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GNOME GUI

GNOME 1.2 - What's In It For You? 243

Posted by timothy from the gnomatter-what-happens dept.
Ur@eus writes: "We have just posted an article at Linuxpower.org desribing what's new in the GNOME 1.2 release. Since the GNOME press release was kinda thin I think this will be of interest to many people. You'll find the article here. " A nice overview, for non-Gnomers especially. You'll find even more beautiful screenshots, as well as more general information, on the Helixcode site.
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GNOME 1.2 - What's In It For You? More

GNOME 1.2 - What's In It For You?

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  • KDE: an easy, accessible GUI designed to attract users of some proprietary non-operating systems to the GNU world, while not being exactly GNU itself (Qt, IIRC). Even looks as ugly as those NOSs.

    Gnome: a hack in itself, hugely configurable, designed to attract 31337 h4x0r5 from the console. Looks überk3wl. Made of k3wlar.

    8-]
  • I'll probably get flames for this, but here it goes...

    My situation is this:

    I'm in the process of switching from Windows to Linux (at least on my home computer). Right now I'm seaching for programs that can replace my existing applications or to say it better, fulfil my needs.

    My needs are not very different than what most other users want (and it should be GUI apps):

    1. A browser.
    2. Something for handling email, contacts, notes and todo's (preferably with support for my Palm).
    3. An office suite, especially wordprocessing is critical.
    4. All the other stuff (player for various audio/video formats, filemanager, etc.)

    #1 Doesn't exist yet, Netscape is ugly and the fonts are to small.
    Mozilla is looking good, but it is not stable enough yet.
    Konquerer looks pretty cool too, but I haven't tried it yet (but I am going to try the KDE2 betas soon).

    #2 Exist, but I haven't researched it much yet. Input is very welcome.

    #3 Exist, Staroffice comes to mind, but also the upcomming KOffice sounds cool, and of course there is Abiword, Gnumeric and others.

    #4 Does exist, and should cause much troubly generally.

    I've just installed Gnome 1.2.0. Here is my take:

    The install was absolutely smooth - very cool.
    It looks cool and gives you a very clean desktop - much nicer than the latest KDE (version 1.1.2), but KDE2 is, OTOH, on it's way.
    It should be easier to install an internet connection.
    The start menu has to be "slower" - maybe it is just me, but I easily end up on the desktop, because I didn't guide my mouse properly (it should be easy to fix though).
    The control center is pretty cool, but it should only be neccesary to hit "OK" once, even if you make multible changes.

    It is a "work in progress", and therefore not stable enough. With stable I mean that *all* the applications should work "out of the box". The "Slashdot applet" and the XMMS' playlist doesn't - before releasing it, they should at least check that all works!
    Futhermore various other apps has been crashing on me - it shouldn't when you install a total fresh Desktop Environment.

    Overall Gnome 1.2.0 is a major leap forward, but it still needs some maturity, which is why I think most distributions uses KDE. It simply is generally more mature and gives the users a better overall experience.

    It all fine that the kernel is rock solid, but if the desktop environment or the apps crashes all the time, then what do Windows users gain?
    I want it all rock solid - not just the kernel.

  • The thing to do is go to the directory it sets up in tmp either rename it or move the files elsewere. Clicking on ok deletes the temporay directory empty or not. Remember the installer is set up for the NEWBIE not the guru.


    That is what we call unacceptable default behavior, and is not the way you show off how well your Desktop Environment works. It would be like Windows wiping your HD after your CD burner makes a coaster.
  • Yes, *but*, unlike in C++, the pointer passed to these objects would be a pointer to the base, unless you casted.
  • I'd have to agree with this comment. I'd say that it was the easiest upgrade for a major component in any OS. Run the command at the helix site, click 3 times and let the installer do the rest. It worked perfectly for me the first time I tried it. It's things like this installer that will make Linux popular in the mainstream.
  • Just a hint for you. Lots of people use SaMBa on a 6 client workgrope LAN.

    There are ways around these performance issues. I admin a huge mixed network sometimes. Like I said the problems are way below the interface.

    Tell me about the security issues. I don't see how not telling users what is shared where will save you from anything. If a user is too clueless to use a particular resource properly he should be denied permission. If he is willing and able to abuse the system deliberately then not telling him what is out there will stall him for maybe 5 seconds.

  • The one that loses is the one that has the fewest users and a declining userbase. Since both DEs have their own API, a DE can lose the battle if nobody develops for that API. If most people start using KDE, then few people will bother to develop for GTK/GNOME, thus GNOME will have lost the battle.

    Correct. However you conveniently ignore the fact that the reverse can also occur. Will it? I don't know. But it's about as likely as your scenario is.

