KDE vs. Gnome: Benefits of both?
 

Before you reply, understand I'm not trying to start a flame war here, but I'm honestly curious as to which DM is better suited to my needs.

First off, my experiance is with KDE. Gnome in my old distro wasn't all that it was cracked up to be (didn't work well. Had a single constant error with it that I never figured out), and hence I kept to KDE. Well, over time, I've used KDE, and with it has come alot of gadgets and gizmos I don't care for. The email client (Kmail) I don't much care for, but I don't feel like installing Evolution because I don't want to spend the HDD space on it (I'm always looking for the easiest thing I can use, with the lest required HDD space), and hence I have tolerated KMail and the K Personal Information Manager has been a fairly useful tool (even if its uses are limited to me).

My two big concernes, well, three, and Speed, Security, and Reliability, with size being another factor, as well as ease of use. Actually, tag Ease of Use onto the end of that list as #4.

So, here is my question:

Based on what I've stated, what do you think Gnome and/or KDE have going for them? I have (not confiugred) IceWM installed onto my system (may test out Fluxbox later), and I like using it, but I'd like to keep to something that is fairly central (mainly a DM over a simple WM), so I have a choice over which I want to use. In any case, I think that pretty sums up my question, and hope to get a fairly speedy and useful responce!

NOTE: For all its worth, I'm on a 2.53GHz P4 w/ 512M RAM and an onboard graphics card (intel, I think) with 64MB RAM for it. I'm also using KDE 3.5.2 atm

I use KDE because I like being able to configure what I want easily. My KDE is pretty stripped down and virtually free of eye-candy. I don't use desktop icons or wallpapers. I have shortcut keys configured the way I want them and the mouse buttons do what I want them to do. I am using a PIII with 256mb ram here at work and the system is pretty zippy. My laptop is of similar specifications and runs well. My home desktop is a faster beast but I run the same stripped down KDE (all 3.5.2). I am trying to use only KDE applications at the moment (apart from Firefox) and this is working well. I have tried all sorts of other combinations and this is my current choice and preference.

I have never really used Gnome. The times that I have tried it left me wanting KDE. There is nothing wrong with Gnome - I just felt it wasn't as easy to make "mine" ..... but that is just my experience. KDE just felt easier to configure. I have also set up and configured Fluxbox to my liking and loved it but I started to feel that I was adding too much to Fluxbox to build the environment I wanted --- in fact, my Fluxbox config resembles my KDE config.

As far as speed, security and reliability are concerned, I have never seen much difference once my chosen desktop is up and running. The speed limit on my systems is usually me. I think the same thing applies to security and reliability too. It's all down to me and how I set up the system.

What it comes down to is choice. Your choice. I know that someone will come along later (as on other threads of a similar nature) and say the opposite to me ---- and that will be a result of their experience etc.

Thanks for the info. I'm one who likes to get an idea what I'm getting into before trying something, hence wh you may see alot of threads like this of mine floating around. Like I said, thanks for the feedback, and anymore is also welcome :)

I haven't used GNOME much, the one time I remember, I craved for KDE style control panel. GNOME control panel, I think is much alike WINDOWS. I used stripped down KDE, with no special effects and I use a mix of application as my needs arise. I am pretty happy with it.

I recently started using gnome again. I have found gnome 2.14 to be much faster than earlier versions. I also have taken a liking to evolution, as I like its integrated calender and such. It's easier for me to get an email about an appointment and then immediately set it up so I don't forget. I prefer the music players rhythmbox and banshee over AmaroK, presently.

However, I did use KDE exclusively for a while. I had it set up with the kompositor as my only eye candy, no desktop icons, a few shortcuts in a panel, and the 'K' menu as a right click on the mouse. It is that kind of flexibility that I like about KDE. The only gripe I had was the ARTS sound server. I found it unreliable, and it would play some applications and not others. However, that was easily fixable by disabling it and using xine as the playback engine for amaroK.

It comes down to mood for me. Most likely I will be using something else in a couple of months, but it's all good.

If you do give gnome another chance, do use the most recent (2.14) it is heads and shoulders above the previous releases.

I use 3 kde tools
 

I put up with a lot from kde because of 3 tools I cannot replace in Linux. They're not well known - kalarm, kjots and klipper. kalarm was the reason I switched to kde - it just would not work properly on gnome.

Apart from that, my overall impression is that gnome would be better. kde tries to tie you to its applications, especially konqueror and it keeps "losing" file associations to other software.

Having said that, I tried to use gnome after installing Mandriva 2006. It seemed crude to me. I've got the panels looking the way I want them in kde. I've added my own submenu with applications I use often and even shortcuts to files, all categorised in a way which makes sense to me and I have four dropdown menus on the top panel which gives me ready access to those applications and files. So there are few icons on the panels and I ignore those placed by default on the desktop.

I don't use a mail client; if you don't like kmail, what about Mozilla's application - thunderbird, is it?

I usually find these types of threads to be not really helpful (just like the "which is the best distro threads"). The problem is that different people like different things, so most people tend to recommend their favourite DE. The best way to find out whats better for you is to test all the DEs you may be thinking of using and then settling on your favourite one.

I am more partial to KDE, because its a lot more feature rich, easier to customise and most of its apps integrate well with the rest of the DE unlike GNOME.

Why not just install both, try them out, and uninstall the one you don't want.