biggest problem of linux today.

the biggest problem when i recommend anyone to use linux. or when i have to use it myself is the task of choosing between gnome/kde.

distro choosing is somewhat simpler. and what impacts your experience more is the DE.

now i am not saying choice is a bad thing but take a look at the problems.

for a user:-

i like some kde apps like amarok,kopete,etc but also like apps like gimp etc.

now my problem is that no matter what i have to make a sacrifice of loosing some apps.

now i know i can run all apps in any DE. but the overhead of the libraries and the poor integration will discourage anyone who tries.

for developer:- when anyone develops an app. he would want maximum no. of people to be able to use it. but in this situation he also has to make it for gnome or kde.

i think this issue needs to be resolved .probably gnome and kde should scale back and not include apps by themselves..

application development must be by freedesktop.

this will save a lot of developer time and resource and people wont be implementing the same thing twice.

what do u ppl say?

PS:- i didnt know which section this would belong to. if this is wrong section.pls move it mods. thx.

Yup I agree with you. Somehow though, I have gotten used to the darn thing...Like running firefox in kde would still give it that gnome look. I usually run amarok, transmission, pidgin, xchat, firefox in icewm. So I can expect things to look well, pretty different. :)

Freedom of choice is a great thing. Freedom of Distro and freedom of desktop. I use Gnome mostly, but XFCE as well. I've never had any issues running KDE apps under Gnome or XFCE and use k3b, Amarok and Ktorrent on a daily basis, so really don't see what your issue is.

now i know i can run all apps in any DE. but the overhead of the libraries and the poor integration will discourage anyone who tries.

That in my opinion is a load of rubbish.

I always recommend Xfce over KDE, or GNOME. Unless you plan on running a somewhat minimal install, or distro, anyone running a properly nLited 2K/XP/Vista box will feel weighed down with either GNOME, or KDE. That was the biggest problem I faced when I recommend Linux to prospective converts, that the GNOM/KDE UI felt (to them) less responsive than their Windows builds. This issue is particularly acute when facing a user coming over from NT in that it is terribly difficult to recommend a simple, full featured distro that feels as fast as NT. Also, one of the great (and oft overlooked) benefits of moving to Xfce is the discovery (or rediscovery) of lightweight, GTK+ only apps of which in many cases, best their GNOME/KDE lib-dependant counterparts. LXDE? It is coming along and rather responsive, but has locked up on me across multiple distros ten too many times for me to recommend to anyone but devs and testers right now...

tgpraveen said:

now i know i can run all apps in any DE. but the *overhead* of the libraries and the poor integration will discourage anyone who tries.

what do you mean by overhead? it does not hurt anything to have kde libs on a gnome machine. geez.

It's not a problem is it, Windows runs non native apps(iTunes, quicktime, Safari are not a native interface to the Windows UI)

Come on, you can do better than that, alot of Windows apps look different to each other, you have to download skins to even get them consistent. The cost of loading a KDE app in GNOME or vice-versa really is not a issue, it just shows that you can and thats good.

Actually choosing a DE can enhance your experience, I think people make such a big deal out of computers and overly complicated them, specifically Linux gets the treatment double.