But somehow some bugs get fixed, so some non-developers must be moonlighting as developers.
Sometimes it comes down to an argument about what is a bug. I know that even in the applications world, some users ask about the lack of features that were never in the design spec and logically never should be. And users sometimes have pilot errors and then blame the software. One user copied a document to a new location and then proceeded to edit the old location, then complained that her changes didnāt show up on the web in the new location. She was very indignant about that until I pointed out what had happened.
Sometimes it takes a few bug reports before itās recognised as a general problem rather than pilot error. Itās human to be optimistic and developers are often too human.
Microchip,
Iāve been saying the same thing for a while, even said that Gnome might adopt its own version of plasma. When that happens Iāll just shake my head & think," here we go again."
Gnomers again I say to you all donāt ever say never!
Finally, another thing I keep saying one DE is not better than the other or worse just different.
Linus clearly would have stuck with KDE 3.5 if Fedora had given him the option. Itās hardly a ringing endorsement of GNOME, more avoiding development growing pains in an area heās not involved with. He has said heāll look at KDE4 again in the next Fedora release.
Compared to the thread on GNOME printing, with the famous āJust tell people to use KDEā, and the āidiotsā mindset stuff, this was all rather mild and much less entertaining.
1.Much nicer themes, and a cleaner, more consistent UI.
I use Firefox & Evolution, currently there is nothing better available in Linux. KDE PIM was a constant annoyance over years for me. During my 6 months test drive of KDE4 I used Opera for WebānāMailā¦
Developers attitude. Really. Donāt judge a project by their fan boys. Those are always silly. The KDE project does more and more lock up themselves in a wagon ring. āUsers are irrelevantā is the more polite way they deal with those nasty āLusersā complaining. Also, there is the well known āNot Invented Hereā hampering progress of the Desktop and the old finger pointing. Of course it is the Web being incompatible, Konqueror is just according to standards. And so onā¦
Funny, ā¦ I have always found KDE3 themes nicer, and a much wider selection. One can select KDE3 themes that are as clean, or cleaner than that of the default Gnome setup in most distroās, or one can select a more complex KDE3 theme. I found one has a wider choice in KDE3.
What has that got to do with oneās desktop selection? I used Firefox and Evolution for years with KDE3. This is NOT Gnome specific.
Actually, if you read Linus Torvalds views on this, he has always complained that Gnome developers were worse than KDE developers when it came to attitude. Gnome developers are known for dictating there is the Gnome development way or no way ā¦ He got so frustrated at one point, that he developed some code for Gnome, and challenged the Gnome developers to either use the code, or justify why they had to reject the code.
Only recently (because of poor stability in the KDE-4.x implementation in Fedora) did Linus decide to give Gnome a try (noting KDE-3x is NOT available for the latest Fedora, unlike openSUSE where KDE-3.5.10 IS available). But I suspect his view about Gnome developers has NOT changed.
Iām sure you have good reasons for liking Gnome (as this does tend to be a subjective assessment, and we all have our preferences) but your articulated reasons donāt āringā accurately to me.
ā¦ Still, I can understand it is difficult to articulate reasons in a subjective area (in this case, articulating why you prefer Gnome) ā¦ I significantly prefer KDE, but I have a hard time articulating the reasons.
If you like gnome, it is your choice, itās the one you like what can we do.
In my case I like xfce, it is the one I like to use.
But for aesthetics I go 100% with kde 4, really eye pleasing, ultra modern:cool:
I wonder when it reaches its adulthood?
Even when I favored KDE, I always found it clunky, even when new themes were used. To me Gnome has always looked better. Not that Iām really into looks any more. I just want it to work these days.
The thing with 3.5.10 is itās support days are numbered. Fairly soon users are going to have to move to something else. I just made my decision early on by moving to Gnome so I hopefully wouldnāt have to move again any time soon.
chuckles
Just when the GNOME developerās are thinking about 3.0 and need to get more innovative. But I guess they will prioritise GNOME2 coexistance, rather than rely on distroās to sort it for their users. Interestingly Plasma is catching interest, it might even be ported.
"Posted Jan 28, 2009 10:18 UTC (Wed) by lmurray (guest, #56356) [Link]
Thank you for (Indirectly) informing us of this bug. I have made the change to current trunk and will backport it to KDE 4.2.1 shortly.
If you come across any more keyboard-unfriendly actions feel free to open a bug report on http://bugs.kde.org ."
There is an enormous difference between getting software wrong ā all software has bugs ā and deliberately misrepresenting your product to get extra beta testing.
They didnāt misrespresent the product. They made it very clear, you just needed ears to listen.
I donāt care anymoreā¦
Probably whining causes developerās not to care either. Theyāre not there to be someoneās psychoanalyst, and many users behave pretty poorly and excessively emotionally in ways that donāt help resolve bugs or get fetures done.
