Linux.com

Well its sure nice to know that there is some division and opposition all around. Perhaps if we ever want GNU/Linux to succeed we need to stop opposing each other and get along? Try to make what we have work together better? Of course this is a lot easier in word than action. And some people are doing this, and I say great work. But a bit less aggresive would perhaps make it all more nice. But remember part of the whole idea of GNU/Linux is that everyone can have everything customized.

In my opinion, GNOME does make some things too simple, and I have not seen all that I wanted to see in it. On the other hand, if there are going to be newbies going to linux they will want a simple and easy Desktop Environment; so you could just call GNOME the easy DE. I guess everything is going to have its advantages and disadvantages...

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The FOSS community won't get along, if linux fanboys keep thinking it's about *linux* instead of Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, OpenSolaris, and whoever the fuck is using GNOME - using and contributing.

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Who actually uses the term GNU/Linux aside from RMS?

Not to start up that old debate, its just that I've never seen anyone actually use that before (aside from him).

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It's clumsy, it's pedantic<nobr> <wbr></nobr>... and it's accurate.

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GNU/BSD/X/Freedesktop/Mozilla/Apache/Linux

is more clumsy, more pedantic<nobr> <wbr></nobr>... and more accurate.

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don't forget Gnome, KDE, and the good folks writing programming languages.

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Gnix? Bah gnu is such a bad name, hardly rolls off the tounge and I spent years calling it G.N.U

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No, we need this. We need this very badly. It's these sort of fights that instigate the change which free software thrives on. It's these sorts of fights that keep the passion alive, because passion is all a lot of us have to go on.

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Isnt as easy as you say. Sometimes code has to be replaced, and seldom the previous author(s) like this.
It is often worth the conflict to improve code. They're developers, not chat clubs. (if they wont enter patches you think improve, can always fork, ofcourse)

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I would like to see a brawl. I got your back Linus, I'll take the dude out on the left.

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I`m at home in front of my computer deciding upon the difference upon linux and microsoft, my wife to my left is watching one of her favourite programmes on tv about our past and how it was before we "moved on" "devolped" as humans,(Lillies,TV PROG). I then stumble upon the discussion, dialogue or outright slanging match between linus and gnome( I won`t put either in capitals while they behave like childeren)I`m new to computer technology, I`m hoping to devolp what I`ve already learnt and to do better. Perhaps for myself it would be good to start with gnome and move on to a more challenging programme, that is my choice as pointed out by ALF people have a choice. And while we do we will vote with our keyboard! There`s an old saying which every goverment knows very well and lets us down because of it "you can`t please all the people all the TIME." So why not put your differences behind you and remember the small people out there the people who matter, the users of these programmes. A message to either if it`s money your after then dissapear to the commercial world and fight your corner there otherwise stay and help the community.

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Guys (Linus, Andrew) you are a joke. Do you think KDE is the best? It is still sluggish compared to MacOS10-x and Windows 2000-XP-Vista

get your eyes horted

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wow u obviously dont know a single thing about linux based os's in anyway otherwise you would know that for one macosx is the worst os on the planet. i mean come on wuts the point of having an os that only uses software created by the original developer. and second of all windows is laggy as balls compared to any linux window manager. do some research b4 talking. that would be greatly appreciated by all

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I hate to see bad blood spread, but
I have to agree with Linus.
Gnome just drives me up the wall.
Idiot-safe is nice, but it's also expert-proof.

On the other hand, there are many desktops.
If you don't like Gnome then just ignore it.

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I think you can have both simple and configurable. Just put the higher end configurable parts under "Advanced Configuration" or something to that effect.

This way if you don't want to mess with it you don't click the "Advanced Configuration" button, but the option is still there.

The biggest issue I find with OSS software is the lack of understandible graphical configuration menus. I shouldn't have to know where a text file is, login as root, and then change one word to some obscure command (that I couldn't possibly guess) for something that could be handled by a checkbox.

Instead of removing the ability to make changes to make it stupid safe, they should be creating difficulty tiered configuration menus. Functionality and simplicity is better than both lack of functionality or lack of simplicity.

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I'm a fairly long-time Gnome user. As long as Debian has supported Gnome, I've used it. That said, I'm VERY disappointed in the current state of Gnome. I USED to be able to configure just about everything. Now I can't even edit the freakin menus - they REMOVED the menu editor!!! What, I'm supposed to hand code obscure XML files now??? WTF is that all about????

Nope, in my next refresh, I'll be moving to KDE. I just can't handle the stupidity of Gnome anymore.

Hint to the Gnome team: Removing configurability does not make the system easier to use: It makes it IMPOSSIBLE to use.

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The Menu editor is back, and much better. It's a massive improvement over the old Debian menu system and it actually has the tools to configure it _properly_ as well (that means properly merging user configuration with System configuration). The only grievances I have anymore with it is inability to drag and drop menu items (which it looks like they're working on implementing) and not being able to specify theme-independent icons, which has been a problem in everything I've used but XFCE. The best part is maintained compatibility with a fallback of XML file editing. That's a major strength of most of the GNOME config tools actually, they don't keep their own configuration somewhere; they actually work with the underlying configuration files.

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I guarantee that you will use KDE for about 3 days and come back to Gnome in no time. Why? Gnome is a well thought out GUI. KDE is a Windows-like wannabe that's really annoying to use.

Don't take my word for it. Go ahead and use KDE and I will see the pride burning in you "oh boy, now I have to swallow hard and accept that Gnome gets the job done in a much nicer and enjoyable way"

Just my 0.02.

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It's just what I did and I never looked back. KDE applications are unmatched by anything in the GTK world, which is just a mixture of apps with no integration whatsoever and that do not form a coherent, integrated desktop as KDE apps do.

Sure, KDE could use a little help with the look and feel, but that's doable. I fear Gnome's architectural and design problems do not have such an easy solution.

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I used Gnome exclusively from 2001-2006. A few months ago, I built a new system and tried KDE, just to see how it had changed since I last ran it. In the past, it would have this annoying habit of changing my font sizes from HUGE to TINY, from login to login, somewhat arbitrarily. The last time I used KDE, the toolbars also had an irritating penchant for instability.

I've been running KDE now for probably about 4 months. I don't miss Gnome at all. I still have it installed on my system (I assumed I'd just mess around with KDE but use Gnome most of the time - this has not turned out to be the case), amd while I think Gnome looks a little less cartoonish, overall, I'm happy to have all of the coniguration options that Gnome was missing and I definitely like the file selecter better in KDE.

I've heard people claim things like they "can't get work done" - whatever that means - in either environment, but as a user now of both KDE and Gnome, I find that to be a trollish comment, because of course you can "get work done" in either, or any of the smaller WMs out there. Statements like this say far more about the poster than either WM/WE.

KDE feels more modern, more forward-looking, and definitely more configurable. I left Windows back in 2001 because I got sick of it assuming it knew better than I did what I wanted and because of its idiotic defaults (hide file extensions!?), and because it treated me like a child (sure those defaults could be changed - changing them was the first thing I did after the initial install - but they represented a mindset which pervaded the rest of the OS).

In hindsight, after a few months of KDE, I realize that Gnome suffers from a milder form of this same elitism by burying its configurability of many options, as well as some asinine (but changeable) defaults. For example, I have no doubt that Gnome devs and probably some of its users LOVE spatial windowing. I do not, and I tried really hard to love it for several months. It is a stupid default, and while it can be changed, it strikes me as presumptuous that they wouldn't make that option easily accessible.

Since the annoying instabilities of KDE were cleared up, there are only a few minor things I miss from Gnome - its weather applet, which is better than KDEs (which is horrid), for one, and Pan is definitely more fully featured than KNode, speaking in terms of gtk+ vs qt apps.

I haven't run Gnome in several months and probably won't again unless it changes its crusty presumptiveness. If I were to sit down in front of a Gnome machine and had to do serious productive work on it, I could, but it's definitely not my first choice anymore. I have no loyalty to any software; I simply use what I like best, and Gnome is no longer the WM/WE I like the best.

As for KDE being a "Windows wannabe" let me shock you and cause a major furor(e) here: Like Gnome, KDE can actually be *configured* to look *however you want it to look*. You better sit down for this next part. You can move your toolbars around and even make it look vaguely like a Mac. And, beyond this - you can even use different icon sets or themes. Oh my. And beyond which, in KDE, you can tweak the color and spacing of just about *everything*...easily. Which is more than I can say about Gnome. Note: I don't consider this a MAJOR advantage of KDE. That look/feel stuff is more "nice to have" than essential.

Nothing impresses me less than some kind of judgement of a windowing environment more than the criticism of its default out-of-the-box look, which differs from distro to distro anyway, at least among those that customize things.

What makes KDE look like Windows is, primarily, where its toolbar is placed when you first install - the bottom, with a sort of "Start Button" on the lower left and a clock on the right. Gnome installs a toolbar with a menu and clock up on top, like a Mac.

If that, alone, affects your decision on which to use, your opinion isn't worth a lot to me, personally.

Because guess what? I moved my KDE toolbar up to the top, where it is on Gnome. Why? Because I'm used to Gnome. Problem solved.

Lastly, as for "choice", the primary value worshipped by anyone who gets upset about arguments over WM/WEs...Choice is not without a price. It dilutes the developer pool, forces those of us who want to run whatever we want to install two sets of libraries (at least), and requires more package maintainers for each distribution. Yes, I'm happy to have some choice, but I have to wonder what KDE or Gnome would look like if every developer was working on one major WM/WE.

I could still use Gnome, but I can't find a good reason to. Both Gnome and KDE are completely stable for me. I've noticed no difference in that between either, and I am suspicious of people who claim one is stable and one isn't, because I push my desktop pretty hard, and I have had no problems with either - this wasn't the case in the past, but it is now.

Also, one man's "bloat" is another man's "feature." I haven't noticed any performance difference between the two nonetheless.

In summary, I gain a bunch of small things from KDE, and lose one or two things from Gnome. In balance, KDE wins, and I'm sticking with KDE. If Gnome should do some major innovating and fixing its spartan configuration menus and dialogs, I'd not hestitate to switch back. Right now though, for me, KDE is better. Gnome, in comparison, feels stunted, and even a little dated. I don't personally give a crap about whether someone's grandmother can use my WE, either. As someone else pointed out, given all of the Linux users in the world, how many of them fall into the category of people who would be confused by more configurability, as opposed to less?

It may well be that there is/will be a place for Gnome among these kinds of "grandma" users, but it won't have much purpose on my desktop. I don't know how many people who use Gnome use it because its what they've always used, vs. those who actually like less configurability, but it would be interesting to see the breakdown.

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I agree. I tried Ubuntu Dapper after it launched and my first thought was that GNOME was better than I remembered. Unfortunately it was only skin deep because I'd find behaviors that I'd want to change and it just wasn't possible.

Chad
<a href="http://linuxappfinder.com/" title="linuxappfinder.com">http://linuxappfinder.com/</a linuxappfinder.com>

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Well it is possible. You just have to edit the f---ing registry. GConf anyone?

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Beats hand editing some obscure config file format.

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Sorry, it's not idiot-proof: not to call myself an idiot, but at the end of a contract position I had last Spring I was going through my Evolution inbox, to filter it: I did Ctrl-a and went to press Ctrl-j but accidently pressed Ctrl-k. So, I ask you: "What happened?" To find out, go and look it up or just remember what you have used Ctrl-k for... Well? Times up: nothing... except for in Evalution: it deleted everything selected. Only later did I find out that I could have selected 'view deleted (something)' and at least seen what had been removed. But, the documentation in Gnome is so absolutely piss-poor there was no mention of Ctrl-k nor of using 'view what I didn't want deleted'!

Whats more: I use the Dvorak keyboard layout. While that's not why I accidently pressed k instead of j, it is something that allows me to type at my normal pace. The simple matter of switching keyboard layouts in Gnome, wait: that's an oximoron. I have never found where to switch the keyboard layout in Gnome. It is really so simple as doing a search for 'keyboard' in the KDE Control Center. Why have the Gnome developers made this impossible? It must be because they know better than I as to how I should give my input on MY DESKTOP! How Microsoft is that? Is that why Gnome loves Mono so much: because they think just like Microsoft?

So, your right: it is definitely expert-proof.

I also believe the Gnome desktop is between 2-4 years behind KDE in usability.

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I am not an expert by any means. I can readily admit that one of the reasons I stopped using redhat back with version 8 or 9 was due to the gnome only interface. It appeared to make things simpler for folks like perhaps my mother to find. It did not however make kdm simpler to customize. With that said I have customized gnome,kde,flux extensively for several organizations I've worked for. Overall I would have to say that if you want simple flux is perhaps the most simplistic. I would however have to agree that kde is a much more well designed desktop interface.

On my personal and corporate workstations I choose to use kde/kdm/slackware. If I need a speedy and versatile gui on a remote station... fluxbox. Gnome in my opinion (which matters very little) has not changed much since 2000/2001!?

In short, I agree with Linus... everyone switch to KDE!<nobr> <wbr></nobr>;-)

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What a spank! Everyone knows the best interface hands down is a serial console using screen. I mean come on.

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Wrong! The best interface is the nipple!

The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.
-- Bruce Ediger, bediger at teal.csn.org, on X interfaces

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I think Linus hould switch to KDE. Why waste any more time on Gnome if it is causing such a headache. Don't give it any more energy. It already receives too much attention.

KDE deserves more recognition IMHO.

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Unfortunately a lot of applications are already using GTK even KDE uses some of the gnome libraries for their XML support.

If QT drops their theming and just relegates it to GTK or someone creates a GTK fork that forwards all their rendering and UI stuff to QT that would be the best way of getting around it.

Notice I didn't say QT should fork, because I think if they did have time they would probably do it. Heck they already started moving to SVG to do their rendering and they are already using some Gnome libraries. However, I doubt the Gnome teams would make the same move though.

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Me too. I like some of the things about Gnome. But there are just too many things I like doing that aren't there or I can't enable.

I can work quite happily with it but not as happily as with others. And it annoys me that performance of remembering what I had open and where is so poor.

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Well if linux in and open souse why call idios somthing like gnome I remember the first book
about linux and the word hello word if you´re treatin to make something god stop cursing the crw members nsted on that try to help on a diferente way Idiot is an ofensive word for every one. Thank you

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"Gnome in my opinion (which matters very little) has not changed much since 2000/2001!?"

What's that that you're using? Ecstasy, PCP?

GNOME has regular releases at each 6 months and it damn well has changed...

Just see for yourself a few of the releases:

BTW, 1.4 was released in 2001... I guess they wouldn't do releases just for the sake of it.