    Speed and resource usage. KDE 2.0 is by far faster than any version of GNOME, and takes a significant amount less memory.

    Have you by any chance used Gnome 1.2? Didn't think so. Go use it. Then come back and say that again. Or don't, if you suddenly find that statement you made holds no water whatsoever.

    This disparity will only widen in the future, since the general GNOME infrastructure will grow quite a bit in 2.0, while KDE's probably won't grow much beyond 2.0 since the basic functionality is in place.

    You're some sort of psychic, I take it? It seems to me as though Gnome and KDE are making the exact same types of changes along their paths to 2.0. New file managers, component architectures, themeability on KDE's side, etc. Gnome's added a 1.2 step, but what's the harm in that?

    Couple this with the fact that DCOP/KParts is far superior to Bonobo in terms of speed and resource usage (though maybe not as flexible in a distrubuted environment) KDE bowls GNOME over in the speed/resource usage deparment.

    And you speak from... how much experience? As I thought, none. Go use it, then come back when you can make arguments and back them up. If you can't back up your arguments, you're just flaming.

    KDE still has a much tighter integration between apps than GNOME does. It only takes a cursory look at Corel Linux to show what a little ingenuity and KDE can do to make Linux almost as friendly as Windows for the desktop user.

    Ah, and thus we get to the whole crux of your argument, and the real reasn you're posting: "KDE is better because I'm a Corelite." Let's see your examples. I hve no doubt they probably exist, but where are they? You're certainly not too cooperative in pointing them out. Why not?

    KDE has far better apps and much more developer support.

    According to whom? KDE has StarOffice, but other than that every KDE app I've seen has a Gnome analog. For the most part, the revere is also true.

    Sure the KDE libraries can be loaded, but with the increased bloat in both 2.0 level libraries, people will increasingly wish to not have to load the libraries twice.

    Again, you conveniently ignore the fact that the people could just as well choose Gnome as KDE.

    As such, they will stick to the DE that has the most/best apps.

    Which is...? Your answer is conspicuously absent. As if you realized that since you have near-zero experience with Gnome, particularly recent versions, you just might be wrong. Use them, if only for a little while, so you can make a real comparison in that regard.

    And please don't forget that even if you are correct, that means little. Remember, people stuck with Windows, which hardly has the "best" apps (the single possible exception being Excel, and both Linux DE's have spreadsheets which are coming along quite nicely in that regard).

    KDE is more familer. Diehard Linuxites call it being too Windowy, but it is a big strength for the rest of us who grew up on the start menu and Explorer.

    For better or for worse, Gnome is just as Windowsy as KDE. And both are getting even more Windowsy as the versions progress. It's quite sad, really. You'd think the Open-Source community could do better, interface-wise. It's been done. NeXT had a better GUI which was almost completely original. So did MacOS. Win9x and OSX are fusions of these two; Win9x took the worst of both and added some decidedly anticompetitive elements. It'll be interesting to see if OSX has it done right (I admit I don't like some of what I see, but I'll reserve judgement until I've actually used the thing).

    These factors, coupled with increasing support for KDE from the business community will allow KDE to become the dominant Linux desktop.

    Show me your "growing support from the business community." I don't see it. I saw StarOffice getting KDE integration back when it was still proprietary (versus the pseudo-proprietary Community-Source liense it's under now). Oh, and Corel bundles it with their system. That's all I ever saw. If there's more I'd be glad to hear about it, but I simply don't see it anywhere.

    However they seem to think that putting the biggest, most memory hogging features into the DE will automatically make it better.

    Give an example of a "big, memory-hogging" feature Gnome has that doesn't make it better.

    Software size and quality seems to not be a very top priority, and software speed seems to be an even lower priority.

    Depends. Everyone knows that Gnome 1.0 was released too early; I can't dispute that claim. It was underfeatured and unstable. The stability got fixed quite some time ago. 1.2 adds more of the features. Not all of them yet; a few are still in development (Bonobo and Nautilus, most notably).

    Speed... well, I'm not so sure. A lot of that seems to have to do with Imlib. Everything that I've seen that replaced it wuth gdk-pixbuf seemed to get a big kick in the pants, speed-wise.

    Of course, you can't expect phenomenal speed when you're drawing your entire GUI with pixmaps. That's a large reason of why Gnome feels so slow for a lot of people. Switch out Sawfish for Window Maker and the Pixmap themes for GTKStep and you've suddenly got a much faster desktop. I like Sawfish myself, and used it for several months, but as of this moment it just doesn't seem to be able to touch Window Maker for speed and stability, though Window Maker's icons do get in the way on a Gnome desktop. Things may have changed with the developmental gdk-pixbuf versions of Sawfish; I intend to try it out as soon as I manage to compile the thing.