Within two years we will be looking at KDE-4.4 and based on my playing with KDE-4.2 (on a live openSUSE CD), I think 4.4 will be awesome.
Fair enough, although 2 years is a pretty far horizon to me. Everyone has their own definition of āsoonā.
I was about to say the same about Gnome, but did not consider it tactful. However, since you brought it up first ā¦ Gnome IS clunky in appearance.
Typically I just use the desktop I am happy with, and only comment on another desktop when I am pushed to provide support (for example in audio) in a desktop that I donāt like (and gnomeās current pulse audio implementation is bad ā¦ its simply just bad) or I find an anti-KDE comment simply wrong.
However having typed that, I still believe this entire desktop thing is very subjective.
Itās not the appearance thatās the problem. Itās the sheer number of extra points, clicks and mouse moves you end up making. Slapping a thick layer of makeup, to distract from the core lack of ergonomic features, and then saying, oh but it looks gourgeous does nothing for me, though I have seen many ppl happy enough with that approach.
Fair enough to give a very basic simple interface to new users, the problem was there wasnāt a way to get more. The issues with not exposing Printer options was one symptom.
Old GNOME 1 used to crash quite a lot, they moved against that, had the corporate Useability types in, and became very āfit in or get outā as a reaction. On the GNOME lists they talk freely about how stale and dull, itās all got as a result.
Some GNOME users, have claimed that KDE is more Windows like, IMO actually the opposite is true. The dumbed down tone, of Windows & GNOME, and the restrictiveness comes from the same GUI philosophy. You can do it, if you want to do something they thought of.
That was Linusās core point, the developerās can never anticipate the userās needs fully, only a subset of them.
I think youāve got it twisted. Itās one of the main reasons why Torvalds switchedā¦ usability. Iām typing this right now from KDE 4.2. I wanted to see if things have changed and indeed they have. Itās quicker, probably even quicker to load than Gnome. However, thereās some major problems that kwin, widgets, and excess options canāt hideā¦ usability and functionality.
I really think that KDE needs a come to Jesus moment. Why? Because KDE has more potential than Gnome at this point. However, potential alone isnāt enough if you get your feelings hurt and arenāt willing to make changes.
Iām primarily an Ubuntu/Gnome user. My desktop is pretty well customized and everything really ājust worksā. So far Iām on day two of KDE 4.2 and thereās some really glaring problems that Gnome has rectified years ago. Hereās a short list of problems Iāve stumbled onto.
***Mounting of Drives **[/size][/size][/size][/size]
Right now KDE will show my ext and NTFS drives, but good luck getting them mounted in an easy way. What I had to do was make a directory for them to mount. Then go to the partition manager to create the mount. The difference between this method and Gnome is that. You see your drives. You double click and boom itās mounted. In one click all in one go. KDE not so much.
*USB Bluetooth Dongles
Gnome I plug it in and itās detected when the kernel sees it and thereās a little BT icon in my system tray. I immediately can connect and search for devices and connect. For KDE you have to find the KDE app first, when it should automatically appear when the device is inserted.
*Networking
Right now thereās YAST and the KNetworkManager. They fight for attention and thereās really no clear cut way to disable/reenable that I can find. I see it in YAST but K Control Center is the default, but it doesnāt show my connections, so where is it? Something as easy as āam I connected?ā, āwhatās my IP Address?ā,ādisconnect/reconnectā, etc all seem hidden unless I go to terminal.
*Opening Admin Access to Applications
Ok so right now the only thing that works is kdesu. Any other admin access to the kernel via su or sudo donāt, why? In Gnome you can use sudo, su or gksudo and they all open the application successfully. No muss no fuss. Itās aggravating because even if you are comfortable with using terminal thatās not enough when it comes to KDE.
*Detecting Media Files / Device Drivers
In Gnome, for Ubuntu anyway, the moment you try and play a file that doesnāt have a corresponding codec installed, it prompts you āSearching for codecā followed by āWould you like to install Codec XYZā?
In KDE well it will tell you it doesnāt work either by hanging or giving you an error message. Why not take the next step and install what I need for me?
Drivers are the same deal.
*Kicker Panel
If itās so customizable, why canāt I move it to the top? Come on now. For goodness sake, take care of something this easy that anyone would do upon first logging in. BTW military time is great if Iām on a ship, but Iām not and would like to be able to change this easily.
*KWin / Emerald / Compiz
Whatās the deal here? Gnome install from the package manager using the compiz icon and away you go. In KDE, not so much. Itās ok if Kwin is going to try and do away with needing compiz, but right now itās no replacement yet. Itās almost there. But it still needs work, so lets not break compatibility until it is. Plus the amount of available themes is puny, Iām installing dekorater to get around this, but again right now it doesnāt seem like the simple things are customizable only the more complicated stuff that people wonāt get to until much later.