2.4
<a href="http://www.gnome.org/start/2.4/notes/rnwhatsnew.html" title="gnome.org">http://www.gnome.org/start/2.4/notes/rnwhatsnew.h<nobr>t<wbr></nobr> ml</a gnome.org>
<a href="http://www.gnome.org/start/2.4/screenshots.html" title="gnome.org">http://www.gnome.org/start/2.4/screenshots.html</a gnome.org>
<a href="http://www.gnome.org/start/2.4/notes/" title="gnome.org">http://www.gnome.org/start/2.4/notes/</a gnome.org>

2.8
<a href="http://www.gnome.org/start/2.8/notes/rnwhatsnew.html" title="gnome.org">http://www.gnome.org/start/2.8/notes/rnwhatsnew.h<nobr>t<wbr></nobr> ml</a gnome.org>
<a href="http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/teams/marketing/en/2004/two-eight-screenshots/html/index.html" title="gnome.org">http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/teams/marketing/en<nobr>/<wbr></nobr> 2004/two-eight-screenshots/html/index.html</a gnome.org>

2.12
<a href="http://www.gnome.org/start/2.12/notes/en/rnusers.html" title="gnome.org">http://www.gnome.org/start/2.12/notes/en/rnusers.<nobr>h<wbr></nobr> tml</a gnome.org>
<a href="http://www.gnome.org/start/2.12/notes/en/" title="gnome.org">http://www.gnome.org/start/2.12/notes/en/</a gnome.org>

2.14
<a href="http://www.gnome.org/start/2.14/notes/en/rnusers.html" title="gnome.org">http://www.gnome.org/start/2.14/notes/en/rnusers.<nobr>h<wbr></nobr> tml</a gnome.org>
<a href="http://www.gnome.org/start/2.14/notes/en/rnadmins.html" title="gnome.org">http://www.gnome.org/start/2.14/notes/en/rnadmins<nobr>.<wbr></nobr> html</a gnome.org>
<a href="http://www.gnome.org/start/2.14/notes/en/rndevelopers.html" title="gnome.org">http://www.gnome.org/start/2.14/notes/en/rndevelo<nobr>p<wbr></nobr> ers.html</a gnome.org>

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Hmmm. No one SHOULD switch to anything one person wants. The reason we have so may desktop environments and WMs is because we CAN. That's the freedom of Opensource/FOSS. I have been a Gnome user since the 1.4 days and mod at Gnomesupport.org. I love Gnome and am a software developer, so am not technically challenged. I love Gnome because it works with no fuss. I don't like KDE, but am not going to slam it because that would be pointless.

So, that being said, I'll bet the idiots over at m$ are laughing at us because we are fighting over something stupid. We need to stick together and just solve issues like we've been doing for years instead of bickering about something that doesn't matter. This makes me want to switch back to FreeBSD....

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Why must they whine and fight about silly stuff like that.
Let people use whatever desktop environment they use.
I am not saying GNOME is good or bad, but Ubuntu uses it, and it seems to work fine for them?

Maybe GNOME prefers a simplistic approach, maybe GNOME is aimed at less computer literate people, maybe GNOME is not aimed at computer experts, but whatever, just let it be, if you don't like it, then don't use it.

All people are different. People think different, and people prefer different things.

Annoying hearing people whine/rant about which is better or worse, GNOME or KDE. vi or emacs, etc.

Just use what you happen to prefer, and be happy.

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<a href="http://www.ubuntu.com/" title="ubuntu.com">Ubuntu</a ubuntu.com> is a bad example because <a href="http://www.kubuntu.org/" title="kubuntu.org">Kubuntu</a kubuntu.org> (Ubuntu with KDE as the default desktop) is part of the Ubuntu project.

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It's not a bad example. Canonical doesn't give a shit about Kubuntu and KDE. Kubuntu it's basically a one-man's job, very far from the care Ubuntu (with Gnome) receives.

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<a href="http://www.kubuntu.org/announcements/kde-commitment.php" title="kubuntu.org">In his opening remarks at the start of the conference Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth announced that he was now using Kubuntu on his desktop machine and said he wanted Kubuntu to move to a first class distribution within the Ubuntu community.</a kubuntu.org>

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> I am not saying GNOME is good or bad,
> but Ubuntu uses it, and it seems to work fine for them?
I am not saying Ubuntu is good or bad, but they use GNOME and spread profanity by the name of humanity.

Sorry, just don't buy that. Not a higgie type.

--
Michael Shigorin

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I always understood that 1) any project can set it's own rules. Linus should fork Gnome if he doesn't like the rules 2)nobody forces me to use a particular application - if I don't like it, I use another. Linus should just respect that principle. 3) Bullying and abuse are the mark of a weak argument. Linus is bullying and being abusive.

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I find it very annoying the the apple developers fail to provide many of the features that have been standard with oranges for years. For example in oranges there is a very hand segment feature which allows the fruit to be broken up into small convenient bite size peaces. With apples the only way to do this is to use a third party utility such as a knife. I have tried to submit patches to get segments into apples but the developers arn't interested telling me that it is just to much the orange way and thats not the way apples are. Against this kind of mentality what can you do. Lets not even get on to oranges convenient juice feature and how hard it is to get juice out of apples. (Hint requires a full application suit).

Peter

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I had to re-read your illegible post three or four time to decipher what you were trying to say.

The comparison of Gnome and KDE, two rival Desktop Environment projects, is a very valid comparison that is regularly made by Gnome oficianados as well as KDE users. Only an apologist would attempt to deny the validity of the comparison with the apples vs. oranges cliche.

Regardless, I find that you are leaving out some important little details.

Apples don't beg people to use/eat them. Apples don't tell people that they are better than oranges. Apples don't condescendingly tell people to eat apples for a month, instead of oranges, and then come to their apple conference, at the people's inconvenience, to tell apples what people think of them.

The only questions in my mind are why Linux was frustrating himself with Gnome at all? Was he trying to give the Gnome desktop another chance, after writing it off a year ago? Was there a feature that KDE was lacking that he hoped to find in Gnome? Why does he waste his breathe and his programming skills on the Gnome camp when they repeatedly continue to rebuff him and everyone else that doesn't goose step to their ideals?

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And why mess with apple... they use bsd... leave em alone. hahaha

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Look, we're comparing apples and oranges. Now you want to bring Apple into this. We're talking about fruit comparisons not music and record labels. Try to stay on topic This thread is about apples and oranges and has nothing to do with Apple, Apple vs. Apple, Apple vs. apples or even Apple and Orange.

Don't even get me started on *BSD. I'm so confused!

Vinny Barbarino

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BSD? Which one? I've heard there are like 80 different flavors or so!

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80 different flavors? That sound great. Are both the apple and the orange flavor included? What do the other 78 BSD flavors taste like?

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I don't think Illegible means what you think it means which does rather spoil your argument. ( il·leg·i·ble
–adjective
not legible; impossible or hard to read or decipher because of poor handwriting, faded print,) - as well as being ironic. I do not deny that comparisons are made frequently, simply that it is foolish to complain that something is not the way you want it to be when the way you want it to be goes against the goals of that project.
To continue the analogy, the Apples only suggested that Linus try them for a month after he complained that they were not more orange like!
As to why Linus felt the need to reopen the Gnome/KDE debate...well deity only knows, maybe he had a hankering for the good old days!! Or maybe he was finding that KDE was not meeting his needs at the moment and thought he would see if gnome was a better fit. The truly beautiful thing is that his patch is now in the wild and can be included in any distribution which agrees with Linus.

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Apples don't beg people to use/eat them. Apples don't tell people that they are better than oranges. Apples don't condescendingly tell people to eat apples for a month, instead of oranges, and then come to their apple conference, at the people's inconvenience, to tell apples what people think of them.

Maybe because....they don't have vocal mouths?

From a design and usability standpoint, they are as different as night and day. This is absolutely NOT to say that one is better than the other...unless it is to say that one might be better than the other in a specific situation. GNOME has the "less is more" thing going on and KDE seems to go the other way and be all things to all people. For some folks, I set them up with GNOME when "they just want to get things done" such as my boss whereas my sister who likes all the foofoo stuff, I set up with KDE because she has less experience and frankly, KDE is more likely to help her if she gets stuck and I am 100 miles away. For me, sometimes as a developer KDE feels like it gets in the way so I prefer GNOME....most days.

They are different though and the analogy is apt, if your response is not.

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The only questions in my mind are why Linux was frustrating himself

The guy's name is "Linus". "Linux" is the name of an OS kernel.

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Bleh. Another orange fanboy. Oranges have seeds, oranges don't make crunchy shakes and oranges have an inedible skin that they call a 'feature'. You have to reconfigure oranges with by deskinning them and all that - what a waste of time. With apples you just pick it up and eat it and all you have is an easy to devour core. If you don't like apples go back to orange world I wonder how you ever get things done.

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Interesting conversation...


    I myself prefer KDE to GNOME exactly because I can customize every little detail I like... which in my opinion makes a software much more powerful. But nonetheless in order to customize something you first need to be familiar with it... KDE can seem a bit overwhelming to a starter. Thus the solution would be somewhere in between: having a base/easily configurable DE for beginners, but allowing more experienced users to go wild<nobr> <wbr></nobr>;).


    But what I really don't understand is why people start arguing in such a matter over this?!?!? KDE is customizable, GNOME is easy. Time will tell which solution is better, or which solution wins a larger audience. I agree with constructive criticism, or even with simple criticism... until you criticize the work and not the man behind it! The project may be well written or badly... users will decide... but the coder should be respected for the efforts of contributing to an OSS.

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The problem is the lack of consolidation of these 2 fortresses and lots of doubled solutions for the same problem. For gnome purists Qt is too half commercial, but for what I know, Qt is much more developer friendly and without dirty hacks like gtkmm. There is only one solution: create third desktop environment that is GPL, highly object oriented, source-compatibile with kde and gnome (by include wrappers and/or code parsers) and certainly with very usable embedded database controls for professional purposes to make it quicker to adopt. Alea iacta est.

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In other words, the desktop equivalent of the Hurd kernel. That's not a realistic option.

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think windows95 or ubuntu -- much too much hype, and then you learn about "KWirelessManager in Ubuntu..." from hopeless luser who doesn't care it was "KNetworkManager developed at SUSE". Just as nice as a corporate type telling to run Windows servers "because... because... dammit, because!"

--
Michael Shigorin

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Because "no one ever got fired for buying windows"<nobr> <wbr></nobr>;-)

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'I myself prefer KDE to GNOME exactly because I can customize every little detail I like... which in my opinion makes a software much more powerful.'

In my opinion it makes little difference. I am a programmer and technician. I have been working with various interfaces and systems since I started playing video games as a child. I am not afraid of something different or complex.

I have found that either KDE or GNOME can suit my needs. KDE is more configurable but why on earth would you waste time configuring WM behavior? Gnome ships with a reasonable environment out of the box and having learned that default environment I can be productive. I can work with KDE as well but I found Gnome behavior to be more intuitive by default and that is all that matters.

It makes little difference which mechanism the wm uses to shade a window just so long as there is one and I know how it works. What possible PRODUCTIVITY gain could there be in changing this behavior to something non-standard?

Honestly, I don't understand even the idea that someone would want to switch when they become more savvy. If KDE were a more powerful interface then I could see it but KDE's power lies in the ability to change settings that have no practical benefit. At the end of the day, the ability to customize the behavior of the UI doesn't actually isn't worth anything beyond bragging rights. It isn't like YOUR arbitrary preference is going to be a substantial practical improvement over the default
.

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Rather than re-write my post here, I'll ask you to click one more time to my comment at News Forge:

<a href="http://trends.newsforge.com/comments.pl?sid=62116&cid=132378" title="newsforge.com">http://trends.newsforge.com/comments.pl?sid=62116<nobr>&<wbr></nobr> cid=132378</a newsforge.com>

Arguing about details is a necessary part of the engineering process. If everyone was always warm and fuzzy and did not speak their mind, great things would never happen.

Let 'em rant. It's really good for the community as long as the focus stays on the product and process.

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- I agree with Linux opinion as far as usability is concerned. KDE did a much better job on this for me.
- I prefer GTK over QT actually. The reason are language bindings. I dislike the slot-signal system of QT to that of GTK.
- There ARE great GTK applications... whole DEs. I like Xfce for example.
- I completely disagree with Linux in regard to his stupid, idiotic flaming. Linux should shut the fuck up and focus on kernel development than to bother about what OTHERS do. He may be right, but he has to shut up about this. If he would have cared so much, he could have written a whole LINUX-OPERATING-SYSTEM, from the grounds up, including GUI and so forth.
But he for several reasons decided to go with a kernel.

Linux is the worst troll here. This is very very sad.

Anyway, to put this back into perspective, I repeat what I said again, and want to put it for the GNOME devs:

* KDE does several things BETTER.
Gnome devs, LEARN from that.

Nuff said.

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His name is Linus, not Linux. WTF is wrong with you people?

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he is the all powerful and mighty linux... night and day he watches over your systems...

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It's his time. If his leadership is adequate that no one needs to fork to yet another development kernel to get the features that they need, then he's doing enough. He isn't working for *you*. I don't know what his motivations for fixing GNOME are, especially after he has been told that it's a snobs-only-slobs-need-not-apply party, but until *you* are signing his paycheck, then I guess it's *his* time.

If you cared so much you could write your own kernel... Oh! That's right! You can't.

Geek Unothodox

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I know, the KDE vs Gnome WAR has been around as long as I've used Linux. The fact that Linus also has thrown himself into the middle of it conserns me. I'd think he would keep himself above all of this. but then again, he's also only a human.

my personal opinion is that I like the KDE way of configuring things, but I really hate the way KDE looks, even though I've skimmed through lots and lots of themes It still looks to shiny, to glossy to... to much. When it comes to view I like things neat and tidy, clean. But I agree with the guy tha t suggested that there could be an "advanced" menu. For people who would like to do more than just basics. But I also agree with the guy who said that this is just foolish to argue about. It's like Mac/Win, vi/emacs etc etc. All to its own I say.

But it seems it's all about gnome/kde. What about the rest of many excellent desktops? xfce is really coming along these days. Lightweight and clean. Runs on almost anything. And there are tens and tens of more out there. Ion is a lightweight window manager(note: not desktop environment) that really kicks ass. It is frame based and is highly configurable. Allthough most of it are configured in<nobr> <wbr></nobr>.lua files you can really make it your own. And there are lots of others. What about them? Why does it always have to be; gnome gnome gnome; kde kde kde??

Besides, one of the things that really appealed to me when I switced os was that I could finally choose. I could choose one base, and i could choose one look. Or more even. That is the POWER of Linux. Versatility, flexibility and configurable to the max.

Let people choose whatever they want. But keep silly wars out of it. I really thought this community was bigger than this. Strong resemble to Balmer/Jobs wars...

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What about the others?

They suck even more than Gnome so no one uses them. This renders them irrelevant and not worth arguing about. Everyone agrees that Gnome and KDE are the most used desktop environments, by far!

Many argue that Gnome is more widely used because it is the default desktop in Fedora and Ubuntu and even tops the list with openSuse. My anecdotal experience contradicts this in that, everyone I know uses KDE. The argument rages on but KDE is superior in my opinion. So is vi!

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notepad notepad... rah rah rah...

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..you make comments like these. ^^<nobr> <wbr></nobr>..you're unable to see further than your freckled nose<nobr> <wbr></nobr>..you spend your time posting shit like this. ^^

If you are a member of any open source dev community I am ashamed on their behalf.

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Feel ashamed... feel _very_ ashamed...

Notepad is an irritant.

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They suck even more than Gnome so no one uses them. This renders them irrelevant and not worth arguing about. Everyone agrees that Gnome and KDE are the most used desktop environments, by far!