    Either way, this is what's wrong with the state of discussion on Slashdot. People don't debate anymore; they just flame. They'll spout drivel like this post's parent, which say a lot but prove nothing, and thus are no better than "Gnome sucks! No, KDE sux0rz! No way, Gnome 0wnZ KDE! No, KDE is ph4r m0r3 k-r4d @nd l33t! No, you must PH3AR GNOME!" What happened to people not jut making their point, but backing it up? OK, so Gnome sucks NINJA ass; why? OK, so maybe KDE sucks big fat naked petrified donkey dick; why? The point is, unless we get into real discussion, and point out the relative strengths and weaknesses of the two systems, neither one is going to truly improve. They'll just get stuck in an endless feature war, neither one getting the features users really want. They'll just try to one-up the other, and the end result won't be any better than Win2K.
  • A lot of programs require gnome libs because they provide a lot of functionality which would be a pain in the ass to code yourself. For example, I'm the author of PowerShell [sourceforge.net], and writing it without Gnome-libs would require me to write the terminal emulation code myself. Why bother, when it's already there? Now, I try to support diversity and try to provide RPMs, DEBs, tarballs, CVS access, etc., so that people can run it on non-RedHat systems. It's also in FreeBSD ports and as soon as I get off my ass I'm going to fix stuff so that it works on Solaris and IRIX as well.

    About apps spawning Gnome panels when run, I agree with you that that's just ridiculous (unless, of course, you're running a panel applet.)
    --
  • Hey I luv console, but if you use GUI it doesn't mean you're not a hacker.

    Hell, it's hard to be a hacker on the console. Ever try to run a pair of makes, emacs, a web brower to look at online docs, info and man all on the console? Gets pretty crowded, even with virtual terminals. :)

    Really, the only thing I actually need a GUI at all for is Netscape - most everything else is console apps anyway. But I figure if I'm going to use a GUI I should use a really tricked out one...
  • > Well, excuse me, but if you follow the slashdot announcements of GNOME, there is a question each time about whether this GNOME version is stable. And every time the answer is "Yes, it's been rocksolid".

    I have been following both /. and the GNOME announcements list continuously since before version 0.30. The only versions of GNOME that I recall ever being announced either place are 0.30, 0.9x, 1.0, 1.0.53 (= October GNOME), some kind of 1.2 pre-release, and now 1.2 (originally expected to be called April GNOME). The 0.30, 0.9x, and the pre-1.2 cannot be considered "stable releases" no matter how you want to spin them. 1.0 came with at least an implicit warranty of stability, which it was not. I am not aware of anyone anywhere ever claiming otherwise since the day it was released. Version 1.0.53 is rock solid, at least in my experience on three systems running completely different hardware, different kernels, etc, plus less frequent use on four other systems of varying configuration. I cannot speak for 1.2, since I have not tried it yet, but I have not yet seen anyone saying that it is unstable. (Nor that it is the first "rocksolid" release, since anyone who ever ran 1.0.53 knows otherwise.)

    The only GNOME that ever failed to live up to expectations was the original 1.0. That was fixed by 1.0.53.

    In short, you continue to misrepresent what the developers and users have been claiming for GNOME, and I am going to continue to point it out as often as I see you post it, so that you will not mislead any lurkers who may not know they shouldn't believe you.

    --
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Re:Gnome Vs KDE (Score:4)

    by blakestah ( 91866 ) <blakestah@gmail.com> on Monday May 29, 2000 @04:23PM (#1039602) Homepage
    If you feel like it, you can port the Qt toolkit to MS-Win32 or to the Mac or to BeOS if you want; there is no license restriction that stops you.

    How about this one ??
    You may make modifications to the Software and distribute your modifications, in a form that is separate from the Software, such as patches.

    So, you can port QT to win32, you simply have to do it in a way that the port is a patch that your END USERS will have to successfully apply to QT for linux and then successfully build. That requires your end user to know patch and have whatever compiler you used.

    That makes the chances of any port actually happening pretty close to zero. Technically it can happen, but logistically it is impossible.

    The only "rights" that are extended to Qt-applications are that the user of such an application is granted the right to the source code.

    Also from the QT free license.
    If the items are not available to the general public, and the initial developer if the Software requests a copy of the items, then you must supply one.

    This clause for applications that LINK to QT assure Trolltech that no one will ever write an in house program that requires some degree of privacy without buying QT Pro. If you want privacy in your applications that LINK to QT, you must pay the man. If you want to write programs that use QT and are not GPL, you must pay the man.

    They're a CORPORATION. They survive by MAKING MONEY. Do you understand that? They are being nice by releasing their software under an OSI-approved Open Source license; nobody REQUIRES that they use such a license. Grow up.