Thereās more stuff that Iām running into with Myth but Iāll stop here.
Overall like I said thereās a lot of potential. But right now usability functionality (not necessarily features) and stability should be job #1. Customizability is great and all but if none of the stuff talks to each other and conflicts and fights for attention or worse hangs without even telling you whatās going on, it just doesnāt come off as a end user (novice or not) would expect it to.[/size]
As you note, those are KDE4 limitations. KDE3 does not have most of these. Gnome has its own set of annoying limitations. Very annoying for some. In particular the pulse audio implementation in gnome is bad. Real bad. This is true across all distributions. KDE-3.5.10 does NOT have the gnome pulse audio problems.
I think it important to distinguish between KDE-3.5.10 and KDE-4.2.
Now I also think KDE-4 has potential. The functionality that many of us still want may be āthereā in KDE-4.2.x or KDE-4.3.x or KDE-4.4.x. In the meantime, KDE-3.5.10 HAS THE FUNCTIONALITY and is supported for another two years on openSUSE. In two years we will be at KDE-4.4 and given the rate of KDE4 development, that looks very promising.
I still maintain if Linux had tried a distro with KDE3 he would not not have tried Gnome. ā¦ Or if he had tried Gnome, it would have been to satisfy curiosity about Gnome and not dissatisfaction with KDE3.
By all means I totally understand the polish of KDE 3.5. Iām actually going to try that after Iām satisfied in understanding 4.2. I just want to make sure that the above listed problems arenāt over looked in favor adding more features. Right now KDE 4.2 looks almost as good as Windows 7 if not better from the aesthetic and feature capability point-of-view.
As far as Gnome and pulse audio, the fixes come relatively quickly and at this point thereās only two major issues in Gnome. Pulse Audio recording, and Samba + gvfs (this one I have no idea why theyāve let linger as long as they have ā it should be all hands on deck to fix this one). Other than that thereās not many that Iāve stumbled on that are deal breakers.
Iām really interested in looking at the two different philosophies to see what happens with 4.3 or whatever, and Gnome 3.0 (2.31, etc) to see which has my vote. Iāve been using Linux for a while now so Iām glad to see 4.2 fix a lot of the performance issues I just need to see the polish before I make KDE my favorite WM.
DW: Since Fedora has dropped support for KDE 3.x in recent times, what desktop environment are you using now? Have you made the move to KDE 4.x, or dare I say it, GNOME? If so, how have you found the transition?
LT: Since Iām on Fedora, I got hit by the (bad) transition to KDE4, and as a result Iāve been using GNOME for the last year or so. Itās still somewhat painful, more so when Iām on my laptop, mainly for the same old reason: you cannot fix the mouse buttons in GNOME. (The reason this hits me more on the laptop than anywhere else is that most laptops only have two buttons, making the middle-button press much harder. And middle button is what you need for the āsend to backā window action.)
I wrote the patch (including even the graphical configuration management), I sent it in, and it got rejected as ātoo complicated for usersā. Frickinā idiots (and Iām not talking about those alleged users).
But right now, KDE is worse. Iād like to explore alternatives, but if youāve followed my answers this far and are perceptive, youāll probably already have figured out that the programs involved arenāt on my list of things I care about that much.
Iām well known for disliking GNOME, but itās not the āusing itā part that I dislike as much as the apparent mentality of the GNOME people who think that all users are idiots and then limit what I can do with it for that reason.
See the difference?
So Iāll use whatever works best on my machine and in my workflow, and a window manager is not something I really care deeply about.
Simply opinion, but for most Linux is about freedom and functionality, yet KDE 4.x development seems to be focused on glitz. Gnome is clean and logical; minimal, functional, and unobtrusive with the option to graphically trick it out with compiz etcā¦ Menu customization is simple and complete. KDE 4.x is in your face with all its graphical goodiness, the menu system (while not difficult) is illogically structured as many have noted. I find KDE 4.x to perform noticeably slower in every way on my Lenovo S10 netbook as well.
If you spend the majority of your time gazing at your eyecandy jumble of a desktop while anticipating the next wonderous application transition animation, KDE 4.x is for you. If it is important to be able to quickly navigate your menu system, and you spend most of your time with your face in some software then go with Gnome.
Holy Cow! This is still going on:O
Look people letās think of linux as pizza & the DEās as a side item like breadsticks or garlic bread. OK?
Some people like garlic bread, some like breadsticks neither is right or wrong.
Now just as youād peacefully eat your pizza & whichever side item you choose alongside those that didnāt, let gnomers, kdeāers, XCFEāers,etc use their DE choice,
Can we all just get along now?
ā¦ Gnome IS clunky in appearance.