Gnome VS KDE

Electro · 03-12-2007, 04:46 AM

Quote:

what is best

This is toooooo, general. Linux provides you the choice of several desktop and windows managers to select from. I pick XFce4. It is very light-weight and it is basic which I like. For GUI login manager, I use KDM because it does not corrupt itself like GDM when I terminate it and when I hit CTL+ALT+BKSPC. Though I could try entrance.

Gnome looks old and it is bloated. KDE has too much eye candy and it is very, very bloated. Both Gnome and KDE needs a lot of memory and processor resources to use them well. The Linux community is too keen developing GUI programs that works in KDE. Very soon that will produce future issues because how KDE is constructed.

Asking a question like this will get a lot of bias answers. I recommend try them all and compare.

Go to http://xwinman.org/ for a list of desktop and window managers.

mattjohnstone22 · 03-12-2007, 04:29 PM

Right, cheers for all the replies guys,

I'm getting the hang of suse under the KDE environment at the mo. To be honest tho, I can't actually say which I prefer, but hopefully a reinstall is a long way off!

Oh (edit! didnt see 2nd page)... yeah I understand but still new to this, and quite like how suse kinda finds everything for ya hardware wise - even windows cant do that (driver CD one after the other). As far as computer performance goes, I'm ok there, have access to some pretty kick-ass parts :-)

I presume the Gnome vs KDE thread title is a bit of a battle ground in the Linux world lol?

Thanks, matt.

IBall · 03-12-2007, 07:39 PM

See This page that I have written (with the help of others) as an attempt at a non-biased comparison of the two.

Basically, they both have strong and weak points. Use whichever one you prefer.

--Ian

masonm · 03-12-2007, 08:47 PM

Gnome is much better than KDE

KDE is much better than Gnome

dxqcanada · 03-12-2007, 09:00 PM

Linus was quoted in a response to a developer concerning Gnome's response to him about the Gnome printing dialog ...

Quote:

...the options from the PPD file are intentionally mot
listed in the printing dialog, the usability team of GNOME was against
listing these options. They clutter the dialog and can be more confusing
than useful to the user.

Linus' reply ...

Quote:

I personally just encourage people to switch to KDE.

This "users are idiots, and are confused by functionality" mentality of
Gnome is a disease. If you think your users are idiots, only idiots will
use it. I don't use Gnome, because in striving to be simple, it has long
since reached the point where it simply doesn't do what I need it to do.

Please, just tell people to use KDE.

Linus

I agree with Linus ... Gnome is too simple.

dxqcanada · 03-12-2007, 09:03 PM

The final word from Linus:

Quote:

On Tue, 13 Dec 2005, Jeff Waugh wrote:
>
> That's definitely not a point of view of the GNOME Project - we're focused
> on making Free Software appropriate for users who are smart (we don't talk
> about 'dumb users'), but just don't care about computing technology. We're
> just like every other Free Software project - fixing stuff requires the work
> and attention of people who care about the problem at hand.

No. I've talked to people, and often your "fixes" are actually removing
capabilities that you had, because they were "too confusing to the user".

That's _not_ like any other open source project I know about. Gnome seems
to be developed by interface nazis, where consistently the excuse for not
doign something is not "it's too complicated to do", but "it would confuse
users".

The current example of "intentionally not listed in the printing dialog,
the usability team of GNOME was against listing these options." is clearly
not the exception, but the rule.

Jeff, if the explanation had been "exposing PPD features is too hard, we
need developer manpower", I'd have understood. THAT is what open source
projects tend to say. Not "powerful interfaces might confuse users and not
look nice".

If this was a one-off, I'd buy it. But I've heard it too damn many times.
And only ever from Gnome.

The reason I don't use Gnome: every single other window manager I know of
is very powerfully extensible, where you can switch actions to different
mouse buttons. Guess which one is not, because it might confuse the poor
users? Here's a hint: it's not the small and fast one.

And when I tell people that, they tend to nod, and have some story of
their own why they had a feature they used to use, but it was removed
because it might have been confusing.

Same with the file dialog. Apparently it's too "confusing" to let users
just type the filename. So gnome forces you to do the icon selection
thing, never mind that it's a million times slower.

Linus

SweetLou · 03-13-2007, 09:44 PM

OK, but the original poster requested non-biased responses. So, the two above quotes are biased, that doesn't make one DE better than the other, just a different philosophy. If you can find a non-biased answer to the question, I would love to read about it.

IBall · 03-14-2007, 01:12 AM

Sweetlou: Have a look at the page I linked to earlier (Also in my Sig Block).

It is an attempt to write a non-biased (as much as possible) comparison between the two, and also a bit on window managers. Let me know if you have any suggestions to make it more balanced.

Asking "which is better" will always get a biased answer. Asking "what is the difference" does not need to be biased.

--Ian

ed-j · 03-17-2007, 04:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mattjohnstone22

Hey up everybody,

Had a lot of problems recently (posted on this forum some place), my latest being that Suse 10.2 doesn't appear to like Gnome... or at least so i have gathered.

Used Gnome all the time (well last couple of months while been using linux), then had this update hassle.

Reinstalled the lot, this time in KDE... looks very sweet and should def be enough to convince anybody to move from windows to linux.

But, can anybody suggest what is best, without being bias?

I'm not completely sure if I understand your question?
I installed Ubuntu Edgy 6.1 and installed KDE 3.5 on top/in with it. The result being that I can use parts of both!

Hope this sounds inspiring. :-)