    They were ten very good programmers trying to make a buck. I don't fault them for being proprietary, or releasing their product under whatever license they choose. I fault people like you for compromising freedom in software. I fault Eric Raymond and Bruce Perens for not objecting to the license and granting it OSI certification. It fails on the basic, very basic, premise that an open source application should allow derivatives under the same license as the original. Since I could only release QT derivatives as patches on the original, I cannot effectively EVER release a derivative anyone but a hacker would use.

    Now don't get me wrong Chris - I think KDE is fantastic. I simply don't like the licensing upon which it is based. And I think calling it open source is a farce. I would rather see software preserve my freedom to modify it and share my modifications with others. Right now, I lack those freedoms with QT.

    The biggest issues are with the lack of a real right to distribute modifications. That blocks forking. Now, forking in itself is generally bad, but the threat of forking can inspire real competition. Usually that is plenty. It also blocks me from distributing a new patched QT library to Grandma. Since she doesn't do patch.

  • The funny thing is, a while back KDE had a whole bunch of new stuff to announce within a fairly short time and Gnome was comparatively quiet, so Slashdot got slammed for doing more KDE than Gnome coverage.

    Right now Gnome has more to say than KDE. Then, at some point, KDE 2 will appear and the balance will swing the other way.

    So it goes. I've used both desktops and agree that each one has strengths and weaknesses. And the people who develop both desktops are very nice, helpful, and hard-working and both groups deserve plenty of recognition and praise.

    - Robin

  • 1. "Network Neighborhood" : It should feel like the MS version too.

    3. "Stability, Stability and Stability" : So these people have a reputation to work on.

    These are probably incompatible. Network Neighborhood is IMHO one of the top 3 things wrong with Windows.

    --
  • What do the other 10% use?
  • Give screen [gnu.org] a try. It'll let you have an arbitrary number of `windows' at console. They can be pretty easily switched between, though I prefer not to run more than 10 at a time (only 10 numeric keys, after all), but if you add in virtual terminals to the mix...

    There are a lot of things that X just does better than the console, though. Netscape, LyX, TiK, licq, xmms, dockapps, and just the general ability to have sooo many things on one screen at once is very useful. And besides, what use is a big monitor without lots of things to put on it? ;P
    ---

  • The previous poster had it wrong, but the Debian crew has it right.

    KDE 1.x is illegal to distribute in binary form. And this is no fault of QT 1.x, it's just that the KDE developers used a license that was not legal against the QT 1.x license and the GPL. If you want some proof, go start a flamewar on debian-legal.

    KDE 2 should be on better grounds. The QT 2 license is far closer to Open Source. And with a little luck, the KDE developers won't release KDE under a license that is incompatible with that license. Of course, it's not out.

    Now, Gnome on the other hand.. The libs are LGPL. The apps are GPL. No legal stew here. As for development, I'd say GTK+/Gnome is in a better position now. GTK+ has both C and C++ to play with, libglade, bindings to lots of other languages.. KDE has kdevelop (good) but I really don't understand why TrollTech would design their API in a way that requires extra programs to compile the code..

  • Storm In A Teacup? (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Am I alone in wondering whether GNOME is truly worthy of so much recent coverage on Slashdot? Is GNOME really the final word in GUI usability? GNOME still feels to be very much emulating the look and feel of Windows 95, and GNOME even seems to emulate much of Windows' bloat and instability. Much as I hate to admit this, Microsoft reinvented the whole concept of a GUI with the "Start" button and taskbar, which provides the easiest and most efficient way to get things done. The other GUIs (CDE, KDE, GNOME) have all followed suit with similar taskbars, and have been sucessful in their attempts. Sadly, Microsoft are setting the trend in making computers accessible for the average users.

    Considering the Open Source development model has allowed humanity's greatest thinkers to collaborate on GNOME, it seems incredible that the developers are happy to live in the shadow of Microsoft's GUI. And as a wise man once said "He who lives in the shadow is a pale and weak imitation". This is how I feel about GNOME - until the developers decide to show ambition and creatvity, GNOME will always be less than the sum of its parts.

  • I agree 100% KDE is stable, I've yet to see a stable version of Gnome, and yes I've tried 1.2, it is more stable but GTK will never be as good as QT, end of story, and as for aesthetically more pleasing, please, Gnome never looks finished, and gives me a general feeling of being thrown together. (Different sized icons and such)This is just my opinion of course.
  • I'll take the "ten seconds" as hyperbole.

    I wish it was hyperbole. I actually sat down and timed it one time because I couldn't believe how slow it was.


