Archived thread 1033476 from Recurring Discussions. Markdown source: Recurring_Discussions/thread_1033476_I_found_this_unfair_GnomeKDE_comparison.md
This guy used Gnome for five minutes and feels that is enough to write a comparison! http://www.debatepolitics.com/science-technology/41767-kde-vs-gnome-desktop.html Perhaps some of you more knowledgeable ones can help level the playing field.
Oops! I meant to post this in recurring discussions.
Actually I think it's best not to feed the troll in this case. The KDE vs Gnome flamewar is one of the oldest there is, and every week new recruits think they have a useful opinion on the matter (which of course they don't).
Leave it be I say.
I'm just afraid that the members there will believe it and not even give Gnome a chance. It's not a linux forum so all they have to go on is what he says about it. I've corrected him some but I'm just a newbie.
And why on Earth would Fedora ship with the default Nautilus he describes? How is that useful at all?
P.S. I'm a Gnome user but would feel it just as unfair if it were reversed.
A 5 minute trip to System > Preferences would have saved him a lot of grief. Yeah I think it was kinda unfair, but sometimes 5 minutes it's all it takes for some people to hate something, like a buddy of mine hated Linux when he used my e17 session while I was on the phone, 5 minutes it's all it took.....
CraigPaleo said:
And why on Earth would Fedora ship with the default Nautilus he describes? How is that useful at all?
Fedora actually ships the default Nautilus which is a "spatial" file browser. Most people do not like this (no matter what ui "experts" say) and change Nautilus to browsing mode. Ubuntu and some others change the default setting automatically.
Erik Trybom said: Actually I think it's best not to feed the troll in this case. The KDE vs Gnome flamewar is one of the oldest there is, and every week new recruits think they have a useful opinion on the matter (which of course they don't).
Leave it be I say.
Indeed.
I've used Gnome 2.24 and KDE 4.1 at length. Obviously at this current point in time Gnome is more complete than KDE because KDE just underwent a major transition step. The counter to that is that if you must, KDE 3.5 is still vaguely supported; otherwise, wait 3 weeks for 4.2 (or a few months if you want to stick to the Ubuntu repos).
Qt is GPL as opposed to GTK's LGPL, so you can't write proprietary software using KDE's primary toolkit unless you purchase a special license from Trolltech/Nokia. If that has any impact on your ideals one way or the other (maybe you like enforced open source, or maybe you like the freedom to issue your GUI based software under your choice of license), there you go.
So really, it's just a matter of preference. Try out both. See what you like. I've found a few features in KDE that I like over Gnome, but there are features that I miss from Gnome as well. Everything is a trade off.
aaaantoine said: On the other hand, Gnome has been employing Mono to great lengths, which is a controversial design direction.
GNOME has not been employing Mono at all. Popular apps that work well in GNOME (and distros like to have by default) are developed in Mono. I doubt that Mono will ever be in an official GNOME release because that would open up a lot of new and redundant dependencies.
It will continue to be a great language, though, so chances are high that distros will continue to use Mono quite happily. (I just recently learned, for example, that Unity 3D is an amazing graphics engine. With it, Mono is being used for commercial software on platforms like the iPhone and Nintendo Wii, thus annihilating Microsoft .Net on its own turf by being so pleasantly portable). It's quite unfair to label GNOME for the actions of a third party, when really what this shows is that GNOME has a diverse selection of software that fits the environment. I've been happy to see a lot of proprietary vendors use technologies native to GNOME - GTK, most often - for their Linux software. Amazon has recently done this, for example. It makes things easier for everyone. It may be proprietary software, but the important part is that it works well and feels consistent with the rest of the desktop, which using GTK allows.
PS: I will jump out of the Mono discussion now because I vowed never to enter one again!
Mr. Picklesworth said: GNOME has not been employing Mono at all. Popular apps that work well in GNOME (and distros like to have by default) are developed in Mono.
Pardon my misunderstanding of the situation. I will edit my post to remove such misinformation.
aaaantoine said: Indeed.
I've used Gnome 2.24 and KDE 4.1 at length. Obviously at this current point in time Gnome is more complete than KDE because KDE just underwent a major transition step. The counter to that is that if you must, KDE 3.5 is still vaguely supported; otherwise, wait 3 weeks for 4.2 (or a few months if you want to stick to the Ubuntu repos).
Qt is GPL as opposed to GTK's LGPL, so you can't write proprietary software using KDE's primary toolkit unless you purchase a special license from Trolltech/Nokia. If that has any impact on your ideals one way or the other (maybe you like enforced open source, or maybe you like the freedom to issue your GUI based software under your choice of license), there you go.
So really, it's just a matter of preference. Try out both. See what you like. I've found a few features in KDE that I like over Gnome, but there are features that I miss from Gnome as well. Everything is a trade off.
It's called a dual license, it's not a "special" license, if you write a proprietary application who is going to support it?, pretty sure freesoftware devs wont and I think the customers of the app will want it fixing quick because they paid money for it(supported).
CraigPaleo said: And why on Earth would Fedora ship with the default Nautilus he describes? How is that useful at all?
They ship it like that because that's the default nautilus uses.
As to how it's useful, it certainly doesn't sound that way. Users who figure out how it's meant to be used often start to like it though. The fact that it remembers position, size, and look of your folders allows great customizability.
Many users dislike it though, that's why it's easy to change.
I'm just afraid that the members there will believe it and not even give Gnome a chance. It's not a linux forum so all they have to go on is what he says about it. I've corrected him some but I'm just a newbie.
And why on Earth would Fedora ship with the default Nautilus he describes? How is that useful at all?
P.S. I'm a Gnome user but would feel it just as unfair if it were reversed. KDE Gnomee@
Erik Trybom said: Actually I think it's best not to feed the troll in this case. The KDE vs Gnome flamewar is one of the oldest there is, and every week new recruits think they have a useful opinion on the matter (which of course they don't).
Leave it be I say. +1, completely agree on this.
It's old, worn out, and quite frankly, it's out-right annoying nowdays - this topic has been debated to a pulp.
Eisenwinter said: +1, completely agree on this.
It's old, worn out, and quite frankly, it's out-right annoying nowdays - this topic has been debated to a pulp.
This was no debate. I'm not talking about opinion here. This guy had no idea what he was talking about or was just flat out lying about the facts. Now he's contradicted himself so hopefully his comparison doesn't hold any water.
Eisenwinter said: +1, completely agree on this.
It's old, worn out, and quite frankly, it's out-right annoying nowdays - this topic has been debated to a pulp.
This was no debate. I'm not talking about opinion here. This guy had no idea what he was talking about or was just flat out lying about the facts. Now he's contradicted himself so hopefully his comparison doesn't hold any water.