Wow, such a killer, smart argument! Following your logic, the only obvious choice, the best environment is by far... Microsoft Windows, since it's being used on more than 90% or personal computers around the world...

Thank you for showing me the light.

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You're too used to use a "use" word, perhaps you should stretch a little?

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Indeed, KDE is just to glossy, to childish, to much. You can configure KDE to hell and back and it still looks ugly, and shows this disgusting script kiddie attitude, look and feel.

Gnome, on the other hand in general looks tidy and non-distracting. If I only could configure some of its broken behavior, e.g. getting serious control over the menu structure and contents.

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I think this is probably why Linus cares in the first place. He wants to like Gnome, since among other things it looks nice, but he wants to be able to configure it too.

I'm in the same boat, actually, and I imagine there are many others out there like me.

Maybe we need a "PowerGnome" environment, much as we have a "SimpleKDE". Linus can start it with his patches<nobr> <wbr></nobr>;-).

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To is not the same word as too!

#

We run labs at my University with Red Hat Linux.
(RHEL 4) Gnome is the default but KDE is also availible
from the session menu at login time. And the desktop switching
tool can make KDE your default desktop for every session
so you don't have to select it at login time.

Tha *vast* majority of our students use Gnome
and don't bother to switch to KDE. Of course
there are a few people who use KDE but I think
most of our users don't care / don't know about it as an option.

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Okay, okay, I want to contribute some constructive thing here, not flame more. Point.

>configuring things, but I really hate the way KDE looks, even though I've skimmed through lots and lots of themes It still looks to shiny, to glossy to... to much.

THAT is interesting, as a KDE preferer, I feel exactly the opposite. Gnome is old fashioned and looks like designed be engineer that have no clue about design. Drab, stiff, plain. I am an engineer and have not much skill in designing, but I still like it a lot. SO, this is a matter of opinion, no way to find a solution about it. Just as tastes differ.

>But I agree with the guy tha t suggested that there could be an "advanced" menu. For people who would like to do more than just basics.

No, I like that "expert thing" If you get that into Gnome, I will switch back. I think it is just wrong what Gnome does in FORCING expert users to use a computer like a newbie user does.
I can't understand the decision and believe that it is too radical. Radical things often don't work, since the world is not black and white.

>But I also agree with the guy who said that this is just foolish to argue about. It's like Mac/Win, vi/emacs etc etc. All to its own I say.

No, I disagree. We cannot just use KDE and be happy, we cannot get around using Gnome, and are touched by this. It is not like Win / or Mac or VI or Emacs...

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And this post... sensible and logical. Awesome... +10!

#

Well fucking said, Linus. GNOME sucks ass, it should be discontinued already and the developers should find something better to do.

#

Hey kid! How old are you? 15?

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I'm not so sure that GNOME itself should disband, but they should really just discontinue GTK altogether and go for something like Qt instead. Or, they could design a new toolkit that works like Qt but in C so they can continue using C as much as they do.

Really, my biggest issue with GNOME (besides the extreme simplicity that Linus talks about) is that it uses GTK, and as a programmer, I'd prefer if they used a graphics toolkit that didn't suck.

#

Apart from that you didn't mention why GTK sucks, from my point of view it's the other way. I really don't like QT, but unlike you I don't tell people what to do or to use. If you like QT so much then use it and let others use their favorit.

#

First you say... I don't tell people what to do or to use.

Immediately followed by... If you like QT so much then use it and let others use their favorit

Hey, genius! You just told him what to do and what to use.

You're exactly like all those that you think you are above. You're smug, condescending, hypocritical, clueless and moronic. You try to impose your narrow views and opinions on others while denying to yourself and everyone else that you are doing exactly that.

Welcome to the flame fest Wile E. Coyote! Things are just warming up.

#

I suppose you to speak english so might I remember you that "if" gives somebody an opinion and is no command.

"<nobr> <wbr></nobr>... and let others use their favorit"

It's my right to use what I want and it's sad that some seem to disagree. It's also my right to defend my decisions and that's what I'm doing. Nothing more.

If you have nothing better to do than attack Gnome users then I'm sorry for you.

#

The problem with your point is that wireless doesn't have anything to do with KDE or Gnome. Its a configuration/driver issue with the distro itself.

Its simply because Ubuntu has priority over Kubuntu.

Overall, I don't get why there is an issue to begin with. If Linus prefers KDE, why doesn't he stick to it? Why does he bother complaining about Gnome?

If Gnome is shit, then it will naturally fade away. Its open-source evolution...Survive of the fittest.

#

Except survival of the fittest it just a theory. In the real world, the moment a product gets traction, users get used to it, and ISVs start developing for it, it becomes very hard for others to compete on equal conditions. Open source or not it does not matter, these rules still apply.

#

To me, I use GNOME because it doesn't try to do everything like KDE (e.g. konqueror ==> file explorer + browser). And it also looks cleaner. But it's lack of "eye candy" and "deep configuration".

Peronsally, I think GNOME is more for business and they can work on keeping themselves simple and "business" KDE is better for "personal"

#

I may be wrong, but I don't think it is inherent in Gnome to detect your wireless and not in KDE. It is probably a different app that is something other than the flavor of desktop.

Also, I think Linus has taken a stand because he is a user just like the rest of us. He doesn't live in a terminal window. My guess is he would probably prefer a gnome interface with a few more options, and that is why he even rants about it.

I personally like Gnome for its simplicity, but I also get very frustrated not being able to do some more complex things straight from the desktop.

#

He could say the same to you. If you don't like the way he does things, fine use a different kernel on another OS or contribute codes into the kernel and stfu already. neeeners nneeennerrrs

#

I do contribute on all three fronts in one capacity or another so
my statement stands.. Neener back<nobr> <wbr></nobr>:P

#

Linus wasn't saying "people who use Gnome are idiots" - he was simply saying that even though simplicity is nice for those who want or need it, the ability to configure is severely lacking in Gnome. That's his whole issue with Gnome - too much simplicity and no options to tweak and configure like he wants in KDE. He has nothing against those who use it, only those who develop it.

Also, Ubuntu and Kubuntu are the same OS with a different DE (Gnome and KDE, respectively) - there are minor differences, but the fact that Ubuntu picked up your wireless network and Kubuntu or Knoppix didn't does not attest to one DE being superior than the other. Something else was at fault there, the DE has nothing to do with hardware detection. I use Kubuntu and have no problems with my wireless network.

Personally, while I think that the manner in which this war of words is being carried out casts an unfavorable light on both parties involved, I have to say I somewhat agree with Linus on this one (his arguments as to why he dislikes Gnome, not his behavior). I've used Gnome and honestly prefer KDE for many reasons, including his. But that's what choice is all about. Let people try and decide what they want - those who want simplicity can choose Gnome, those who want to tweak and customize can choose KDE. Anybody else who wants lightweight can choose IceWM, Fluxbox, Openbox, XFCE, etc. - a lot of choices to fit everyone's need. No need to insult anybody for their choice. It'll be interesting to see if any of his patches are accepted.

#

Nothing wrong with how Linus reacted. He spent a few hours working on the code and probably sent them nice clean and advanced patches. Most projects out there would LOVE this. You think GAIM, XMMS, GIMP, Firefox...etc would have a problem accepting patches from Linus?

#

The single overwhelmingly main one is GConf.

The Gnome developers can do whatever else they like, as far as I'm concerned, but GConf is an utter abomination, and until they get rid of it, Gnome will never be something I will advocate.

I currently have Ubuntu Dapper installed. The default Gnome is still there, and will be getting replaced when I have time.

I prefer FVWM when I don't mind doing the work setting it up, or Enlightenment if I'm feeling a little more lazy. I don't feel as hostile towards KDE, but it *is* bloated. It's good for newbs if they don't mind having their machine running in slow motion, though. Given said bloat however, even for newbs I'd be more likely to give them a FVWM-Crystal/Rox Filer/Webmin combo, with Eterm as the terminal. That will give them at least basic implementations of pretty much everything a base KDE will, and their computer will still run a lot more speedily as well.

Gnome also has Stallman's blessing, which is the second most important reason (to me) not to use it.

A third strike against it is that FreeBSD developers have talked about it being Linux centric, and seeing as I use FreeBSD at times, for me that isn't a good thing.

The fourth objection is that its' dependency list is as long as my arm, and given how little functionality I get for the amount of pain and suffering required in setting it up, (if I'm using it with LFS or a distro where it isn't the default) it ain't worth it in the slightest. In addition to the two I've already mentioned, there are any number of other window managers out there which will do everything I want, with far more hardware efficiency, and with a lot less rigmarole getting them installed.

The fifth reason is that Linus is right when he says the Gnome developers are mulish, elitist, and don't like listening to users...I've observed that in other instances as well.

So, in general...Gnome? No thanks.

#

I think KDE has more of Stallman's blessing, however. Firstly, Qt is GPL'd, <a href="http://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-not-lgpl.html" title="gnu.org">not LGPL'd</a gnu.org>. Secondly, all of the software in KDE is <a href="http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html" title="gnu.org">free software</a gnu.org>.

Back in the day when Qt wasn't free software (and was only arguably open source), RMS would recommend GNOME due to its freeness, but nowadays KDE seems to be the freer desktop. You can't really create non-free software for KDE (although you can create non-free software with Qt, it won't be a KDE app, and it costs money to do so), so that should make him even happier.

#

Please, read this...

<a href="http://kdemyths.urbanlizard.com/myth/59" title="urbanlizard.com">http://kdemyths.urbanlizard.com/myth/59</a urbanlizard.com>

#

I find this so incredibly irritating, people who matter-of-fact state that KDE *is* bloated.

So, read this and have some part of your brains register this: "KDE is NOT bloated".

And you probably don't even really KNOW what software bloat is.

Here, good link: <a href="http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-linux-memory.html?ca=dgr-lnxw07LinuxMemory/" title="ibm.com">http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/libra<nobr>r<wbr></nobr> y/l-linux-memory.html?ca=dgr-lnxw07LinuxMemory/</a ibm.com>
And please read it, it is enlightening.

#

The absolutely insane requirement of Gnome for smbclient? It isn't possible that someone will be running in a 100% non MS shop and have no need for the connectivity to MS Servers smbclient is for?

I stopped even installing Gnome when, on a stand alone system, with no network or internet connection at all, it threw error messages up because there was no network, back in 1998.

I stopped using KDE when it became nothing more than a multimedia toy.

I have consistently used Enlightenment window manager as my DE since I started with Linux years ago.

[ getting the starting up screen telling me that the system had reached 129% enlightenment is the sort of error I find humorous. ]

#

Why does the article not link to the original message???

#

The thing I find anoying about GNOME and all those GTK+, etc. stuff is that GNOME is pure dependency hell.
For instance, I *must* install Evolution, just to get the desktop rolling. This sucks. I use GMail, coulnd't care less about a desktop e-mail client. As so the list goes...Lots and lots of interdependencies and little modularity.
KDE is much more modularized.
I also happen to think that OOP in GNOME, compiled with gcc (because it's OOP in C) is hitting a wall in performance (compiler designers, please explain - my point being that this is because of deep reasons - if you're going to compile OOP code, better have an optimnising compiler for it).

#

Beside full blown GNOME, there's gnome-light and this one is without Evolution. I guess it's more a *your* distribution packaging problem...

#

You don't need evolution, just the data-server backend, and even that is optional.

#

as if kde had no dependency hell... try installing konqueror without the panel. hah!

#

It uses a lot of libraries -- thats good. Its modular.

#

Good OOP Code in C is through-out possible. However, gnome is not the case of it.

Proper oop code of C is much faster than C++ will ever be. And you my dear, don't seem to have any idea how long it takes to compile kde.

Hands down still, as the product, kde kicks gnome onto the ground and makes a footmark on it's back.

But don't critisize the language that it's written on, blame the programmers that didn't do a good job at it. Even the linux kernel in a pseudo OOP in C, but written correctly and kicks ass more than c++ ever could.

#

"Proper oop code of C is much faster than C++ will ever be."

That's a crock. The "C++ is bloated and slow" argument arose because earlier implementations of g++ were inefficient. There is no meaningful performance penalty anymore for using C++ rather than C.

"OOP in C" is really painful because the language isn't designed to do it. And yes, I do write C every day. I do use a lot of the objective-type design tactics in my C code (like using structs and "private" functions that only have file scope, while the "public" interface is provided through functions with global scope). However, it would be a lot cleaner to do this in a language that is designed with these features in mind. And as for writing C with inheritance or virtual functions, the techniques available are really ugly kludges.

Basically, if you want to do OOP, C is an unnatural choice of language, even though it is possible to force it to do it.

#

I find it quite the opposite. Whenever I try to use KDE, I feel lost, and it feels cluttered. I almost -never- feel that Gnome is holding my hand in any way, but at the same time, it is very simple. I think the image on the Gnome webpage describes it best: Simply powerful.

However, to each his own. It's obvious that KDE is easier to Linus. I just don't understand all the bickering. We have two -main- desktop environments. Use whichever suits you best.

#

"...but at the same time, it is very simple."

GNOME is simple to the point that I can't do much with it. It's simple like a paper weight. It sits there looking useless.

To everyone who says that they don't want to configure KDE: then don't! KDE works as-is, out of the box, without having to change anything.

If you want the GNOME experience (where the developers decide what you want) in KDE, then just don't change anything.

When you realize that developers don't know what you want, then you can customize KDE to your preferences.

#

Before all you armchair quarterbacks jump in with your opinion, just remember who wrote the code. Linux "Linux" Torvalds. This man $hits gold code. Just remember that and think about it...Do you really know more than he does? I don't, so I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

#

Sigh. His name is Linus, not Linux.

#

Thank you Mr. Dink for your armchair opinion. You set us straight with your mastery of self degradation. It is sad when a person cannot even get hero worship right.

#

Someone who makes a UI environment decision based on Linus' rants (accompanied by code, or not) is not doing the proper research.

Define requirements, research the UI's and their capabilites, then decide which to use. It's that simple. Nobody's bigoted rant, not even one from Linus, should enter into it.

#

this type of warring really isn't in the open source spirit of linux. in any rate, it's all better than windows and mac. <a href="http://www.thumbwarz.com/index.phtml?snum=1&sterm=linux&limit=0" title="thumbwarz.com">thumbs up to linux.</a thumbwarz.com>

#

Muy bien Linus vuelve hablando porquerias, que sabe el obejero de los diseños de moda?.

Preguntarle a un desarrollador de gustos?

Simplemente no lo tiene y menos Linus que se dedica ha hacer nucleos de sistemas operativos.

#

Well I've tried babelfish and google's language to translate this. I am guessing there is some slang in there or perhaps both are not working well enough here is the translation as given by google.

"Linus returns very well speaking nastinesses, that the obejero of the designs knows fashionable. To ask to him a developer of pleasures? Simply he does not have it and less Linus than dedicates itself has to make nuclei of operating systems."

#

You're new here, aren't you?

#

What a nonsense!

Not having a opinion IMHO is hypocrite.

We have discussed this issue a billion times in comp.os.linux.advocacy. Apparently your fellow Linux users don't want you to have any opinion at all<nobr> <wbr></nobr>:(

I am sorry to say, but I fully agree with Linus, since I've been using Linux for of 8 years now and gave all of the desktop environments a fair chance.

