’s the point here? On the one hand, tell to ignore GNOME’s past but still moan about the past of KDE? In that light, it is even quite surprising that he doesn’t even mention KDE’s license “issue”.
“Tools such as (…) Mozilla now are building on top of GNOME”
Oh yes, Mozilla is much less functional on Windows than on Linux *cough*, and the buttons and dropdown lists on webpages are surely drawn using GTK+ *cough* and the GTK+ theme of FireFox/Mozilla surely looks and feels like a normal GTK+ application *cough*.
“The average user doesn’t care if they can tweak the way Nautilus works or change how the file save dialog boxes work. All they want to do is get their work done as quickly and simply as possible.”
Surely simplifying the settings dialogs makes daily use with Gnome much easier *cough*, and surely the first thing average users do is changing settings of an application *cough* and surely advanced users can’t use dialogs with more than three options *cough* and surely users cannot ignore options they don’t want to change *cough*.
That is not a reason to remove this functionality. The average user won’t even look at the settings dialog, so for him, the default settings matter. The advanced user who does use the settings dialog will probably be capable of using the more advanced options too, or to ignore them.
“Instead, everything just works the way I want it to: mounted discs appear on the desktop for easy access, network shares work without fighting with LiSA’s background daemon, sound works well, and all of my major applications seem to work together, because Evolution, GIMP, Gaim, Mozilla Firefox (or Epiphany) and dozens of others are GTK applications just like GNOME.”
Surely The Gimp is a Gnome application *cough* and doesn’t work properly under KDE *cough*, and surely KDE doesn’t have kopete, kontact and konqueror *cough*, and surely arts never works *cough*, and surely the FTP support of gnome-vfs works properly so that I can log in to my Tripod account *cough*.
If GNOME got it right and GNOME is really so much better then e.g. KDE, why do we have to read a bunch of articles every week that explain us why GNOME got it right and why GNOME is superior? From my experience, if something is truly superior, it is not necessary to tell everyone that it is truley superior all the time. It is only necessary if it is not true and people will not use it if they see it. Is there a bunch of articles every week telling us that the MacOS X interface is the best one around? No! Why? Because it is not necessary and people will realize themselves if they see MacOS X!
In my opinion, this article is a typical example of a total meaningless and unnecessary article. The author writes that he is a former KDE user and now he uses GNOME because he thinks the KDE interface is to cluttered. Wow! Why does he not explain what specifically looks to cluttered for him? Kicker? Konqueror? The toolbars of some applications? The menus? What about some screenshots about things he does not like? His next assertion is that GNOME made it right because they developed Evolution. What does this have to do with the problems he has with KDE? He asserts that GNOME started to look major (in contrast to KDE) but he does not give any reason why. He says that xscreensaver and Mozilla are build on top of GNOME instead of beeing just poorly integrated solutions. Mozilla is actually not integrated in Mozilla at all, while Konqueror is very nicely integrated into KDE. And so on…
If you really have to write this kind of articles (what is the sense of it, do people think that anyone will switch from KDE to GNOME because he read this?), please give at least some arguments and show some screenshots what actually your problems are and do not only give some personal opionions which are sometimes, like for the case of the Mozilla integration in GNOME, are just plain wrong. I know, it is not the fault of the author, he just wrote down his opinion and that is o.k. even if I don’t really like his opinion. My problem is, why does OSNews have to link all these personal opinions? What can we learn from them? What is the news behind this story?
Mozilla is actually not integrated in Mozilla at all,
KDE’s framework is still superior, but that doesn’t matter to the average users
Fast, bug free apps matter to the average user
that’s the reason why i’m not using gnome – the few times i tried to i was left with the impression: slow and unstable.
kde is not without problems, still it has advantages: i can do work with it …
my installation is german, and with that i can visit a cyrillic website, and copy-and-paste the cyrillic text straight into my german kword, and print the whole thing – no twiddling with config files or anything, it just worked right out of the box. something i have to do every day, and it was easier to do than in windows.
somehow i fail to notice the work-impeding “oh-so-complicated interface”, though i’m not exactly a genius, not even a computer geek… just an average user with some years of windows-experience, who got fed up with certain things and so switched over to debian-knoppix as far as possible.
kword has still a lot of problems (at least in version 1.3) but it is more usable for me than e.g. abiword (crashes) and open office – the above-mentioned operation doesn’t work there like it does in kword, and i don’t have the time to find out if i could make work somehow. i’m now going to remove open office from my installation, because i just don’t use it (just for the record: it’s actually star office 7 – i bought it to support open source). now i use crossover office with ms office 97 for the rest, and hope that kword gets its problems ironed out some day.
not much ideology there – should one day gnome and its apps help me better than kde, i’ll switch immediately. right now i’m just grateful that some people try to do something different, and wish them all the best – what they do is needed – and support them, if i can.
