It just is. I tried KDE 4.2, after all the babble about KDE 4.2 being the culmination of the KDE 4.x effort, um, no. I tried KDE 4.1 as well and remember hearing the same thing, and now people are pushing 4.2. I even remember some pushing 4.3 in Suse 11.2.
The story:
I’m a distrohopper.
I used Ubuntu 8.10, but wanted to try KDE 4.2 and felt that Ubuntu’s implementation was lacking. So I tried Suse 11.1 with KDE 4.1, than upgraded to 4.2.
Upgrading left me with a semi-broken system and I had to re-do the config files. That is unreasonable.
There was no compelling advantage to KDE 4.2 over the GNOME 2.24 desktop I also had installed in openSUSE 11.1. And while Suse/Kde had some advantages over Ubuntu/GNOME, those were cross-desktop and applied in Suse/GNOME as well.
The customization tag that so many people apply to Kde seems false. Not enough themes, even though it’s been out for 2 years. Not enough customize options, and totally misplaced. I couldn’t find the option to set to double-click, for instance! It was set to single-click and the option was hidden. The Configure Desktop screen is even more vague and limited than GNOME’s preferences. And it hardly has all the options of KDE, whereas all the options that are user-visible in GNOME are in one place, with the exception of Nautilus behavior.
The Dolphin/Konqueror config screens are a mess compared to Nautilus/Firefox. And the poor behavior when running critical GTK apps (Firefox, OOo, Xchat) irked me.
Overall, I was disenchanted with KDE.
this is only your OWN personal opinion. I’m sure many would disagree with gnome being better than kde 4.2. Also do you really want to start YET ANOTHER gnome vs kde war? Or are you just ranting and trolling here?
That fact that Firefox is even a GTK application amazes me beyond all belief - it would also explain why it a) looks like a floating piece of turd and b) runs like a dreary camel without legs.
> The customization tag that so many people apply to Kde seems false.
These comments are usually directed at KDE 3.5.X.
KDE 4.X has been gnomified in the name of ‘usability’ so it’s
not surprising you can’t tell any difference.
As an old KDE fan, for me Gnome is more usable these days. I’m all for change but it should be change for the better, which means you get to keep your old functionally and build new functions on it. I keep trying KDE but that something that made me love KDE in the beginning is gone for me.
Still, it’s mainly a personal choice. One thing works for one and another works for someone else. I’m glad we’re not all alike.
>> The customization tag that so many people apply to Kde seems false.
>
> These comments are usually directed at KDE 3.5.X.
What I mean to say is 3.5.x was much more customizable than 4.X presently
is. A lot of the missing customization is supposed to be added back into
the 4.x series at some point. 4.x is still not feature complete. 4.2 is
however a step in the right direction by most accounts.
On my first encounter with Dolphin, I actually complained of Gnomification in the bug report (I think I suggested it looked like Havoc Pennington had got at it, so if I wanted that I’d be a GNOME user).
This was denied to be the intent, Konqi file browsing would live on, and there has been movement to add the missing features that I used heavily. The comments hopefully will prove unfair, though the HIG they’re using does require simple screens with clear and obvious options, not requiring further explanation.
Chrystantine’s comment says more about him than FF3.
When I tried Ubuntu 7.10 and GNOME, I gave it more than a month from instatllation, before I came to any conclusion. UIs are like that, they shape your habits and it’s a mistake not to give them time, and find new ways of working.
Moving to KDE 3.5, it was clearly far more ergonomic for me, and also relieved the huge sense of frustration induced by the patronising tone, and limitted exposure of features, which meant it took me far longer to find out how to do something and it always seemed to involve annoying multiple actions.
Note that’s a personal choice, and I’m happy that GNOME works for other ppl, so long as there’s an alternative that meets my needs better, and I’m not forced to use it.
I’ve been playing with Gnome on Fedora-10, where purportedly Fedora has a good gnome implementation. Its not bad, but IMHO its a distant second compared to openSUSE-11.1 KDE-3.5.10.
The beauty of openSUSE today is that people like me can mix ‘n’ match.
I’ve got a Gnome desktop that works across two monitors (unlike KDE3), some KDE3 apps (amarok, k3b) that IMO are better than their Gnome equivalents, devilspie to give me some features I miss from KDE3, and cairo-dock for eye candy and the dock I’ve always felt was better than any panel or menu.
Since this is a soapbox, my mild rant is about those people who can’t be bothered to tweak their environment - as if store bought clothes or shoes could ever fit better than tailor made.