Gnome IMHO looks wrong and feels wrong compared to KDE.

Of cause I do respect the Gnome coders, but unfortunately you girls and guys are waisting your talent in something useless.

Please drop the damn thing and invest your talents in something useful (KDE for example).

Anyway, Have fun!

Marti van Lin
Maastricht (NL)

#

Right on. Except that the instrument Linus used was a cluex4. Turn that spellcheck on.

#

I'm happy GNOME user, simple, clean and very elegant look. When it comes to KDE it's overblown mastodont with thousands of options for tweaking<nobr> <wbr></nobr>... give that to users switching from other operating system (win/mac) and they will be scared...

Also Qt is designed by people without any graphics talent (or is that skin designer?). It looks very unpleasant... usually with annoying combination of colors...

#

[quote]
I'm happy GNOME user, simple, clean and very elegant look. [/quote]

Yeah, right! Denial is a talent to<nobr> <wbr></nobr>:p

[quote]
When it comes to KDE it's overblown mastodont with thousands of options for tweaking. [/quote]

Yeah right, unfortunately there are people who are too stupid to work with a powerful and user friendly desktop. If you are too stupid to tweak your desktop, that's your problem<nobr> <wbr></nobr>;)

[quote]
give that to users switching from other operating system (win/mac) and they will be scared. [/quote]

So what? nobody is forcing them to use GNU/Linux or one of the BSD's.

[quote]
Also Qt is designed by people without any graphics talent (or is that skin designer?). It looks very unpleasant. [/quote]

You are ether an idiot or you do have shit in your eyes. However, one thing is for shore, you just proved you are a liar anyway!

Please do yourself a favor and return to your, good old, Micro$haft Windoze. If you don't have the skills to use a powerful and respectable Operating System and desktop environment, simply don't use it!

It's up to only you<nobr> <wbr></nobr>:)

Have fun and get a life!

Marti van Lin
Maastricht (NL)

#

I'm happy with GNOME too, it DOES look very elegant and clean by default.

Yes, you can do the same thing with KDE but if you want something nice and clean and are happy with GNOME, who should everyone use KDE and spend a couple of hours tweaking because some people think KDE is the way to go and that's the only _good_ desktop manager?

I suggest that you, in compliance with your idea's and thoughts, go start bashing on people with OS X because it has even fewer configuration options than GNOME and looks clean and simple too. And then you can start yelling at people with an iPod too, because we all know it has a clean and simple interface with almost no configuration options! Next step is off course your tax system, it has too few options (Can't even change the color of the forms and such!! Can you imagine this!?).

I agree, KDE people like you DO seem to have some 'Do it _THIS_ way or else you are an idiot' mentality.

Please keep in mind that some people like other stuff than you do, that's why not everyone uses one GNU/Linux distro or even use no GNU/Linux at all.

I suggest you read some texts about free speech and free choice too, you know it's the cornerstone of most democracy's and hey, GNU/Linux is also built on that principle!

#

"I agree, KDE people like you DO seem to have some 'Do it _THIS_ way or else you are an idiot' mentality."

Halli-hallo! You just walked in here? It IS Gnome that has this mentality (and a few Gnome users just explained that this is good thing).

Besides, how often do you install computers with Linux? If you do it the wright way you only have to configure KDE *once* (in a few years time). If you feels the need to reinstall often (why??!!) you are doing something completely wrong. And don't tell me that some people just like it do it the wrong way.

My KDE desktop can be transplanted from one distro to another, if need be. Bookmarks, parts of the configuration, small scripts, ie customisation of my _desktop_ will live for years on my desktop. I have been using a custom colour scheme for more than 4 years (i also don't like the preconfigured colours).

So, what I'm trying to explain here, a desktop is your home, and a well designed desktop environment invites a users to customise the look and feel. For me, that is a very good thing, and i just don't believe people who claim that the lack of configurability of Gnome helpes them in any way. And I find it an incredible stoopid argument that the simple fact that KDE CAN be completely configured forces it people to spend hours of doing that. Why? Because you can with KDE and cannot with Gnome?

#

scared!? GOOD! Too many people who shouldn't be are using PC's and being exploited. They constantly have their identities stolen, their credit cards lifted and cause havoc for corporate networks that get hit by unsecured zombie computers.

Deny or Allow?... Allow.... Deny or Allow?... Allow...

I don't really think that we should yank the pc's from stupid people (yes some of them are quite stupid) however I do think they should be required to buy a mac if they have an iq under 90. 98 appears to be our <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_and_the_Wealth_of_Nations" title="wikipedia.org">national average</a wikipedia.org>

#

Scary to switch from windows to KDE? Well lah-de-dah, i didn't find KDE the least bit scary back when I switched, and I can't really think of a reason to.

That's like making claims like "the registry will scare people away from Windows". A "regular user" will never have to use the registry, hence it doesn't scare them. It is there however, for more able users to (within the limitations of windows) reconfigure stuff.

The same goes for KDE. You can install it (or most likely have it installed for you), and not give a rats ass about the config options. Sure, changing desktop background and whatever, but those are hardly "scary" things.
What any other goddamn desktop has that Gnome does NOT have is the option for an advanced user to actually _do_ something with the interface. Gnome is static. Gnome is failsafe. Gnome is luserfriendly. Gnome is expert-repellant. I've tried gnome on a few accounts over the years, it seems like it hasn't changed a single bit since the 90's, and just doesn't give me the ability to set my desktop up the way i like it set up.

But i guess people have different views on things<nobr> <wbr></nobr>;)

#

I recently found that both GTK+ and Qt are slow. Please checkout eLiquid (it's not opensource, but you can see that fast toolkit can be done) in Pixel - <a href="http://www.kanzelsberger.com/" title="kanzelsberger.com">http://www.kanzelsberger.com/</a kanzelsberger.com>

#

Why should we check it out, if it ain't useable for other projects? (It's built from SDL, btw.) And how again was your comment relevant to the GNOME discussion again? Just linkspamming possibly?

#

Check title, both Qt and GTK+ are slow. Their UI is way faster then both of these and there are plans to opensource that toolkit in near future. From what I've read, it's not based on SDL, SDL is just one of the possible backends, it can be something different...

#

GNOME sucks, always has!

#

If that's the best response you could make, maybe I did a better job of stating my position than I thought.

Or maybe you're just an idiot.

#

hardware detection on installation has nothing to do with gnome or kde. Furthermore, the installer for ubuntu and kubuntu are identical in this respect. Perhaps the gnome developers are right to treat their users the way they do.

#

<a href="http://lists.linux-foundation.org/pipermail/desktop_architects/2007-February/001129.html" title="linux-foundation.org">http://lists.linux-foundation.org/pipermail/deskt<nobr>o<wbr></nobr> p_architects/2007-February/001129.html</a linux-foundation.org>

        src/metacity-2.17.5/0001-Clean-up-double-middle-r<nobr>i<wbr></nobr> ght-click-frame-action.patch

        src/metacity-2.17.5/0002-Add-lower-and-menu-to-ti<nobr>t<wbr></nobr> le-bar-action-events.patch

        src/metacity-2.17.5/0003-Add-the-prefs.c-variable<nobr>s<wbr></nobr> -for-middle-and-right-click-actions.patch

        src/metacity-2.17.5/0004-Allow-actually-changing-<nobr>p<wbr></nobr> references-for-middle-and-right-click.patch

        src/metacity-2.17.5/0005-Fix-some-obvious-and-har<nobr>m<wbr></nobr> less-cut-and-paste-errors.patch

        src/control-center-2.17.5/0001-Add-support-for-ne<nobr>w<wbr></nobr> -titlebar-actions.patch

        src/control-center-2.17.5/0002-gnome-window-prope<nobr>r<wbr></nobr> ties-learn-about-mouse-actions.patch

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They only accept "MODS". Because that's more luser-friendly. (See phpBB and their mind-boggling Windows developer attitude.)

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As a GNOME developer, I'd like to suggest that you don't know what you're talking about. We are happy to accept patches from anyone. I don't know what a mod is, nor what phpBB's policies have to do with ours.

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hahaha I love it... he even threw a bit of attitude into the names of the patches. Gotta love Linus.

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Gotta agree with Linus for the most part on this one. (Don't agree on the everyone switch to KDE part... use whatever works for you.)

I use to love Gnome. I'd like to still love Gnome, but the developers aren't interested anymore in people like me who actually need to use their computer everyday for real world tasks. Their mindset is 'make it easy for the noobs' and all others can suffer.

Real world tasks require real world functionality. Real world functionality requires the ability to configure the computer to streamline the workflow to the needs of the user. Gnome instead has become a bottleneck, constricting workflow and reducing productivity. And if its getting in my way, then 'easy' is a problem.

KDE has a number of things I detest, but they can be easily configured out of the way, and I can get my work done. XFCE is getting better all the time, a couple more releases and it might meet my needs. Gnome isn't even on my list anymore. I simply don't have the time to waste.

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I hope Linus kicks the crap out of them for being the primary culprit for X library disorder, not to mention the worst windows manager. It is hopeful that a Linux authority is finally pushing to straighten Gnome out. Gnome is the embodiment of everything a bad user base can bring to an OS. Apps that require front ends should be required (or at least strongly encouraged) to only depend on Xorg libraries. The Linux community should develop a standard for libraries that prevent this from happening, and to consolidate the workings of graphical environments in Linux. Apps that depend on KDE and Gnome are killing Linux, and surely, as Linus states, dumbing down the user base.

The power of Linux is derived from the developers and users involved in the great open source projects. When its user/developer ratio is compromised with an excess of newbies the magic of our great OS ceases to exist. We have been heading in the wrong direction for some time now. Gentoo devs commonly create Gnome dependancies where none are needed. Ubuntu defies the kernel it's based on by creating even more of a Windows-like OS. I say let Ubuntu and Gnome make their own kernel and platform with Gnome-only apps; let them take their colorful, uber pretty non-interoperable desktop non-functionality somewhere else. The real Linux users want to progress and evolve.

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Forgot to take pills eh? Linux is about freedom, nobody is forcing you to use GNOME. However GNOME (or atleast its libs) was chosen as default UI by various vendors including Sun, Canonical, Nokia and now OpenMoko<nobr> <wbr></nobr>... what's your problem? Go out and get a life<nobr> <wbr></nobr>... or better, some sex<nobr> <wbr></nobr>:)

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Amen to that.

If you don't like Gnome, good for you. Don't go around preaching about how good is. You're as bad as those damned christians!!

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One religious war at a time, okay?

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Wow some real bigotry your displaying. Why not just stick to the terminal... making X apps with just X libraries would be a nightmre... surely the idea of having reusable widgets is a good one... now extend it out to having a shared messaging component (dbus) which multiple desktops can use... it's good...
shared libraries make software development easier... stay in the 1980's of software dev if you want.

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You are really clueless and sound as retarted as Linus Torvalds. You think as Linux as the cornerstone of your desktop. GNOME is NOT married with the Linux kernel. After Solaris becomes GPLv3, Linux will be irrelevant, and so will Linus Torvalds. He better enjoy the spotlight while he can<nobr> <wbr></nobr>... A lot of free operating systems will become GNU/Solaris instead of GNU/Linux. And you must be an idiot yourself. If you think you are not dumb and want to do more advanced tuning than what is offered throught the GUI, sure you will be clever enough to change a few GConf keys, right? No one forced you to use GNOME, so please don't rant without insight.

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Oh my. I like how you start trolling instead of thoughtfully repelling my very relevant arguments. And how am I "living in the 80s" by suggesting some sort of coherent X dependencies and GUI consistency? I take your offense as proof that Gnome-exclusive fan boys exist. Instead of dividing Linux users, OSS groups like Gnome and KDE should be working to develop standards. Otherwise, you end up with a big Gnome community, a big KDE community, and a lot of software development that depends on specific Gnome/KDE libraries. Furthermore, since this includes a lot of great software, the Linux users have to either take sides, install large libraries for little reason, or find other, less mature, software. These kinds of “choices” are not what the Linux experience is about. Linux is about interoperability, Gnome is not. I won't consider Gnome as a relevant part of a Linux OS until it stops trying to divide us. Meanwhile, if you want a pretty desktop: Use beryl + XFCE. If you want a minimalist desktop use Fluxbox (my WM of choice). Both of which are far superior to Gnome.

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...I tend to agree 99% to Linus: I started time ago with KDE because was fancy (I was new on linux) then I passed to GNOME because KDE was buggy and after a month I switched again to KDE because I could't do what I did more proficiently with KDE, even if still buggy. My 1% against Linus is: why to loose time patching GNOME if he don't like it insead to use better that time fixing KDE?

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[trolling]Maybe because Gnome/GTK has industry support?[/trolling]

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indeed - pecunia non olet (money don't stink)

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Gnome, please, let me view contents of my folder in the same window.

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Linus once said "Talk is cheap. Show me the code.". Well, now he did.

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"Linus -- choice is a good thing,"

That's exactly his point, GNOME doesn't give users the choice to do the customization that should be allowed.

"Linus -- choice is a good thing, and infighting within the Linux community only makes Bill Gates happy. Not to be rude, but, SHADDUP AND CODE!!. 'Nuff said.<nobr> <wbr></nobr>.H*P*D."

That's exactly what he did, he coded up the patches to prove his point, in a matter of hours.

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I will say this, in order for my laptop (which is new btw) to completely work out the box, I install ubuntu and then I go through synaptic and install KDE/KDM.

Why? Because I don't mind having total control over my DE. My only gripe with Gnome has always been that it feels limited.And I gave Gnome a month before I switched.

Now for those who say KDe feels alot like Windoze? Then let me give you the perfect anology based on how they look. KDE is to Windoze DE as Gnome is to OSX.

give Gnome OSX like features and trust noone will have a gripe. But as long as KDE gives me the flexibility and systemwide abilities that I need in a DE, then my pick will always be KDE.

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qt/kde fans are intolerent.infact Linux @ one time in near future may be hacked by kde fanboys-as the starter of linux kernel is himself identified earlier itself as a KDE/qt zealot.
GNOME is easier for many of us and we dont want an advice/rant from KDE fanboys to move from Linux.if Linus want his linux kernel must not be used excluding KDE/qt,he can make a new EULA and try his own way.spare us,GNOME,XFCE,fluxbox etc users...
it is like MAC vs windows,though in this case number game is inverse;MAC~kde and win!~GNOME<nobr> <wbr></nobr>,u can see that mac fanboys are the most adement one as is the case with KDE users(not all of U!)

it seems there is hard times for GNOME users,for now they are well selected by kde backers and if GNOME ever fall off,then perhaps u can see the web flooded with anti-xfce or anti-(tag the nonKDE DE)
remember XFCE ppl,for today KDEfanboys will spot GNOME-I am sure they will destroy it-next on the line is XFCE...
tux and the anti-gnome sentiment.
<a href="http://www.graphics-muse.org/wp/?p=75" title="graphics-muse.org">http://www.graphics-muse.org/wp/?p=75</a graphics-muse.org>

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KDE fans are intolerant? You sure don't remember the days when Qt license was an issue and you were almost labeled as a bad citizen for using and supporting a free desktop built on Qt. Hell, even today some Gnome supporters still claim Gnome is 'the one and only truly free desktop'.