    I work with 4 desktops, with 8 terminal windows and one Netscape browser open. The system is a Compaq ProLiant 8000 with 512 MB of RAM, 9 GB of disk (including a 512 MB swap partition), and an ATI video adapter with the XMach64 server. The OS is Red Hat 6.1. Yes, I was running Enlightenment; it was the standard installation, uncustomized. At all. Not even a custom theme loaded.


    The common thread across these comments is Enlightenment being slow. Okkay, fine, but isn't that the standard window manager for GNOME?


    I'm not one of those folks who use GNOME for political reasons - one look at my .sig should tell you that. I use a windowing system because it meets my needs: provides good functionality and fast response time. If GNOME 1.2 corrects the usability problems I ran into with the earlier version, it'll get another look. If it's still slow, it's rpm -e time.
    --

  • Thinking of Evolution, has anyone clicked on the screenshot of "A message with an attachment" [helixcode.com]? I dunno, something about including the ILOVEYOU virus/trojan/whatever in the screenshot really amused me.
  • Choice my man :)
    That's the beauty of Linux (I'll include the *BSDs in this also). If you want to run totally CLI, go for it. If you want to run X with just a lightweight window manager, go for it. If you want to run GNOME and KDE at the same time . . . go for it. :)

    That's the beauty behind the system that we love so much is that everything is replaceable. You can get a different SMTP program and a different mail client if you want. You can install as much or as little as you like. Of course, that goes for your user interface as well.

    Some days I run GNOME, some days I turn it off and just run a Window Manager. So, I get to decide how much 'bloat' I wan't to be running at the time. And since I'm always right about what I want for me . . . it's perfect. (Just like you are always right about what you want.)

    Man I'm in Love with Linux! :)
  • I have downloaded it. Pounded on it. And determined it's pretty good! Replacing Enlightenment with Sawfish was a good thing. Enlightenment is trying to be everything including it's own libraries and everything. Not a good fit with gnome, although it's good you can use it with gnome still. Stability even with the version of gnome with Red Hat 6.1 was never too bad, in my opinion. Even when the panel does crash it snaps back (on both the pre-october and 1.2). The thing I find crashing a bit is some of the panel applets. Usually happens on my system when I go to remove it from the panel. But when the panel snaps back, I can usually remove it no problem. Must be a memory leak in there or something. I'd rather have panel crashes then BSOD's anyday!

  • > I tried versions up to 1.0 and still they had panel crashes every hour or so.

    Version 1.0 should have been labeled as a pre-release. However, version 1.0.53, the "October GNOME", was quite stable, and has only shown me a couple of bugs even though in continuous use since then (much less trouble than I ever had under Windows 95).

    --
  • It's not about zealotry, it's about choice. Obviously when you have two products that offer the same services, one is going to be better at some things than the other is not and vice versa. The beauty with having both KDE and GNOME is you can choose which one better suits you, which from my experience would be KDE if you want stability (if you can call it that) and GNOME if you want a pretty interface. Then there's the countless other options... It's all up to you. So don't complain when a product gets coverage. That's the last thing that we need. More coverage of more products makes us more informed and the products that get covered even better because of feedback. I'd rather be aware of a product that sucks (not saying GNOME or KDE sucks, just a hypothetical) than not know it exists at all.
  • Also, NFS doesn't have a mechanism for saying "show me all your shares". That would be a security problem, like it is on Microsoft LANs.

    Ahem, try
    showmount --exports servername


  • KDE-2.0 in BETA and Gnome 1.2 on it's way out soon. XF86-4.0 is out and the new Kernel has gone into the "Linus vacation stage". We should be seeing serious Linux desktop movements this christmas.

    Never mind Wine heading to 1.0 ( eventually ). The big question isn't even "will you be using KDE or Gnome?". Most of us have already made that decision. The mystery is "what will the new users coming to Linux use?" RedHat and Debian don't install KDE as the default. All the other desktop wanabees do. RedHat is very strong with new users. Most people here of them as the #1 Linux.

    What this split means is that for the next year or two ( at least ) KDE and Gnome will be pushing the technology and the usability as much as possible. This ongoing conflict continues to attract young developers with nifty apps. It's this competing against each other that let them beet the tar out of CDE ( At least the Sun and SCO implementations I have used ) and draw close to Mac and Win98 in some respects and even pass them in others.

    Here is my top 5 list of neto things to add before releasing either of these desktops in the next version.

    1. "Network Neighborhood" : It should feel like the MS version too.

    2. "Drag to resize" : This on Taskbars.

    3. "Stability, Stability and Stability" : So these people have a reputation to work on.

    4. "File Format compatibility" : Frankly. I would want Koffice and Goffice apps to use the same file formats. It's bad enough when you need to keep tweaking a semi broken filter for MS bloatware but why shouldn't KO and GO use the exact same blend of XML and compression.