The default install of KDE is so cluttered that I have room to have exactly 2 windows open before the entire task bar is consumed.
Bollocks.
The KDE install running on my system now does not look or perform anything like a stock install.
So what the hell are you using then?
Konqueror can retrieve documents over a remote network. Big deal! How does that improve humanity? How does that stir creativity? How does that quadriple productivity? How does that inspire innovation? What konqueror just did, is a twenty year old technology. Konqueror just provides you with a nicer(or uglier)GUI, as the case maybe, to make you and I feel special.
Because it is pretty much essential to have, and network browsing actually stopped working in Gnome in 2.6.
Worrying about stuff like this:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/Longhorn/productinfo/conceptvid/default.a…
and not focusing on very simple everyday things is exactly the problem. We don’t have bigger problems to solve, just lots of small ones.
And believe it or not there are even some users who would like to read comments that actually address the issues brought up by the comment they react to.
But if you feel threatened by that demand, you are of course free to dodge the issues and try yourself as a comedian again. Better luck next time with the latter task btw.
I, for one, am not flamming or mud slinging.
I love both GNOME and KDE.
I tend to like KDE better (at least lately), for the reasons I’ve already stated.
I just think it’s fun to discuss, with other intelligent people who share my enthusiasm for Linux, the virtues and shortcomings of both major desktop environments.
Frankly, only a few posts on this thread have come off as flames. Everyone else is coming up with good points about why they prefer “their fav DE” over the “other DE”. And in this process, we all get to learn stuff about GNOME and KDE that we didn’t already know, or only had surface level knowledge. This is great. It’s not a flame war.
When someone does an article on why such and such DE is great, the discussion thread will inevitably have arguments over which DE is the best. Most of the time, this is good and healthy.
So don’t worry about it. If you don’t like the debate, don’t read the thread.
I think the reason for rhythmbox not doing tag editing is that it is not available in gstreamer. They do not want to roll their own tagging API. They prefer to not duplicate effort and have that done in the proepr place. The taggin code is there apparently in rhythmbox, but taggin becomes available when gstreamer suports it.
About rhythmbox not moving ofrward, I think rhythmbox is really exercising gstreamer right now, which is good. Juk get all the benefits which is ok, but that does not mean it is bad. My rhythmbox rarely crashes on me nowadays, and plays more songs everytime I update gstreamer. Now that is good.
See a doctor about that cough. It could be something serious. And most of us prefer to read comments without getting covered in phlegm.
So does that mean he’s righ then?
well automatic and instant apply of settings is better IMHO than the apply method.
Because it is pretty much essential to have, and network browsing actually stopped working in Gnome in 2.6.
It’s not.
Mozilla is integrated into GNOME. Last I checked it now uses gnome-vfs and in also inherits your GTK/GNOME themes. Same with Firefox. And works are on the way to make it even better integrated.
I’d argue Mozilla looks a lot more integrated in GNOME than it does in KDE. Same with Openoffice.org ximian version.
” I’d argue Mozilla looks a lot more integrated in GNOME than it does in KDE.”
Well…ya…it uses gtk and KDE has a browser.
“Same with Openoffice.org ximian version.”
http://kde.openoffice.org/
It’s not.
Browsing and using files over a network in a transparent way is not necessary? Stone me.
Mozilla is integrated into GNOME. Last I checked it now uses gnome-vfs and in also inherits your GTK/GNOME themes. Same with Firefox. And works are on the way to make it even better integrated.
I assume you’re talking about this:
http://www.gnomedesktop.org/article.php?sid=1702
Mozilla by default, does not pick this up, but there are a number of add-ons. Interestingly, they talk about gnome-vfs support and support for smb and other protocols. Once you do this you’re going beyond the normal realms of http, or even ftp, browsing. In short, you need universal browsing technology (which presents a whole slew of problems), which Konqueror is currently working itself through. Do we need Nautilus, or do we need Mozilla, or do we just drop Nautilus (after so many years and such a journey) and use Mozilla for everything?
That’s the sort of stuff that you said above wasn’t a problem, and wasn’t necessary
.
Same with Openoffice.org ximian version.
Where is Ximian these days? Wow, the Ximian version of Open Office looks integrated with Gnome?
http://kde.openoffice.org/
gone me sounds like they are lost.
It doesn’t stand for Millennium Edition, does it?
MaryTee
If gnome got it right, its not that KDE got it wrong, its just that its ok to have two different desktops that try to accomplish two different things.