KDE has taken more undeserved FUD than any other free project in existence. And it's alive and kicking because it's fucking great software. Some just cannot stand that... it's their loss.

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You say that and all I see is KDE people slamming other DE's. I dont see gnome/xfce/gtk people slamming KDE to often. SO yes, KDE users are intolerant.

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I prefer to end my Linux life if GNOME project ends...time to search freebsd and opensolaris,let this kde biased asshole stink linus go up with his shit.

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go on U GNOME crack prefer u be dead,WE are KDE,we are the BORG,we will kill other DE also.

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fuck off !! go ahead switch to other OS we don't need an idiot like you, if GNOME wasn't available you can't use linux anymore ?

hahaha

$0.02

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Yes, ya inbred Qt retard!

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...the advent of gnome-screensaver.

GNOME "just worked," and I liked it. Then came gnome-screensaver, a piece of software that, like DRM, didn't just treat me like an idiot. It considered me The Enemy.

gnome-screensaver, as described in its FAQ, has as one of its stated goals preventing users from doing Rude Things like making GLtext display rude messages. It does that be denying the user almost any control over the screensaver whatsoever.

Unfortunately, this goal is just as achievable as victory in the War on Drugs. There's nothing that keeps me from turning the screensaver off and leaving an OpenOffice document reading "THE CEO IS A BASTARD" (the example from the FAQ) on display in 288-point Cooper Black, or leaving an image open on screen that would create a "hostile work environment."

In addition, control was taken away from the user in the name of some perceived Ideal Situation in which screensavers check the processor speed and capabilities of the graphics card they're using before deciding whether and at what settings to run graphics-intensive screensavers, rather than letting the user see how they run on the full screen and deciding whether to go with that screensaver or not.

Combine this with the developer's at least seemingly arrogant, condescending, and dismissive attitude towards requests for a return to the level of control people were long accustomed to under xscreensaver, and I reached my limit.

Excuse me; I need to go open a gedit window and type "I'M MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANY MORE!"<nobr> <wbr></nobr>:)

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Excuse me; I need to go open a gedit window and type "I'M MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANY MORE!"<nobr> <wbr></nobr>:)

I'm afraid I can't let you do that Dave

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There's a link to an ancient Slashdot article.

There's a link to the main page of the Linux Foundation.

There's a link to the OSDL: Desktop Architects home page.

There's a link to wikipedia.

There's a link to two blogs.

But where is the link to the discussion on the mailing list? Where is the link to the patch? Where are the links to the actual topics of discussion in the article?

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All the name calling, and arguing about which is better is just plain childish.

Uncle Bill is loving every minute of this because he can use it as part of a FUD campaign. The Redmond groupies will point and say "Their going to fork, their going to fork!" Everyone will look at what happened to Unix, and decide they do not want to travel that road again.

IT boils down to "STOP THE PETTY ARGUING AND WORK TOGETHER TO MAKE LINUX AND THE PROGRAMS THAT RUN ON LINUX THE BEST OPERATING SYSTEM THERE IS."

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You are confused if you don't think they are working together.

Do you think it is trivial to go to the trouble to figure out how to patch something in a way to get a desired effect? And then go and send it to the enemy?

Please. This is fun.<nobr> <wbr></nobr>..and gnome (and KDE) might be better after today.

As for uncle Bill, I hope he makes the mistake you are claiming he might make. It would only help to solidify his history of misjudging what is going on in the tech world until it is late in the game.. at which time he begins to<nobr> <wbr></nobr>.exe from his Book of Dirty Tricks.

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> Just because I choose Gnome, doesn't make me an
> idiot - it makes me practical.
In this particular case, it's rather about limitations in the species of the distro you've chosen.

Hope they didn't tell you it was *the* best.<nobr> <wbr></nobr>:]

--
Michael Shigorin

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I am another very happy GNOME user. I have used KDE many times, but I don't like it. It is buggy and ugly. GNOME is simple, fast and nice.

However, I do not care if people use KDE or GNOME. We can choose the DE we want, and that is a good thing. I believe that is what Linus cannot stand. He wants everybody to use what he uses and prefers.

Anyway, why tweak what does not need to be tweaked?

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I am another very happy GNOME user. I have used KDE many times, but I don't like it. It is buggy and ugly. GNOME is simple, fast and nice.



I'm afraid you're going to have to come up with specific examples, otherwise you're talking out of your posterior because you're upset.



In that mailing list conversation there are few pointers as to where people feel Gnome is going wrong (giving people limited options without letting them expand out as needed with the printer dialogue), with no response from Gnomers other than "This is rubbish".

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Sorry, I know that sounds like a flame starter, but I mean it as a critical observation.

The gtk is an ugly hack.
gtk++ is an ugly hack on top of an ugly hack

GNOME is almost useless except for the most basic interaction. I have to constantly delete<nobr> <wbr></nobr>.gtkrc to keep my backgrounds from being black.

I use KDE, which also is not perfect, but it doesn't suck.

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gtk is the future.qt sucks.come to terms with it.

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Damn right. I can't get iptables to work with the 2.6.20 kernel even though I've enabled every frickin' Netfilter option in the kernel configuration.

Stop hacking GNOME Linus, and get your act together. I want my firewall back!

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That has nothing to do with the kernel, and Linus even layed into the Netfilter people over backwards compatibility.

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Yeah, right. I'm using Kubuntu, just because it works. KDE FTW.


  P.S. I'm Finnish, so.. Hyvä Linus! Suomi, perkele!

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Windows 4evah

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After many years with Gnome I sure as hell got tierd. In the end I saw what Linus are saying now, Gnome developers aren't thinking forward. You gotta think new in 2007, if the world was like Gnome developers you would still drive a 1958 Morris Minor. You gotta think out of the box and allow yourself to take risks. To win you gotta offer something and thats what KDE devs are doing much more conseqvent than Gnome devs. They think futureated, innioative.<nobr> <wbr></nobr>:-)

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...would be to know how many users use Gnome and how many use KDE, in percentage of all total users of Linux...
THAT would kick ass to know that.

And furthermore, I would like to know where users come from, to like KDE or Gnome in the first place.

Are there users coming over from Windows that think it is intuitive that the start menu is all everywhere else than in Windows?

How about choice and configurability?
Does a user that just abandoned Windows for more control find that in Gnome?

I would really like to know, especially the first question!

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Just to get some balance here. I'm a GNOME user and I don't find it limiting at all. In fact, I'm really happy I don't have to go and configure every single little bit before I can use it. KDE is for converted Windows gamers who like showing off to their friends by changing the background of every dialog window to some horrible "cool alien looking" image. "Hey, watch this! Look at all these options. There's 538 of them and I know what every single one of them does! Am I not just the coolest person you've ever met?"

I've tried to like KDE. Over and over again, with old versions and new versions. And I just can't. It's horrible, it's ugly (and I don't want to spend two whole days configuring it to be able to look at it without going blind) and it's utterly unusable for me. I know some like fiddling around, and if you do then by all means use KDE, but don't try to make GNOME into KDE.

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I agree. KDE is born ugly so that it can have plastic surgery. I've been using linux since 02 and have never enjoyed KDE. I never saw the point in plodding through tons and tons of guis just get it to a point that I can stand using it. Gnome is usable in the beginning and in the end. The only thing I do not like about Gnome is the screensaver issue, a very minor one that is extremely easy to ignore. I don't want people to stop using KDE, if they like to have insane amount of control over their gui, fine, but I have no desire to. I would rather spend my time on linux getting something useful done. Why can't they just stop calling us newbies, and let us compute the way we want to compute. If we want more control, we will go and get it with KDE, but we do not want it. I can't say about how poorly the code is written, I'm not a programmer, but when people are griping on about usability it p***es me off. KDE people, use what you want to use and let us have the choice of using a gui that fits our fancy. Stop trying to force us to have the same number of choices that you have, because in the end, if there was only KDE, I would customize it to look like GNOME! What good are the extra options then?

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Just to get some balance here. I'm a GNOME user and I don't find it limiting at all. In fact, I'm really happy I don't have to go and configure every single little bit before I can use it.



You're utterly missing the point. You don't have to configure anything, and this isn't about configuration. It's about having the ability to be able to do the things when you need them, such as Gnome's printer dialogue. Administrators and help desk people want to be able to set stuff like scheduling options.



I've tried to like KDE. Over and over again, with old versions and new versions. And I just can't. It's horrible, it's ugly



Yawn, yawn, yawn. Whenever an argument is made about Gnome the comeback is always that someone thinks that KDE is ugly. That's not what this is about.

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GNOME has a lot of dependencies, and it might take more time to install it. You don't need to install everything like Evolution, etc., if you don't use a binary hell distro like noobuntu or whatever. If you use LFS, consider switching to Gentoo, change the USE-flags and start emerge. That's all.

GNOME provides a clean, uncluttered and elegant user interface, unlike KDE, which takes several hours of studying the interface and preference windows before you are able to change the configuration, which takes additional hours.

What GNOME should do, is providing more features and configurability. Not TOO MUCH! But just some more, _while_ keeping good and pleasant defaults.

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Actually, gnome can drive crazy if one wants to get some fine tuning of options.
I mainly use KDE, but it some times annoys as much and then i switch to Blackbox or XFCE...

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you must be a pretty stupid bastard if it takes you "HOURS" to configure the KDE ui. and as for Gnome why does everybody think that blurry boring icons and geriatric shades of gray and brown are "beautiful"??

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Well this is what many middle managers and users think. To them there is no difference. With this said if the GUI reflects poorly on the operating system then it is "linux" that is flamed... and not the GUI. So perhaps there are other latent frustration we as 'users' do not understand.

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Linus should work on his own problems. Linux may be my favorite OS, but it is fast becoming too bloated for any hardware that Vista won't run on, and that is where he should be spending his time.

At least Gnome is not just another Windows 95 look-alike 10 years on, it does look somewhat unique, and new users can be trained to use it in 10 minutes or less.

Linus must be more dissatisfied with KDE than he lets on, or he would not be spending so much time berating the Gnome developers that they do not suit his own personal taste.

Sure they could do a better job, but so could Linus, the KDE team, and others.

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At least Gnome is not just another Windows 95 look-alike 10 years on



On what evidence is this based?



it does look somewhat unique



Like a Mac with a CDE theme. OK.



and new users can be trained to use it in 10 minutes or less.



Considering that these users will probably have used Windows and they will be somewhat confused about the right/left button ordering amongst other things, it really depends on what you're training them to do.



Linus must be more dissatisfied with KDE than he lets on, or he would not be spending so much time berating the Gnome developers that they do not suit his own personal taste.



I suggest you read the thread and see what it's actually about rather than spiralling into denial.

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>Considering that these users will probably have used Windows and they will be somewhat confused about the right/left button ordering amongst other things, it really depends on what you're training them to do.

Indeed, it depends.

The growth markets are in countries which have users who didn't ever use a computer before (like countries where computing takes off now - think OLPC,<nobr> <wbr></nobr>...).

Keeping button order broken because existing Microsoft Windows users are used to the other way is not an argument _in that case_.

I do see that there's this movement that tries to s/windows/linux/ on the computer, and that's all the change they want. I'd just stick with Microsoft Windows then.

If I switch platforms, the new platform better provide some _huge_ advantages to make it worth the bother.

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GNU/Linux is nowhere near as bloated as Vista, or even XP. The latest Slackware 11 with all the bells and whistles runs much faster than even Win2K on the same hardware. I'd say it's roughly comparable in performance to Win98, i.e. close to no delays in everyday operation on a high-end P3/low-end P4 with 256MB or so of RAM.

Having said that, there has been considerable bloat in GNU/Linux recently - not so much in the kernel, which is what Linus is responsible for, but in the various distros and desktop environments. In particular, Gnome and its success with Ubuntu has been a driving force for huge amounts of bloat in the layer between the kernel and the applications. Automounters, hardware abstraction layers and Mono are all a huge tax on the performance of even a moderately modern system, not to speak of the amount of complexity they add for those that actually need some amount of control of their system.

I prefer Gnome's widget set and look and feel to KDE (disregarding my feelings for partially non-free Qt and Trolltech for the moment), but I find its lack of configurability extremely limiting. Since Patrick Volkerding, the Slackware uber-dictator, has stopped supporting Gnome because it "takes too long to compile and package" (which should tell you something about the complexity of the code, if you've never had the pleasure of trying to compile it on your own), I routinely install Dropline Gnome which is a 3rd party distribution of Gnome for Slackware, but online on modern systems that can handle it.

Even so, I use the excellent Xfce4 as my desktop environment - it provides the Gnome hooks I need to use Gnome's features without actually putting up with a lot of Gnome's bloat. On older systems, I don't bother - I just install blackbox/fluxbox and customize it a little bit to make it work for the particular user or application.

As far as I'm concerned, Linus is doing the right thing - instead of talking about the problem, he's doing something about it. If users find his patch to be good, then we'll see if the Gnome project decides to implement it or not.

Personally, I'd like to see a desktop environment that uses Gnome's widget set and look & feel but doesn't ship with all the newfangled bloatware that make my system harder - not easier - to use. I'm still hoping that Gnome's management will change direction in the near future, and start allowing for user control instead of preventing it while maintaining their uncluttered style.

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Oh my! I see damning wars on almost everything! You, damned humans! Try to realize that you are not even perfect!

I have used a lot of computer User Interfaces already. I can summarize them to the basic geometry and shapes, some actions and feedbacks. Then, the make-ups, the turbo-engines, the spoilers and blah..blah...but, only a few can appreciate them...and, they are not all-perfect!

So, get used to it, UI suckers!

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You know, I was a long time GNOME supporter but I have to agree with this guy. I too have been using KDE and it's better.

Early on, I liked the things GNOME was saying, they were going to use best of breed tools, integrate them all, etc.. etc.. Then they and the guys at E somehow had a blow out, then after the whole "skinning" thing kind of wore off it's just fastered. Eazel has died. I don't know that I can point to any real improvements in years, it's just different, I don't know if it's better.

I even like the mono project, I really like the concept. We need better tools to make more reliable apps. I kind of wish it was java but whatever. It's like the community of GNOME has fractured. There is this little mono world, there is this skeleton crew kicking dead horses around; meanwhile the KDE boys have built a killer platform.

GNOME is the debian of desktops. There are some good things but you only like it when Suse or someone else packages it up and puts the polish on it and the process is moving so slowly it looks like it has stalled.

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Gnome is unethical software. It is GPL but the culture of developers is often nasty. I mean, I just remind you how dirty the Ximian guys put forward advocacy against the other Desktop Environment and think in terms of plattform loyalty. And think about a company as redhat. Gnome people got all the corporate guys involved and that also meant bad habits.

Linus is right. It is not just about licensing but also ethics.

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Why does everyone love to hate on gnome? It is better designed, more stable, and less crappy than any other linux WM. People often don't get that design should be handled by designers — if you wan tot customise the hell out of your WM, fine, but its good that gnome doesn't let you smear their reputation around in poorly customised desktops. What is the obsession with customising the UI anyway? It should be well-designed, usable, and attractive. So much about KDE is just 100% bad design. Don't quote Fitts, uxmatters, or whatever to me, it is my opinion based on my education and experience — "well known" examples are irrelevant.