    5. "On the fly resolution switching" : Yes this is really something XF86 doesn't do but I still want to gripe about it. ctrl alt - dose part of it. not all.
  • the situations isn't *quite* as bad:
    1) there is a way to do it that doesn't broadcast all the time: have one machine take care of the counting. that's what Windows does with their "WINS" servers. but this has its own problems too; to make it work reliably you want this to be on a fixed machine that's always on, and to configure its IP in the others in a fixed way.
    2) there is a way to ask an NFS server for its export list: showmount -e hostname
  • <i> it seems to me to be reminiscent of some of the bloat that i switched to linux to get away from.</i>

    yeah, but at least this is *free* bloat :) Almost like the joys of *free* beer(tm). :)

    speaking of free beer bloat after today's Holiday celebrations I have a ton of it ;-)
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • I think both GNOME and KDE have taken the beneficial parts of Microsoft's GUI and left out the parts that are either extraneous or just plain bloated.

    Unfortunatelly, not all of them. Have you tried using GNOME apps without a mouse? Its possible (sometimes only with the help of XFree86 MouseKeys), but inconvenient. Can you place two or more toolbars in the same row (or a toolbar next to the menu) to save some screen real estate? Heck, some of the apps won't even let me switch on small toolbar icons and turn off the text. (Besides, GNOME/KDE copied Windows Explorer, which IMnsHO is a pure piece of unnecessary bloat. MC in an xterm is the way to go! :-)

    OK, I'm ranting here. GNOME does look very nice. I only wish it would feel a little bit better. That's why I prefer plain IceWM over a desktop environment. IceWM's focus is on feel, not on the look. I still hope I can say the same thing about GNOME/KDE eventually.

  • I know what you mean. Helix has always had cool splashes, even if I reveal my shallowness by saying so.
  • >>that let them beet the tar out of CDE

    >I guess you haven't used CDE much then.

    I have. On HP-UX workstations, for about a year and a half at work.

    It was much less flexible, more difficult to reconfigure, uglier, and more limited in what functionality it offered the user, compared to current stable versions of either Gnome or KDE. That sounds like a broad, sweeping statement, but it applies to every specific aspect of the system I used often: the window manager, the panel, the configuration system, the help screens, the text editor, and the file manager. Well, to be honest I didn't use the file manager often. You wouldn't either, given either moderate shell proficiency or a choice like gmc or kfm.

    It was more stable than KDE Beta 4 or Gnome 1.0, but more recent versions of both have negated that deficiency too, or reversed it if you consider the system as a whole. My officemate last year had more crashes on his $8000 workstation (3, I think) than I did on my $3000 Linux/XFree/Gnome PC; though to be fair it looked like X server or OS crashes, not a CDE problem.

    Maybe because of the recent opening of the source on Motif it'll be more likely we'll see these things getting ported over

    They have been ported over. Red Hat, for one, sold CDE/Motif for Linux before either Gnome or KDE existed. Didn't catch on, did they?

    but so far, the new open-source "modern" desktop environments are only being used as a secondary to CDE on anything but the open-source OSes.

    Because CDE is usually preinstalled, because the modern (ooh, look, if you put it in quotes it looks dubious!) desktop environments aren't as simple to install (or even compile, on many, particularly older, systems) as they are on Linux, and because on most networks they can't be installed by the users, only by admins who may be afraid of change or reluctant to put in the work.

    I think it'll be a long time before anything "beats the tar out of CDE" as far as sheer number of users.

    Actually, it's already happened. It was last year sometime when the rate of new Linux server purchases exceeded that of other Unix servers. And when you consider the relatively greater usage of Linux on cheaper workstations, and the number of non-purchased Linux installs, I think it's a safe bet that there are more Gnome and KDE users total. Whether either desktop individually surpasses CDE yet is questionable, but they both will within the next year, and rightfully so.
  • I would also love to see this feature added. My (minimal) usage of beos r4.5 really impressed me with their implementation of multiple desktops with varying resolutions.
  • Those screen shots are, in a word, gorgeous. I'll have to fire up the Cable Modem tonite for sure.

    This whole GNOME/KDE thing will be rendered moote if the package actually IS stable and easy to use. The reason? The people we want to run Linux/BSD/TRU64/*nix-flavour-of-the-day mostly use Windows at the moment. A UI this nice, this pleasing to the eye will draw them like bees to honey. Never underestimate the power a pretty picture has over John Q User. If they get work done, so much the better.

    Right now I use KDE - but will likely end up using GNOME. Just to show off the pretty screens to the lusers looking over my shoulder.
  • Puh-lease yourself.OO generally requires an OO language, anything else is a hack. There *is* a functional difference between the C code and the C++ code --- The C code requires assignment of the function pointer every time the class is created. Also, since the this pointer is passed implicitly in C++, the compiler can optimize it away by storing it in a register or other high-speed storage location, whereas in C, it must be passed the same way all other pointers are.