I like the debate, I just don’t like that it devolves into shouting contests over which is better, with trolls like Ali popping up in every single gnome discussion to proclaim that Gnome is crap.
Nice article, cleared a lot of things.
Now I like GNOME more than before.
This is my ultimate argument in KDE defense!
I like KDE because….
Klipper!
Yep. that small app is just great!
My “it’s not” comment was inappropriate. Side effects of hunger and not sleeping enough. 🙂 I meant to say Nautilus is capable of traversing remote networks in Gnome-2.6.
And I still stand by my point. It’s not a big deal, or it won’t be two years from now. We have bigger fish to fry.
….that as a community we should just let who ever do what ever and stop our complaining. If they felt a need to change something so be it.
We always tell people that Linux and OSS gives choice like it should be but then we get in these stupid polotic wars about a DE? That and so what if they want to fork Gnome. You never hear anyone complaining about Dropkick Gnome. They decided they wanted things different and so be it, its the the “pro” to OSS…don’t like it, change it.
I have icewm on my lap top because it is a space issue, as Mandrake 10 refused to install until I pared it down. The interface is just like win95 and old moms and pops understand that. Old Moms and Pops could never mess it up. My limited space did allow me to add firefox, thunderbird, gaim, clamscan, f-prot, distribfold, mplayer, an “editor” and qview(sp). I HAVE a very hot little OS on my lap top that MOM and POP understand. It needs a little more configure-ability at the gui for the POP in me but I to can get lots of things done in the CLI. I’m sure Administrators can develop a BASELINE interface for an office. Icewm even comes with a a win95 theme. IT TELLS THE TIME! The task bar has animations of network traffic and load that open up to windows with a click.
I insist though that I am a typical end-user. All-be-it an enduser with an addictive hobby.
what struck me about the authors article on the simplicity of gnome was when he stated that he VALUES getting work done out of the box and needing no tweaking. WELLLL, that runs counter to my addiction. I am rather enjoying the multiple solutions availabe to the desk top, from FreeBSD to the Fedora. Getting the latest gnome to work is MY PLEASURE. I have Gnome 2.7.4 on FreeBSD 5.2.1.
Some Observations at the Edge:
Evolution seems highly configurable. don’t explore the Exchange servers without knowing what you are doing as it crashed on me and forever insisted on opening in the same crashed situation. remember I am and end-user. I may just hunt and delete all evolution remnants on my system and re-install. I allready gave it the rpm -e.
Any JOKER addict can read a cook book.
I have not yet angered the system Admin where I work as I have enough on my hands here. I DO NOTICE that I beat him to windows.update. 🙂
I agree, that if you guys, for some reason, are in a hurry, you should by all means put all your forces into KDE as it is the best for an INTELEGENT workforce. there are willing addicts everywhere.!!!. also I was impressed by the articles citing the tightness under the hood. by all means leave gnome if that is the case and you are running a race.
But if we can just relax a little guys, can we stop flaming and support diversity. Us addicts really do get tired of the same old distro.
my friend, you may be the typical linux user, but you are far from the typical (read: windows) user.
for me, there are two ways that i use linux. one is hard-core learning mode, where i will use a distro that doesnt do much in the way of hand holding (such as slack or gentoo). this is how i learned my way around linux, and i still go back to that every once in awhile if i start getting the desire to plunge into it again.
however, just because i *can* write a /etc/X11/xorg.conf file from scratch, doesnt mean i *want* to. i do use my computer for other things then playing around, and for actual work fedora is my baby. now i love learning how to go around configuring and tweaking everything just as much as you do, but at the end of the day ive got work to do. I like kde alot, and would MUCH rather write with Qt rather then GTK, especially with the beauty of the KDE dev tools and the… “interesting” nature of the gnome ones. but it is actually easier for me to get stuff done in gnome.
things like spatial nautilus, a desktop environment that takes fittes law into account, where i can actually learn (almost) any new app within minutes, at least to the point of being able to use it. polish and usability is not just for new users, it is also there to make routine things simple and easy to do without thought.
granted, this is just me, and i have been poisened i guess by growing up on a mac (used it till the early os8 days). but this is whats awsome about linux, you have so many different projects with different focuses to fit whatever you are geared towards. for example, someone who likes minimalist desktops has a wide range to choose from. someone who perfers complexity in their desktop has KDE (which quite honestly blows windows out of the water, with which it shares similar focus and direction) and someone like me who perfers a desktop where operation doesnt require thought has gnome.
which is why i agree with your last point, flames are pointless, diversity is one of the strengths of linux and there really is something for everyone. if gnome isnt for you, use something else. gnome is perfect for me, i love where it is going, and i would hate for their direction to change.
that’s all from me