Yea, this is pure subjective stuff - and it is the Soapbox section.
Personally I prefer KDE 4, especially with KDE 4.2 out. But Gnome 2.24 is very good. I like the openSUSE implementation best…although most of their tweaks seem focused on the panels & Mono-based apps. Still, like oldcpu I’ve been playing around with Fedora 10’s Gnome and although I appreciate Fedora for being a great “tomorrow’s technology, today” distro…I don’t see what’s so great about their Gnome implementation. Other than their Nodoka theme & extra submenus under the System Menu it seems pretty average.
I agree with the OP that some settings in KDE could be placed more logically - for example there doesn’t seem to be a way to change your desktop wallpaper from System Settings. But I disagree with the claim about the mouse settings - even if you missed the text that said “Keyboard and Mouse”, there’s a search box. The queries “mouse”, “double” and “click” all would have narrowed the available choices enough to make the correct option easy to locate.
Lastly, something I don’t understand: for the KDE 3.5 users who don’t like KDE 4 and now use Gnome…
How is it that you came to decide that since KDE 4 lacks the reconfigurability you prefer, you’d rather use Gnome instead sticking with KDE 3.5? Is it because KDE 3.5 doesn’t seem to be getting any more support? I don’t mean to start a fight, but I’m curious why you decided that Gnome was what you needed.
> How is it that you came to decide that since KDE 4 lacks the
> reconfigurability you prefer, you’d rather use Gnome instead sticking
> with KDE 3.5? Is it because KDE 3.5 doesn’t seem to be getting any more
> support? I don’t mean to start a fight, but I’m curious why you decided
> that Gnome was what you needed.
My guess is stability, but you cannot discount the fact that KDE4 looks like
a lovechild of Vista/GNOME. KDE lost some of its old personality (not that
that is necessarily bad from a dev perspective) but if you are to compare
GNOME/KDE4 there’s a general feel that is comparable…and as KDE4 had a
great deal of bugs and stability issues for many people, one could see how
they may accept GNOME. Torvalds did. I’m a 3.5 user, still waiting for
KDE to flesh out. I thought maybe 4.2 would be it, but now I’m waiting on
4.3.
My problem was that KDE3 didn’t work correctly with two monitors of different resolutions (in my case 1280x1024 and 1680x1050).
Maximised windows and pop-up menus would assume the larger screen size even when on the smaller screen, and hence menus would not be visible and parts of windows (sometimes the buttons) would not be visible.
I’ve helped people work around that problem with KDE3 on this forum, so it isn’t just me. If you’re interested, the workaround for the windows is to place small dummy transparent kicker panels at certain points, the menus I can’t workaround.
Gnome doesn’t suffer from said problem. That doesn’t mean Gnome is better than KDE, it just means that Gnome does some things better than KDE, just as KDE does some things better than Gnome.
I didn’t want to be tied to KDE3 when openSUSE didn’t ship it as standard, so, as preparation for the worst case scenario of KDE4 not being acceptable …
… on my homebox I’ve made the Gnome/KDE3/devilspie/cairo-dock hybrid that I’ve already mentioned … mainly because I need a dual-monitor system with separate X screens of different sizes and Gnome does that better than KDE3 …
… but at work, I’m sticking with KDE3 because I can’t afford to spend work time messing around, and because the worst case KDE4 scenario might not come to pass, and because I use a single monitor.
PS - I do have a single but essential KDE4 component in my hybrid setup - Yakuake - it’s beautiful, functional and seemingly desktop-agnostic.
Yes, but he also said that if the GNOME developers stuff up their next upgrade he might switch back. I guess he sensibly just wants things to work.
I miss some things from KDE3.5 that are just starting to come back to KDE4 but I’m not irritated enough to switch back or to GNOME.
I have a feeling that the KDE4 developers were faced with a choice, either release 4.0 or have the project stagnate. After all nothing animates a developer like having bugs found in their software.
> I have a feeling that the KDE4 developers were faced with a choice,
> either release 4.0 or have the project stagnate. After all nothing
> animates a developer like having bugs found in their software.
Every developer I’ve met refuses to acknowledge there are any bugs.
Wait until the GNOME folks start overhauling their old code base and bring it up to new technologies, which will happen in the not so distant future. I bet I’ll see GNOME people screaming about this just like some are doing it about KDE4. Just wait and see, the transition to the new GNOME won’t be flawless either, though they may look at what happened with KDE 4.0 and try to avoid such a disaster, but I’m sure it won’t be flawless either