    Also, how the heck do you plan to handle virtual functions? In your create function, you could create a struct with that struct as its first member, yes, but then what happens when you try to use the pointer passed to it? You must cast it for a derived class. Ugly hack.

    Your lack of knowledge is evidenced by your somewhat misleading C++ code.

    class widget {
    public:
    void open(); // Note that in C++
    void close(); // empty parenthases
    // mean (void). Also,
    // try doing comments
    // like this in C.
    };

    Try doing *this* in C:

    template class AnimationWidget: public Widget, private
    DisplayOfAnimation
    {
    public:
    virtual void Tick(); // Overrided
    virtual void DrawWidget(); // Overrided
    void SetAnimation(AnimationType* t);
    AnimationType* GetAnimation();

    private: // Yes, encapsulation is a *good* thing
    AnimationType m_Animation;
    Timer m_Timer; // Yes, *class member*.
    };

    Templates and operator overloading are fine *when used properly*. If you complain about templates in C++, then one can complain about casting in C. Both have high potential for abuse. C++ doesn't force operator overloading upon you, either.

    Encapsulation of class members is also impossible in C without some compiler trickery. Don't complain that encapsulation isn't neccecary --- every time you have used a static global variable or static function, you have used encapsulation.

    You make an unfair argument by equating one of the most basic features of C++ with the C version, and then attacking an advanced feature of C++ that C could not possibly implement. I suspect you dislike these things because they cannot be implemented in C (Without something like CFront, anyway.).
  • Midnight Coder wrote:
    "I accept that this is an anti-KDE site and continue to read it anyway (not so often nowadays but I still visit regularly), it's your web site and you can cover whatever stories you like.

    However I take offense at being lied to. Do you really think I'm so stupid that I can't see the favoritism?"

    Hold on - you must be joking, right?!

    Please re-read my post above. a) I can't speak for the other authors, like I said, but I can assure you that any bias you percieve is only on the part of indivual posters, certainly not some sort of policy or directive from Rob. b) why in the world would I want to be anti-KDE? There are licensing issues that are well-known but which frankly I am not swayed by. Since KDE is my primary desktop, perhaps I've simply let me pro-KDE bias distort my morals or something.

    But if you're trolling ... well, OK, I'd rather respond than not in this case :) I *like* KDE, am not against it in favor of Gnome. Or vice versa, though. Slashdot has a bunch of authors, each of whom is free to feel, and post, otherwise.

    Why spread hostility? Each of the desktops has its own advantages, and we'll continue to post news about them both.

    Where is the lie?

    Honestly confused, timothy

  • This "you can't do OO in plain C" attitude is silly and immature. Anyone who has done any work on a large (>100,000 line) C project has probably run into OO methodologies employed within the program.

    Certainly, OO in C is possible (and done all the time). Of course, the question is more "which is it easier to do OO in?", in which case the answer is obviously C++ (no Java/Python/whatever comments please, I'm talking about C and C++ only here).

    Heck, you can do OO in assembly if you have a good design and structure your code properly.

    I'm not much of an asm programmer (just inline stuff), but it seems like that would be pretty hard without some decent data structures.
  • It's not the splash screen that's he's talking about, it's the overall impression that Gnome is inviting. And yes, that is partially the reason for Big Software Companies' successes. Joe Consumer doesn't care how technical something is, as long as it works, and most importantly: works in a way they can understand.

    My grandmother doesn't want to edit configuration files in order to get X to work, she wants to buy a computer and have it work without trouble on her part. Gnome's splash screen gives that impression.

    -----
  • Please don't suggest f*cked hardware, thats what Windows NT users say every day when thier beloved OS BSOD's on them.

    Sometimes they're right. It's easy enough to check; simply swap out the hardware. I've had a SCSI card and ethernet card physically fail in the last two years, and I've seen two DIMMs, a video card, and a hard drive fail among my friends. It happens. RAM failures are the worst, as it's basically impossible to distinguish between unstable software and stable software running on unstable RAM. Swapping out the RAM to test or heavily loading it with known stable software (a large compile in Linux, for example) is still possible.

    Also, most Linux users are more hardware savvy than the Windows crowd.

    That means they know how to avoid low-quality hardware, not how to telepathically detect when their quality hardware goes bad. These things all have their MTBF, you know.

    "It must be the hardware." is a last resort Windiot explanation.

    True, but that doesn't mean it isn't sometimes a correct one.

