Re: Newbie Question - KDE-Gnome-xfce
On Thu, 2007-04-05 at 07:29 -0500, Randy Patterson wrote:
> On Thursday 05 April 2007 06:22, Michael M. wrote:
> > On Wed, 2007-04-04 at 20:19 -0400, Javier Enrique Tiá Marín wrote:
> > > Why Gnome is the Default Desktop for Distributions like Ubuntu/Debian,
> > > RedHat/CentOS/Fedora and OpenSuse?
> >
> > Because Gnome is superior, of course. :-)
>
> As stated previously I am a newbie in the Linux world, but one that seen
> enough to know that there is no going back now! So currently I don't really
> have a loyalty to any of the higher level window systems. I would be
> interested in knowing from your experience why you feel that Gnome is
> superior to KDE. I guess what I am looking for deals more with the
> functionality than anything else and not speed. So far going from Windoze to
> Linux/KDE is like going from dialup to wireless!
Well I was joking of course, as the smiley was supposed to indicate.
It's more accurate to say "I prefer Gnome," but I don't believe there's
any objective criteria by which one can say definitively that Gnome or
KDE is any better than the other or that either one is better than XFCE.
I settled on Gnome after lots of trials with other DEs and WMs. For a
while I avoided DEs altogether and just used various WMs, which IMO is a
good way to learn about some of the under-the-hood functionality of
Linux OSes. WMs tend not to do many things for you except manage your
windows, so using one forces you to learn about doing things manually
(things like mounting filesystems, for example, or starting various
processes at boot or later). It can be really useful to know *why*
things happen the way they do, so you know where to look when something
you expect will happen doesn't. DEs add a layer of complexity by
automating a lot of tasks and giving you DE-specific tools to automate
even more. That can be a real timesaver, but if you don't understand
what they are doing it will leave you helpless when something breaks.
Especially if you're coming from Windows or OS X, where everything is of
a piece, sticking to just a WM for a while helps you grok the separation
of functionality that's inherent in Linux OSes.
The other thing that's useful about trying various WMs is that it can
give you ideas about how you'd like things set up on your system, ideas
that you might never have been exposed to otherwise. Just go visit
various screenshot galleries and you'll see how very different from each
other Linux desktops can look, and you'll start to get an idea of how
differently they can function too.
As for Gnome vs KDE, my preference for Gnome basically comes down to two
factors. The first is that, after trying out lots of different apps, I
found that I tended to like apps using the GTK+ toolkit better than apps
using QT. It is certainly possible to use GTK+ apps under KDE and QT
apps under Gnome -- many people do all the time -- but generally
speaking (and I do mean *very* generally!) GTK+ apps are more suited to
Gnome or XFCE and QT apps are more suited to KDE. Since I found very
few QT apps essential (in fact, I don't have any QT apps installed
anymore), it didn't seem to make much sense to me to use a DE that was
designed using QT. To put it simply, "it's the apps, stupid." :-)
The second factor is that I like the way Gnome is laid out by default.
I like the thin panels at the top and bottom (you can run Gnome with
only one panel if you prefer, but I like having two). I like the themes
available and don't feel the need to tweak them much. In fact I'm happy
with most Gnome's defaults and haven't felt the need to change much.
Once in a while I'll go into gconf to tweak something or other, but
mostly it just suits me. I didn't feel the same about KDE. KDE has an
enormous number of preference options and can be customized out the
wazoo, which is one thing many people like about it and some others
criticize it for, so you can probably bend and twist KDE into just about
anything you prefer. But that's a lot of work and I got tired of it,
especially given that after all was said and done, I was still using
more GTK+ than QT apps. (It probably didn't help that the very first
Linux distro I tried defaulted to what I thought was a particulary ugly
KDE environment; it was a while before I figured out that KDE can look
quite beautiful if you put the time and effort into it.) Gnome can be
customized pretty extensively too, but heavy customization isn't exactly
the design philosophy behind Gnome. Personally, I felt like I was
constantly fighting with KDE, trying to change all the things I didn't
care for, whereas with Gnome I didn't need to. To put it simply, "it's
the defaults, stupid." :-)
> One example of what I mean. One of my part time jobs is hosting and setting up
> websites and web apps (ASP/PHP). I cannot work without a password vault of
> some kind because I have way more login information than I could ever
> remember. While setting up a Kmail account I was blown away when it ask me if
> I wanted to store the password in Kwalet! I think in the back of my mind I
> thought I was going to have to give up some functionality for free software
> in moving to Linux. Was I ever so wrong!
>
> From my point of view the real speed of an OS/Windowing system is not just in
> how fast it will pop a window on the screen, although important, but also in
> how does it, with the functionality it contains, speed you along with the
> work that you have to do? So, do you think Gnome is functionally better and
> KDE and why?
Honestly I'm a simple user with simple needs! I haven't found any
functionality I particularly missed in either Gnome or KDE or XFCE.
Even just using a WM, you can pretty much find tools DE-agnostic tools
that will provide all the functionality you need, even though they won't
come as "built-ins" with the WM. I think you'll have to approach that
question by asking yourself "what functions do I absolutely need?" and
"what functions would be nice to have?", then investigating how the
various DEs provide those, or looking for other apps not tied to a
particular DE that provide them stand-alone. In the Linuxverse, you'll
often hear that the philosophy behind Linux is "the right tool for the
right job." In some ways, the whole concept of a DE is at odds with
this philosophy, in as much as DEs gang together a bunch of tools to
make them work together. You may find that any particular tool in a DE
is "right" but another one is "wrong," in your opinion. Sometimes there
are alternatives readily available, sometimes the alternatives don't
work any better or fight with the DE. These are things everyone has to
decide for himself, based upon his needs and preferences.
--
Michael M. ++ Portland, OR ++ USA
"No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions
of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to
dream." --S. Jackson
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