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Because not everyone agrees on which is the better interface. I don't like Gnome because it makes things that should be simple hard.

I don't like KDE because it makes things confusing, but at least not hard enough that I have to Google things. (like switching off that stupid spatial browser in Nautilus)

I don't like Windows XP UI because everything is so goddamn large (at least with the uxtheme patch I get to put in LunaQQ)

I don't like Windows Vista UI, because I can't find a theme to get rid of the My documents etc text on the right side of the start menu like LunaQQ.

I don't like the Mac UI because they don't give me a proper maximize button, the menu bar is always at the top and I want a task bar! not this stupid dock that wastes a lot of screen space and that reminded me of OS/2

However, all the UIs have their advantages, and I just like to have the option to tune the interface to match the way I work.

Re: Gnome UI

I don't even get why automatically applying changes is a good thing. You make a mistake in choosing what you click on and the changes are automatically applied. I like the extra step of an Apply button. It also makes a more responsive UI.

Why are the tab orders so demented. Try starting the Run dialog and see how many tabs it takes to reach the ok button. And watch how many of the screen elements actually activate to indicate where the focus currently is. If the bloody themes are done correctly.

Or go to Evolution and try to add a contact. Try to change the e-mail types without touching the mouse.

Microsoft itself has proven itself to work with both keyboard only usage and mouse only usage. With the noticable exception of Internet Explorer 1.0 and below which I couldn't just use the keyboard alone.

If Gnome is that good an interface, a blind man should be able to use it. And if it is really good, it should work without the mouse. But I doubt they did any real accessiblity testing with it.

#

It is better designed, more stable, and less crappy

The stability of Gnome's printing module and Evolution has got steadily worse over the years. If it's design you're talking about, you do realise that KDE's look and feel and layout comes from a standard module, don't you? The reason why Gnome has a HIG is because it's done per application.

People often don't get that design should be handled by designers

You think that Gnome's design is handled by designers? Dude. Gnome's HIG and UI layout was designed by people who got usability books from the library and think they know it all. In every usability book there is a chapter on allowing a user to expand the application beyond its default settings and customising it to their line of work.

What is the obsession with customising the UI anyway?

Because people in the Windows world do it all the time, more than you might think, and there comes a time when you need to do something such as alter print scheduling options (and administrator etc) - and Gnome will not let you do it.

So much about KDE is just 100% bad design. Don't quote Fitts, uxmatters, or whatever to me, it is my opinion based on my education and experience

So you're talking crap then? Well we know that because people come out with the same old tired lines every time.

#

I moved to Linux for many reasons, not the least of which were ethical ones. But after repeated frustrations with other commercial-based OSes, I wanted to move to something that "just works".

What frustrates me the most about some members of the Linux community is this pervading comtempt for "noobs" (even the name "noob" is condescending). I like GNOME and still use it because it is flexible in my opinion and works for me. period. Not all of us want to be super-developers. We shouldn't be looked down upon because we're not. Many of us "noobs" contribute our time in other ways as well as our finances to these projects because we believe in them. Is this any less important? After all, in any community each member plays a different role and uses what talents they have for the greater good. The Linux community should be no different.

For the Linux super-users and developers, We appreciate your work, but as myself being one of "the masses" what turns people off the most to trying Linux are comments like "Idiot-safe", "newbs", and the glaring contempt for one's choice of distros (I myself am an Ubuntu user and I'm damn proud of it). Comments like these discourage potential new Linux users from realizing the benefits. It makes the Linux community look like an elitist club that only allows people who have the time to endlessly tweak code to use it. I know that that the spirit of Linux and the open source movement is far from this.

The majority of the world NEEDS something that is easy to use, stable, flexible and above all practical. I praise GNOME and Ubuntu for realizing this and giving the rest of us a choice. I also praise other DE developers in all camps for giving us a choice. What I don't appreciate is being treated like less of a contributor just because I contribute in a different way to Linux and I'm for looking for different things from it.

#

Don't let these numnuts get to you. I've been using linux for about 5-6 years now and I'm using Gnome and Ubuntu. The reason: because I don't want to bother setting up my system just so that I can get it usable. When all is said and done, it all comes down to the same operating system. If I wanted to compile everything, I can do that. If I wanted to make life difficult, I could do that. Simple fact is that people who accuse the users of 'noobuntu' of being the contemptible newbies are doing the math with pen and paper, and we are using a calculator.

#

I know Windows users who would love to make the switch to a more secure platform; yet they've told me that they get the impression that Linux is only for guru hackers and that these guru hackers look down on all non-guru-hackers. I don't blame them -- nobody wants to be called a "noob" in an unconstructive way instead of getting some encouragement. These are intelligent people who don't appreciate this kind of arrogance. While I'm doing my best to counter-balance the negative impressions, it may well be that they end up choosing OSX over Linux as an alternative (one already has). Actually, OSX is a very good choice and I don't blame them. But what do cases like that mean for the widespread adoption of Linux and FLOSS in general?

Btw, pointing out that someone's a "noob" is stating the obvious and completely redundant: Everybody is new to something at first. Fucking live with it, Divine Guru, you were one yourself.

#

Amazing how getting Dugg can bring so much fresh blood (and fire) to a quiet linux site...

#

Their average IQ is about 60.

#

Knowing that Digg posters are real humans makes one lose faith in humanity.

#

I think both KDE and GNOME suck. I've switched back to good old FVWM (actually FVWM + few homegrown Motif helper apps for the desktop).

#

Are you a KDE user then? Because you are the one calling names. Talk about hypocrisy...

#

Other than saying it is "limited", which implies he prefers the more extended configuration - and possibly functionality - capability in KDE.

This may or may not be a valid criticism. I've never used GNOME and have no particular desire to, since I've never read anything but arguments over its method of displaying windows.

And I don't even customize KDE very much - actually, at all - so I'm really not that interested in how customizable KDE is vs GNOME.

But what I DO see Linus saying is that the GNOME developers are not INTERESTED in hearing complaints - or if you wish - suggestions for improving - their product.

THAT is a valid criticism in my opinion.

I know there are tons of people who will say that an OSS project is strictly for the benefit of the people working on it, and using it, and therefore everybody else should shut up about ALL of them and NEVER criticize a project. This sort of comment comes up everytime the GIMP is criticized for not being a Photoshop equivalent.

This is bullcrap.

EVERYTHING is subject to criticism, in OSS and everywhere else.

If Linus doesn't like GNOME, I don't know why he feels the need to use it and thus subject himself to its "limitations", or whatver. But suffice it to say that he clearly has an opinion - and he backs up that opinion with code patches.

So he has the "right" - or the reason - to criticize.

The GNOME people have the "right" to refuse to listen to criticism as well. But if they do, and if they do without clearly and logically defending their design decisions, then they are violating the spirit of OSS by making OSS into a "fanboy" environment, instead of a development environment.

Not that it matters in the end. When an OSS project stops satisfying the needs of the overall community of users or keeping up with the adopted technology trends, it will fall by the wayside.

So in the end, criticism is either irrelevant - or the way that an OSS project can prevent itself from becoming irrelevant.

Take your pick.

OTOH, what everybody COULD do is tone it down polemic-wise.

#

The GNOME people have the "right" to refuse to listen to criticism as well. But if they do, and if they do without clearly and logically defending their design decisions, then they are violating the spirit of OSS by making OSS into a "fanboy" environment, instead of a development environment.

Using that logic, Linus himself would be violating the spirit, given his "benevolent" dictatorial style. How often does he clearly and logically defend his design decisions, as opposed to just flat out rejecting patches without response? Not much at all, if you knew anything about his process.

You seem to be out of touch with how different FOSS projects really make decisions.

#

I find the problem with the Gnome/KDE war is most of the popular apps are GTK based. If it wasn't for that I would be using KDE right now. But Firefox (which has StumbleUpon and Konq does not), Beryl, OpenOffice (which out of the box seem to use GTK) and Eclipse all use GTK.

Even KDE uses some libgnome stuff for their XML.

So even if I don't like Gnome that much, I would use it, then get frustrated and switch to Windows, but then switch back because I feel masochistic and want to waste my time.

#

I think you're rather misinformed.



But Firefox (which has StumbleUpon and Konq does not)



It's pretty easy to use the GTK-Qt theme to make GTK apps fit right into KDE. Is Gnome doing this?



Beryl, OpenOffice (which out of the box seem to use GTK)



What makes you say they use GTK. Open Office has a KDE UI extension in addition to the GTK and Windows ones, and Beryl was forked from Compiz to get it away from the GConf configuration dependency. I just don't know what you're saying there.



Even KDE uses some libgnome stuff for their XML.



No it doesn't.

#

wouldn't it be more the other way around? does QT support making it look like GTK apps? i'm not aware that it does. This seems less dE ad more Toolkit related.

#

One day I got so sick of the pointless and meaningless waste of life arguments over oss I descided to get away from it. Linus just lost all respect from me in the nasty, childish, idealistic, and outright idiotic way in which he tried to share(hammer) his ideas into us.
He is nothing more then a disgusting polition to me now. Fuck him. I dont want to do things your way and I believe your way is worse than closed source. Mocking developers work publicaly to get some attention for yourself and force them down a path already taken(kde)
Fuck this shit. Im so sick of it. Its so fucking fake.

#

Not everyone is an asshole like Linus -- he's been the boss for so long, it's gone to his head.

Just ignore him -- there's much, much else going on in FOSS without him.

#

I pay nothing to use (and choose) Gnome and/or KDE.

I'm thankful for both and everyone involved in developing them.

Perhaps we need LinuxSoapOperaDigest.Linux.Com

"I wonder if Linus will shave his head next week! OMG!"

#

I've used them both. The only real problem for me configurability. You would think that if some of the smaller desktop environments easily configured, why not GNOME? KDE is bloated, no arguments, but it is still end user configureable, heck even Fluxbox is more configureable! The last time I used GNOME, when you added an app that was not in the distro (ie- compiled it yourself) you could not add it to the apps menu. I hope this changes.

#

hola señor linus
ase tiempo yo intente a usar linux con gnome, instale los dos ordenadores de escritorios pero gnome me parecio mas estable aunque use kde gnome creo que tiene sus fallas pero es mas estable que kde, kde se traba demasiado.
hoy en dia uso fedora y continuo usando gnome aunque aveses uso kde pero gnome, para mi es mejor que kde.
yo tengo un pequeño cyber y gnome para mi es mejor

tambien recurdo sus primeras palabras sobre su systema operativo
>hola mundo (hello world) open en español quiere decir abierto y abierto es libre
todos tenemos derechos y responsabilidades y la nuestra es mejorar, no con palabras tan devastadoras, ya que idiota no es muy amigable que digamos mas vien es ofensiba yo lo que pido es unidad y respeto para todos los programadores y usuarios de su systema operativo
del codigo abierto. Gracias a todos

#

KDE is bullshit...let the GNOME reign

#

Wow.. As far as brainpower of KDE users goes, these GNOME users are overflowing in their sensible, intelligent arguments, contributing to a valuable discussion amoungst reasonable people.

It is something I've observed many a times: GNOME users don't get any further than:
- KDE sucks
- KDE is configurable
- KDE has the wrong license (not according to RMS, they have)
- KDE is a memory hog (not a single experiment shows any significant difference between the two)

I think we should seriously research the effects of using a braindead GUI for too long. It seems to affect the mental powers of those concerned.

#

What is interesting is the fact that most of the posts here are kde folks running their mouths off, and not a whole lot of gnome folks. kde folks see this as a sign that gnome sucks because no one uses. I wonder how they can successfully install an os with their applied thinking skills!

#

That's what it seemed to me, too - lots of eye-candy, but very little things seem more usable than GNOME.

However, it's been a long time since I used KDE, I've been fine with GNOME ever since. I've mastered almost all the tips and tricks for pros in GNOME, because there are so few it's almost stupid.

I'm installing KDE now, I'll give it a spin.

Wish me luck<nobr> <wbr></nobr>:).

#

... about this discussion is that for all the smack talk about Gnome and KDE, nobody really ever says anything that one environment can do that the other can't. No specifics at all. Mainly just spitballs.

And I couldn't help but notice, being a Gnome user myself, that most of the vitriol is hurled from KDE users to Gnome. I challenge any of you to try the current version of Gnome (the default desktop on Ubuntu is a good representation) and tell me five things that are wrong with it from a user interface standpoint. I think Gnome has really matured over the last couple of years, and has a lot going for it.

There are definitely a couple of better KDE applications, like Amarok and k3b, but these are fully usable under Gnome, so that's not an issue. I'm talking about the main interface, the desktop.

#

Guys, I always read that you want to configure the UI for real-world tasks, but what are these real-world tasks?

You want to configure *GNOME* to write a document in *OpenOffice*? Or write this comment in *Firefox*? I don't see much of a connection.

Seriously, aren't these real-world tasks actually just hobby activities? Let's state the fact: You want to tweak your OS because you like computers and want to play with them like others play games on their X-Box or pimp their cars. It's just a hobby, so please stop talking about *real-world* tasks. All you want is an OS for having fun with computers and KDE is wonderful for this, but face it: you're a minority and most people don't like computers that overwhelm them with functions and options. People don't want choice if they don't care about the issue (there exist many psychological studies on this!). They want choice where it matters and for most people computers don't matter.

Use KDE if you love tweaking computers, but please leave your GNOME (or ease of use) comments for yourself because 90% of the people on this planet don't give a dime for customizability. Even Microsoft research has shown that only about 5% of all Windows users *ever* touch *any* configuration option in WinXP!!! You should be happy that you get your hobby OS because the majority of computer users doesn't get what they deserve!

#

Even if you're right, does that mean that KDE is unusable without tweaking? I don't think so. If you want to use KDE as is, you can do so if you want to. Even Windows allows you to tweak and - if you want to - to tweak some more. Taking away these options doesn't mean you're on the right track. You've just taken away CHOICE.

That seems the main philosophy of GNOME: take away choice. Take away the choice to change your environment and take away the choice to CHOOSE an environment. World history has proven that is a BAD thing - not to say unAmerican as well.

#

People have been bashing KDE for a long time. In the beginning for some good reason (not GPL), but after that just because it was a competitor to GNOME. GNOME wants world domination and Ximian is the evil force behind that with MS-like tendencies. The sad thing is, RMS let himself be a frontman to that war.

There would never BE a GNOME/KDE war if GNOME didn't try to grab the desktop time after time and it is good KDE got a capable ally now. And he chooses the right way to attack them at the heart. I've always thought that GNOME wasn't the most "democratic" project in the bunch and Linus is just forcing them to show their cards. Brilliant move!

Understand me, I don't want GNOME to disappear. I just want them to take their proper place along all other desktop environments: GNOME is just another choice. Note there are never wars between KDE and other desktops. It is just up to the user to make that decision - not up to Ximain, RMS, Linus or anybody else.

The latest war - in which I played a part - started because some self declared editor wanted people to believe GNOME was the only reasonable choice. Not because GNOME was good, but because KDE was bad. Now GNOME is in the defense. May be they will learn some humility now, which is highly necessary.

#

"So this is why the kernel development has seemed in such disarray as of late."

Sorry, don't just pull this kind of nonsense out of... whatever. Kernel development has never been such a smooth, fast process as it is now.

Really! Where do you people get wrong ideas like this?

#

KDE always seemed very 'Fisher Price' to me<nobr> <wbr></nobr>... and now it's whining advocates all seem to prove that out.



'KDE is fisher price' is a Gnome whinger's argument that comes up at every available opportunity, so well done.



you can load as many KDE components as you want.



As opposed to Gnome's CDE alternative, minus 13 years. Desktop environments like Mac, Windows are about features, not going back in the opposite direction because of some crazy zen trip.

#

Linus is totally in the right because GNOME is limited. While I agree that GNOME is easy to use and many people dig it, and that's fine, there are those who like to use GNOME but wish that it would have the options that KDE and other window managers share. However, since it's up to the GNOME developers to set policy on how GNOME behaves, it is therefore their responsibility to defend their decisions. And that is fine, except that they're completely missing something here: Vista just came out and it is more bug-ridden than any previous version of Windows. Add to that the fact that GNOME and KDE are nothing more than direct rip-offs of the MS Windows interface... come on, get with the program here: start button, foot button, K button, it's all the same damn thing! Where's the innovation? Oh yeah, let's throw some real code at GNOME... well, that's cool, that's fine, but will it REALLY get us anywhere? By the time that Windows users get used to WOWing people with their aero setups, the rest of the true power users will have E17 up and running and will be able to show GNOME and KDE users what a desktop environment *SHOULD* be like in a Linux environment: configurable, changeable, manageable, useful, pretty, functional, practical and original. KDE comes very close to this except with the originality. GNOME tends to fail in most of these categories. Fluxbox just shoots them all out of the water, but who's going to support Fluxbox in a corporate environment?

#

I am a happy GNOME user, but I don't hate or have the capability of saying KDE is a bad DE because I haven't used it that much. Anyways, I love GNOME. I don't need to tweak how long it takes for my menu bar to autohide or any of that, not because I'm a linux newb, but because I like how GNOME is practical. Plus, they are both open source, if you know how to do it you can change whatever you want about your UI, even on GNOME.

#

Well said, I am a gnome user. I tried kde but found it to fat for me. Gnome works well enough as a desktop environment for me.

If you like it, use it. Else don't. Choice is good.

#

"Perhaps if we ever want GNU/Linux to succeed we need to stop opposing each other and get along?"

No. Getting along is the second phase.

The first stage is to notice that there are many so-called Linux people, who are deliberately undermining Linux.

There are many examples of this, for example,

Red Hat, Fedora and others refuse to support MP3s.
For Fedora, supporting MP3s costs nothing.
For Red Hat, supporting MP3s is a one off royalty of $50,000 (ie a few cents on the cost of each install (ie essentially nothing)).
See <a href="http://mp3licensing.com/royalty/index.html" title="mp3licensing.com">http://mp3licensing.com/royalty/index.html</a mp3licensing.com>.

Yet, Red Hat and Fedora, refuse to satisfy their customers wishes and support MP3.

Red Hat and Fedora, refuse to support the Windows filesystem NTFS, even though a good read-write NTFS-solution now exists.
In fact, Red Hat and Fedora, refuse to even support the read only NTFS support that has been available for nearly a decade.

This subtle crippling/subverting of Linux is to make sure that will never be a real threat to Microsoft or the music or film industries.

Many "Linux developers" are subtly crippling Linux, through various mechanisms, bad code, programs that you cannot compile without jumping through a million hoops, etc, etc. Most subversion is designed to look like it could have been an honest mistake. However, when such "mistakes" are never fixed (in some cases for years) the game is given away.

NTFS, music and video support are among those most regularly crippled. Another favorite is cross-compilers (as they can be used to compile Linux programs that will then run on Microsoft windows). Another filesystem these people are currently crippling (by restricting its distribution and lying about its abilities) is Reiser4 (even to the extent of framing Reiser for murder).

Another two examples of crippling NTFS support:

1) the Linux-NTFS project (<a href="http://www.linux-ntfs.org/" title="linux-ntfs.org">http://www.linux-ntfs.org/</a linux-ntfs.org>) has always worked to stop NTFS from working well on Linux. Their latest effort in this direction being their refusal to incorporate Szakacsits' fork, which allows writing to NTFS partitions (as it works too well, and too easily). They say they do. They say NTFS-3g works extremely well. But, they are in no hurry. It has been 7 or 8 months, now. NTFS-3g will only be incorporated when it becomes too obvious that they are really a group, that has been devoted to making sure Linux and NTFS do not work well together.

2) the NTFS program Captive (reads and writes to NTFS, but poorly). Szakacsits wrote a patch so that Captive would function better. The author of Captive, Jan Kratochvil, refused to accept the patch (as it might have made Captive work somewhat more like it should have).

So, all is not as it first seems. Understanding this, is the first step to Linux's eventual success.

Jade @ <a href="http://linuxhelp.150m.com/" title="150m.com">http://linuxhelp.150m.com/</a 150m.com> (<a href="http://m.domaindlx.com/LinuxHelp/" title="domaindlx.com">mirror</a domaindlx.com>)

Where there are also HOWTOs on:

1) cloning your windows XP/2000 installations using Linux (back-ups).
2) installing windows XP/2000 on a spare partition with Linux.
3) accessing and writing to Windows XP (formatted with the NTFS) from Linux.
4) a script to walk you through a Gentoo Linux installation.
5) remix those 14 Debian installation CDs as 2 DVDs.
6) the entire book "Linux Device Drivers 3" as a single web-page (ie in HTML format).
7) 3D acceleration for ATI cards (simple procedure, works for SuSE and Mandriva and Debian).
8) some discussion on the GPL and non-free third party kernel modules.
9) and some politics, eg: Israel Fakes a Provocation for War (the "kidnapping" of Cpl Shalit).
10) and on compiling the worlds best DVD/Movie/Video/MP3 Player and Encoder (MPlayer and MEncoder).

#

"Perhaps if we ever want GNU/Linux to succeed we need to stop opposing each other and get along?"

No. Getting along is the second phase.

The first stage is to notice that there are many so-called Linux people, who are deliberately undermining Linux.

There are many examples of this, for example,

Red Hat, Fedora and others refuse to support MP3s.
For Fedora, supporting MP3s costs nothing.
For Red Hat, supporting MP3s is a one off royalty of $50,000 (ie a few cents on the cost of each install (ie essentially nothing)).
See <a href="http://mp3licensing.com/royalty/index.html" title="mp3licensing.com">http://mp3licensing.com/royalty/index.html</a mp3licensing.com>.

Yet, Red Hat and Fedora, refuse to satisfy their customers wishes and support MP3.

Red Hat and Fedora, refuse to support the Windows filesystem NTFS, even though a good read-write NTFS-solution now exists.
In fact, Red Hat and Fedora, refuse to even support the read only NTFS support that has been available for nearly a decade.

This subtle crippling/subverting of Linux is to make sure that will never be a real threat to Microsoft or the music or film industries.

Many "Linux developers" are subtly crippling Linux, through various mechanisms, bad code, programs that you cannot compile without jumping through a million hoops, etc, etc. Most subversion is designed to look like it could have been an honest mistake. However, when such "mistakes" are never fixed (in some cases for years) the game is given away.

NTFS, music and video support are among those most regularly crippled. Another favorite is cross-compilers (as they can be used to compile Linux programs that will then run on Microsoft windows). Another filesystem these people are currently crippling (by restricting its distribution and lying about its abilities) is Reiser4 (even to the extent of framing Reiser for murder).

Another two examples of crippling NTFS support:

1) the Linux-NTFS project (<a href="http://www.linux-ntfs.org/" title="linux-ntfs.org">http://www.linux-ntfs.org/</a linux-ntfs.org>) has always worked to stop NTFS from working well on Linux. Their latest effort in this direction being their refusal to incorporate Szakacsits' fork, which allows writing to NTFS partitions (as it works too well, and too easily). They say they do. They say NTFS-3g works extremely well. But, they are in no hurry. It has been 7 or 8 months, now. NTFS-3g will only be incorporated when it becomes too obvious that they are really a group, that has been devoted to making sure Linux and NTFS do not work well together.

2) the NTFS program Captive (reads and writes to NTFS, but poorly). Szakacsits wrote a patch so that Captive would function better. The author of Captive, Jan Kratochvil, refused to accept the patch (as it might have made Captive work somewhat more like it should have).

So, all is not as it first seems. Understanding this, is the first step to Linux's eventual success.

Jade @ <a href="http://linuxhelp.150m.com/" title="150m.com">http://linuxhelp.150m.com/</a 150m.com> (<a href="http://m.domaindlx.com/LinuxHelp/" title="domaindlx.com">mirror</a domaindlx.com>)

Where there are also HOWTOs on:

1) cloning your windows XP/2000 installations using Linux (back-ups).
2) installing windows XP/2000 on a spare partition with Linux.
3) accessing and writing to Windows XP (formatted with the NTFS) from Linux.
4) a script to walk you through a Gentoo Linux installation.
5) remix those 14 Debian installation CDs as 2 DVDs.
6) the entire book "Linux Device Drivers 3" as a single web-page (ie in HTML format).
7) 3D acceleration for ATI cards (simple procedure, works for SuSE and Mandriva and Debian).
8) some discussion on the GPL and non-free third party kernel modules.
9) and some politics, eg: Israel Fakes a Provocation for War (the "kidnapping" of Cpl Shalit).
10) and on compiling the worlds best DVD/Movie/Video/MP3 Player and Encoder (MPlayer and MEncoder).

#

You, of course, *had* to post this conspiracy-tripe _three_freaking_times_.

I've spotted the *lameness* in all of this, alright.

#

"Perhaps if we ever want GNU/Linux to succeed we need to stop opposing each other and get along?"

No. Getting along is the second phase.

The first stage is to notice that there are many so-called Linux people, who are deliberately undermining Linux.

There are many examples of this, for example,

Red Hat, Fedora and others refuse to support MP3s.
For Fedora, supporting MP3s costs nothing.
For Red Hat, supporting MP3s is a one off royalty of $50,000 (ie a few cents on the cost of each install (ie essentially nothing)).
See <a href="http://mp3licensing.com/royalty/index.html" title="mp3licensing.com">http://mp3licensing.com/royalty/index.html</a mp3licensing.com>.

Yet, Red Hat and Fedora, refuse to satisfy their customers wishes and support MP3.

Red Hat and Fedora, refuse to support the Windows filesystem NTFS, even though a good read-write NTFS-solution now exists.
In fact, Red Hat and Fedora, refuse to even support the read only NTFS support that has been available for nearly a decade.

This subtle crippling/subverting of Linux is to make sure that will never be a real threat to Microsoft or the music or film industries.

Many "Linux developers" are subtly crippling Linux, through various mechanisms, bad code, programs that you cannot compile without jumping through a million hoops, etc, etc. Most subversion is designed to look like it could have been an honest mistake. However, when such "mistakes" are never fixed (in some cases for years) the game is given away.

NTFS, music and video support are among those most regularly crippled. Another favorite is cross-compilers (as they can be used to compile Linux programs that will then run on Microsoft windows). Another filesystem these people are currently crippling (by restricting its distribution and lying about its abilities) is Reiser4 (even to the extent of framing Reiser for murder).

Another two examples of crippling NTFS support:

1) the Linux-NTFS project (<a href="http://www.linux-ntfs.org/" title="linux-ntfs.org">http://www.linux-ntfs.org/</a linux-ntfs.org>) has always worked to stop NTFS from working well on Linux. Their latest effort in this direction being their refusal to incorporate Szakacsits' fork, which allows writing to NTFS partitions (as it works too well, and too easily). They say they do. They say NTFS-3g works extremely well. But, they are in no hurry. It has been 7 or 8 months, now. NTFS-3g will only be incorporated when it becomes too obvious that they are really a group, that has been devoted to making sure Linux and NTFS do not work well together.

2) the NTFS program Captive (reads and writes to NTFS, but poorly). Szakacsits wrote a patch so that Captive would function better. The author of Captive, Jan Kratochvil, refused to accept the patch (as it might have made Captive work somewhat more like it should have).

So, all is not as it first seems. Understanding this, is the first step to Linux's eventual success.

Jade @ <a href="http://linuxhelp.150m.com/" title="150m.com">http://linuxhelp.150m.com/</a 150m.com> (<a href="http://m.domaindlx.com/LinuxHelp/" title="domaindlx.com">mirror</a domaindlx.com>)

Where there are also HOWTOs on:

1) cloning your windows XP/2000 installations using Linux (back-ups).
2) installing windows XP/2000 on a spare partition with Linux.
3) accessing and writing to Windows XP (formatted with the NTFS) from Linux.
4) a script to walk you through a Gentoo Linux installation.
5) remix those 14 Debian installation CDs as 2 DVDs.
6) the entire book "Linux Device Drivers 3" as a single web-page (ie in HTML format).
7) 3D acceleration for ATI cards (simple procedure, works for SuSE and Mandriva and Debian).
8) some discussion on the GPL and non-free third party kernel modules.
9) and some politics, eg: Israel Fakes a Provocation for War (the "kidnapping" of Cpl Shalit).
10) and on compiling the worlds best DVD/Movie/Video/MP3 Player and Encoder (MPlayer and MEncoder).

#

"Perhaps if we ever want GNU/Linux to succeed we need to stop opposing each other and get along?"

No. Getting along is the second phase.

The first stage is to notice that there are many so-called Linux people, who are deliberately undermining Linux.

There are many examples of this, for example,

Red Hat, Fedora and others refuse to support MP3s.
For Fedora, supporting MP3s costs nothing.
For Red Hat, supporting MP3s is a one off royalty of $50,000 (ie a few cents on the cost of each install (ie essentially nothing)).
See <a href="http://mp3licensing.com/royalty/index.html" title="mp3licensing.com">http://mp3licensing.com/royalty/index.html</a mp3licensing.com>.

Yet, Red Hat and Fedora, refuse to satisfy their customers wishes and support MP3.

Red Hat and Fedora, refuse to support the Windows filesystem NTFS, even though a good read-write NTFS-solution now exists.
In fact, Red Hat and Fedora, refuse to even support the read only NTFS support that has been available for nearly a decade.

This subtle crippling/subverting of Linux is to make sure that will never be a real threat to Microsoft or the music or film industries.

Many "Linux developers" are subtly crippling Linux, through various mechanisms, bad code, programs that you cannot compile without jumping through a million hoops, etc, etc. Most subversion is designed to look like it could have been an honest mistake. However, when such "mistakes" are never fixed (in some cases for years) the game is given away.

NTFS, music and video support are among those most regularly crippled. Another favorite is cross-compilers (as they can be used to compile Linux programs that will then run on Microsoft windows). Another filesystem these people are currently crippling (by restricting its distribution and lying about its abilities) is Reiser4 (even to the extent of framing Reiser for murder).

Another two examples of crippling NTFS support:

1) the Linux-NTFS project (<a href="http://www.linux-ntfs.org/" title="linux-ntfs.org">http://www.linux-ntfs.org/</a linux-ntfs.org>) has always worked to stop NTFS from working well on Linux. Their latest effort in this direction being their refusal to incorporate Szakacsits' fork, which allows writing to NTFS partitions (as it works too well, and too easily). They say they do. They say NTFS-3g works extremely well. But, they are in no hurry. It has been 7 or 8 months, now. NTFS-3g will only be incorporated when it becomes too obvious that they are really a group, that has been devoted to making sure Linux and NTFS do not work well together.

2) the NTFS program Captive (reads and writes to NTFS, but poorly). Szakacsits wrote a patch so that Captive would function better. The author of Captive, Jan Kratochvil, refused to accept the patch (as it might have made Captive work somewhat more like it should have).

So, all is not as it first seems. Understanding this, is the first step to Linux's eventual success.

Jade @ <a href="http://linuxhelp.150m.com/" title="150m.com">http://linuxhelp.150m.com/</a 150m.com> (<a href="http://m.domaindlx.com/LinuxHelp/" title="domaindlx.com">mirror</a domaindlx.com>)

Where there are also HOWTOs on:

1) cloning your windows XP/2000 installations using Linux (back-ups).
2) installing windows XP/2000 on a spare partition with Linux.
3) accessing and writing to Windows XP (formatted with the NTFS) from Linux.
4) a script to walk you through a Gentoo Linux installation.
5) remix those 14 Debian installation CDs as 2 DVDs.
6) the entire book "Linux Device Drivers 3" as a single web-page (ie in HTML format).
7) 3D acceleration for ATI cards (simple procedure, works for SuSE and Mandriva and Debian).
8) some discussion on the GPL and non-free third party kernel modules.
9) and some politics, eg: Israel Fakes a Provocation for War (the "kidnapping" of Cpl Shalit).
10) and on compiling the worlds best DVD/Movie/Video/MP3 Player and Encoder (MPlayer and MEncoder).

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Yeah, crippling of various projects does make sense.
It explains a lot.

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Hey. Choose menu item Newist First & a number of posts appear that do not appear elsewhere.

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Gnome and KDE do not do hardware detection. They are desktop environments. If Kubuntu fails where Ubuntu works, it has nothing to do with Gnome vs. KDE.

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> Gnome and KDE do not do hardware detection. They are desktop environments. If Kubuntu fails where Ubuntu works, it has nothing to do with Gnome vs. KDE.

This is at least partly untrue. Gnome has these underlying components that are part of the desktop base and do helper work for the environment to get together. I suspect kde has them too (probably some part of konqueror).

For example, Gnome volume manager in my experience has handled mounting and unmounting of removeable drives for complete newbies a lot better than konqueror (which crashed or locked up unmounts for usb disks) during the days of pre-Mandrake 9.x (before ubuntu came around) and we were doing some migration/training work for the Uni. Of course, I shouldn't expect those bugs to be present now, but there's that tiny little feeling in me that goes "if you don't want to mess with your USB's filesystem, unmount it either with gnome or the command-line". I guess what I'm trying to say is that whatever did his network detection may have been some underlying component of gnome (gnome-hal? gnome-oranges? gnome-apples?) that didn't work in kde.

IIRC, Kubuntu usually has the same kernel and base config as Ubuntu, only a different DE, so as a general rule, you can't blame the base for hardware detection discrepancies between the two. Maybe there's some underlying gnome-hal config or something that does it better than kde does. I wouldn't know, of course, since I'm a gnome person. Of course, the distro packagers could have just forgotten to include some daemon or something to do the autodetection for him, but if it's part of the DE, or they simply removed the gnome stuff and replaced with kde stuff (which i suspect), then it goes to show how integrated the whole thing is from the gnome standpoint.

So I guess it shows from the two examples that gnome devs really prioritize on getting a desktop first and features later.

Although configurability isn't JUST some feature.

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Now he's telling me which desktop I should use.

Thanks, but I'll make my own decision. That's what freedom is about.

Yes, he's made a big contribution to free software. But he seems to think that entitles him to tell other people to follow him. It doesn't. He should stop trying to tell people what to do, and try cooperating. If he wants to use KDE, fine, his choice. I want to use Gnome, that's mine. And by the way, Linus, I think the FSF has done about 10 times as much for free software as you have, and I think it's about time you stopped flaming them and tried a little harder to work with them.

(No, I don't work for the FSF, and I've never seen or spoken to Eben Moglen or Richard Stallman.)

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"If so, maybe more patches will be submitted and they will actually gain some respectability. GNOME attaining some semblence of logical usability wouldn't be bad, either. "

The patches have been already applied, even if they were sent to the wrong list.

<a href="http://svn.gnome.org/viewcvs/metacity/trunk/ChangeLog?revision=3062&view=markup" title="gnome.org">http://svn.gnome.org/viewcvs/metacity/trunk/Chang<nobr>e<wbr></nobr> Log?revision=3062&view=markup</a gnome.org>

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I think the overall idea of GNOME is good. It would be nice to allow advanced users to get more into the guts of it. I think the GNOME team rests of their laurels a bit too much. For instance, why haven't they built in the functionality to randomize wallpapers when you can randomize login screen and screensavers. Also, moving icons around the tool bar is a bit clunky still. Even though it's very good, they could use some fresh eyes looking over the system for ideas.

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So why not have a choice within GNOME?

If choice is good, why not allow configuration of things within GNOME? The people who agree with the defaults don't have to change the configuration if they don't want to do so.

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users ARE idiots a dumbed down interface has its place

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Don't try to talk about things you know nothing about, and it's evident you don't know anything about user interface design.

As for your pet peeves with Gnome, pretty much every part of Gnome is replaceable. If you want a more configurable window manager, for example, just install a different one. Something like Sawfish is completely configurable.

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So one arch hacker was dismissive of another on an arch hacker mailing list. Heavens to betsy, what is becoming of the internets! Have you ever read the LKML? Not exactly the most polite corner of the world. What we are seeing is just more of the same...two camps throwing opinions around with little regard for the feelings of each other. Hey, doesn't that eerily resemble the threads being written here?

KDE, Gnome, who cares? I use KDE exclusively, and get snide comments from some of my fellow Linux-ites who are Gnome backers. Does that mean that all Gnome disciples are intolerant? No...it only means that, in a permanent minority, the various factions tend to tear into each other as readily as they do the "real" enemy, in this case MS (or is that M$?).

Do I respond to these jibes? No, I usually respond that I have better things to worry about, which is the truth. And this usually shuts these well meaning yet know-it-all folks up. I would recommend that others follow suit.

So was Linus being diplomatic? Hell. no. That's not his job or his habit. The ugly, defensive tone taken by many here shows that they share the same proclivities so, for god's sake, just be quiet. Neither KDE or Gnome are going anywhere, which may be contrary to the wishes of many of the Casandras and DE-bigots (doesn't that just sound ridiculous?) that have made this non-event into their latest opportunity to wail about the coming end of the world.

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Choice is good, Linus. Different people, different needs and wants, different choices.

Isn't that exactly what Linus says? He want's choices in Gnome.

I wish somebody would fork Gnome.

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And this folks, is why I prefer XFCE.

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I use KDE on one machine, Gnome on the other. I like them both. I find Gnome is easier to use as it is very simple and minimalistic (for a modern D.E.). I find it frustrating because it is very simple and minimalistic. I like KDE because it's very configurable, but it needs some configuration to make it as simple to use as Gnome. In other words, they're both great, but neither is perfect for me alone. Luckily, with Linux you can pick or choose, mix and match! Thanks to all the developers of and contributors to both projects!

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For all that want to know:
If you like Ubuntu, but not the Gnome flavour of it, Kubuntu works well. It has improved much since of late.

And on my workdesktop, I have both Environments installed, works swell and you can use programms of both worlds. I do install them both on all systems I got, who can limit themselfes to only one? And cannot confirm rumors of things conflicting madly...

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When any normal person bashes an open source project the response is usually along the lines of "these people work for free so don't bash them" - which is valid.

However Linus IS PAID to work on the kernel and last time I checked, 2.6 may need another develop cycle JUST TO FIX THE BUGS.

On the other hand Linus continues to bash open source developers in the most antagonizing fashion.

Its time to FORK the kernel and get the Linux name out of the GNU operating system as its become obvious even to the casual observer that this is all going to Linus's head. - Maybe that will jolt Linus back into either reality or therapy.

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you do all realize you are arguing personal opinions don't you? Not very intelligent is it?

The only valid debate would be facts vs. facts, after reading the entire slew of comments I see nothing but personal opinions and delusions of superiority

remember a guy named Hitler who also thought his way was better for the world?

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Windows, KDE, Mac osx and gnome are ugly
Enlightenment is less ugly, but not so stable sometimes you can make them all less ugly in terms of look and feel to the degree that they allow,

however ugly/pretty = art

Design=functionality+usability

Gnome fails, because it hinders both (I can't do anything I should be able to do without fixing gnome itself which is way over my head)

KDE fails because it sacrifices usability for functionality(feature creep, do I really need 6 different spots that duplicate the exact same functionality in slightly different interfaces?)

However I use KDE, cause its faster and I can deal with being able to have that functionality, without the usability, versus Gnome where I don't even get the chance to have that functionality as part of the design. keeping things simple doesn't mean everything has to be shallow, being logical doesn't mean you have to actively stop users from doing what they should be able to do.

What I want and need is something that doesn't sacrifice Design, At, Functionality and Usability, at all. Enlightenment seems closest at this point, as a developer/designer I have to have something that does both, however I need something that just works too, and for now its Kubuntu with half compiled junk everywhere on the desktop and dual boot Windows xp and E-live on the laptop.

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A quick google search of "Gnome Sucks" = 903 hits
A quick google search of "KDE Sucks" = 46,100 hits!

Clearly KDE sucks at least 46 times more than Gnome does.

Eat that Linus.

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I never saw any diffrence between kde and gnome (except for kde's better 'open file' dialog) besides the default theme. And gnome wins in having the prettier theme.
ratpoison, and maybe there will be a time, where the console will be my only interface

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Change "Linus Torvalds" to "Richard Stallman", change "GNOME" to "proprietary license", and change "KDE" to "GPL". Same tenor, different subject.

Choice is good, Linus. Different people, different needs and wants, different choices. For me, I'd rather not be using a desktop built on Qt, licensed <a href="http://www.trolltech.com/company/newsroom/announcements/00000043" title="trolltech.com">under the GPL</a trolltech.com> like an adopted bastard step-cousin. I'll go with GNOME instead, lumps and all, with a clear conscience.

But that's just me.

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So at the core if this issue is that the developers of Gnome don't take patches to improve the functionality of the DE. Is it their right to do so? If it is, then leave them be or fork them out of existence. I personally have no issues with gnome other than Icaza saying Microsoft C# is the second coming of Christ. Very telling and very childlike.

Maybe Gnome is made for children? In which case, cool. Not a big deal. Let them make a GUI that does nothing but 3 things.

I think everyone here is on the same page. We don't care about gnome because either:
1) We think Ubuntu is gnome- proving Linus's point
2) We think gnome sucks- proving Linus's point
3) We don't care- proving Linus's point
4) We think Darwin can take care of it's own descent to extinction or survival in regards to Gnome.

It's gnome developers right to make a GUI for kids and microsoft reject's. I don't care. But it's also Linus's right to roshambo them in the balls for being tools. That's all part of natural selection. Let it roll where it will.

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Years ago.

KDE makes things conveniently available and configurable. I don't have to put-up with someone else's vision of what I should be allowed to do with my OS and GUI.

Hell! That's why I've never used windoze!

I cannot argue with Linus' position in the least; and the GNOME crew has been progressively digging-in their heels deeper over this, begging for somebody to come along and clout some sense into their heads with a 2x4.

The slam Linus delivered has been long overdue, IMHO.

Let's see if they can figure-out his patches and how to implement them against the extant codebase.

If so, maybe more patches will be submitted and they will actually gain some respectability. GNOME attaining some semblence of logical usability wouldn't be bad, either.

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So this is why the kernel development has seemed in such
dissarray as of late. Think Linus needs to stop worrying about
what the hell gnome people are doing and focus more on the
kernel. If he don't like gnome, fine, use kde and stfu already.

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These arguments are of little use in the long run. The reason why I personally moved to Linux was that I would no longer be tied to a particular vendor or desktop environment. I have used both KDE and GNOME and both have their good and bad points. But I do think that people are missing the point over Gnome's perceived simplicity. Some people don't find it fun to spend time configuring their desktop environment -- they just want to use it, and for those of us who happen to agree with the choices of the GNOME developers, this desktop environment delivers.

Will103

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I find this more than a little insulting. I choose Gnome - or, rather, Ubuntu - because it detects all my hardware without fault, and lets me do everything I need to do. I've tried live disks with KDE - Kubuntu and Knoppix - and detecting a wireless network just doesn't function.

Just because I choose Gnome, doesn't make me an idiot - it makes me practical.

I wish Linus had stayed neutral in this argument.

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While I agree with Linus that Gnome pretty much sucks, I don't understand all the 'kvetching' about it. I like KDE, so that's what I use. You like Gnome?? Or Xfce?? Good for you, you go use it. Hope you have a wholesome, fulfilling computing experience.<nobr> <wbr></nobr>;)


    Linus -- choice is a good thing, and infighting within the Linux community only makes Bill Gates happy. Not to be rude, but, SHADDUP AND CODE!!. 'Nuff said.<nobr> <wbr></nobr>.H*P*D.

"When in doubt, I whip it out!"

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There's nothing wrong with a good old-fashioned argument, bad blood or not. I like, and use, both GNOME and KDE, for different reasons. I look forward to KDE 4; it promises superior capabilities.

Linus puts his code where his mouth is. Let's integrate it and see how the new version performs. This is what is truly wonderful about open source software.

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KDE always seemed very 'Fisher Price' to me<nobr> <wbr></nobr>... and now it's whining advocates all seem to prove that out.

Besides, if you find yourself without your binky and you feel a temper tantrum coming on you can load as many KDE components as you want.

(It's not Windows you know.)

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I am using KDE for about 3 years now though tried GNOME for couple of time. Gosh... I hate the dependancy hell & above all, I dont like the way GNOME treats me.

Though I don't condemn anyone, it's all about preference. For most people GNOME with Ubuntu worked well. For me KDE with openSUSE works well than KDE with any other flavors of Linux (Kubuntu sucks extremely, personally).

But I find this article healthy rather than bad spirit because it's good that someone whip GNOME developers and tell them to listen to the users than living in their own dream world.

Afterall, the people are the one who are going to use the software not the developers

Also, I don't understand the complain that a new comer has to configure a lot to use KDE? Dude!!! look around? I never had to CONFIGURE anything in my Linux when I was newbie until I am ready to fork it.

Use what you prefer. But personally, I love KDE (not that I hate GNOME, but i prefer KDE over GNOME).


Adios Amigos.

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hahaha...

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I'm posting advantages of both desktops here:
<a href=http://www.bbnuke.com/kdevsgnome>http://www.bbnuke.com/kdevsgnome</a>

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what a bunch of dinks always arguing. how about just shutting up and get back to programming so my sound works in Ubuntu. the noblest intentions start out ok but usually degrade into a bunch of old ladies going at it.

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Of course Linus loves Gnome. Why else would he bother ?

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