    Even when it's not the hardware, it can be the drivers. Adaptec drivers in Linux are pretty shaky when the hardware returns unexpected (but correctable) errors, for instance, and I've seen Windows systems go from daily crashes to stability with updated video drivers.

  • Re:slightly on topic, slightly off (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    First off...

    I haven't seen a single Gnome app spawn a panel without an option. Sure, gnomeicu *BY DEFAULT* wants to make a little docking icon thing for the panel, but it is configurable in the options as well as at the command line "gnomeicu -a". Other programs are similar as well.

    Second point:

    Helix has made debs for a long while now, and they have been available for the general public to apt-get for around a week or so. Many Helix people are Debian users, by the way.
  • Well I run KDE on my desktop - but that doesn't
    stop me to run Gnome applications.
    For example Gaim is a great program, so I use
    that.

    I'd be interested to see a comparison between
    KDE/Gnome apps - which has the better application
    for which task?

    Then I want to pick and choose. :^)
  • I switched from GNOME to KDE because, on a quad Pentium II Xeon 450, I got tired of asking to switch windows with the mouse, waiting ten seconds, and still typing at the wrong window...has that gotten any better?
    --

  • Get it right (Score:5)

    by listen ( 20464 ) on Monday May 29, 2000 @02:26PM (#1039644)
    The general tone of the comments here makes me want to weep - I can not believe the amount of bitching.

    There are a few points of FUD always bandied about in these discussions.

    1) GNOME is unstable.
    This is wrong, plain and simple. 1.0 was released too early, and gave people a bad impression. Does the fact that GNOME was unstable make it unstable now? No!

    2) GNOME is a hack.
    People generally say this because they can not understand OO in C. If you like C++, fine, use it.
    Use one of the GTK C++ bindings, eg gtk--.
    The GTK+ object system is more flexible due to its dynamic nature, and it is (in my experience) easier to know what is going on - no pointer assignments doing copies remotely over CORBA, due to the fun of operator overloading.

    3) Its all an RMS conspiracy against KDE.
    This is the "Debian hates KDE!" type stuff.
    The fact is that it is a breach of the licence to distribute KDE in binary form right now, as they still don't seem to have made up their minds on what to do (Artistic Licence, GPL exception).
    This will be fixed I'm sure.

    There are a lot of other stupid things people say,
    but by now I would hope /. moderators would know not to moderate that kind of post up.

  • One problem (Score:3)

    by fluxrad ( 125130 ) on Monday May 29, 2000 @02:30PM (#1039646)
    you're forgetting one thing. much like microsoft installs it's own proprietary shit and basically forces it down people's throats, we're coming to this in the linux world now too. "You need the GNOME libs for this program" or that program, or whatever. Choice is rapidly becoming necessity :(

    More and more programs are going to rely on GNOME to supply something and that's where it gets hairy. It comes down to either use GNOME because it's got a lot of shit writen for it, or use the CLI or blackbox or E and suffer the consequences for not using the window manager that everyone else is using, and more importantly, coding for.

    Oh well, c'est la vie. I still have my guitar.


    FluX
    After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network

  • Re:Please... (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    What a lot of people don't seem to understand is that it is perfectly possible to use standard GTK in a C++ program. This is what we do in Abiword. That way we get all the flexibility of the run-time configurability of plain GTK with all benefits of doing Object Oriented programming in a Language designed for it, C++.

    It Works. No Problems :-).

    I've just started to look at GTK--. It looks like a better way to use GTK in a C++ program but was not available in a stable form till now. Abiword very sensibally used the working base of plain GTK we probabally won't switch. The GUI front front end is rather minor part of a program as complex as a full featured Word Processor.

    As for the flame against GNOME, it is clearly incorrect by number of users using and number of developers developing for GNOME. No argument needed. The facts speak for themselves. That is not to say that KDE is not a great piece of software :-)

    Martin Sevior

    Abiword Developer

  • GNOME, for me, is the only way to go. I adore it. People in this forum have noted the similarities between it and the Windows environment, but there's a depth in GNOME that's not present in the MS desktops.

    Yes, 'out of the box' it has a 'start' button, a taskbar, and even a little clock in the same place. But if you take a little time to experiment, you may notice that any part of it can be turned off. Other bits can be turned on. You actually have complete control (a startling revelation for some people).

    What the GNOME people seem to have done is take all the popular ELEMENTS from the most popular GUIs and built them all as components that can be added in. You like a Mac interface better? Well all the pieces are there. Rearrange a few things, turn things on and off, and you've got one.

    Think for a minute - GNOME seems to be all about accessability, so is it a surprise it defaults to looking a bit like a Win95 interface? Of course not. Show me a person who has a computer and doesn't have a clue how to drive Win95 these days. It's an ACCESSABLE interface, and quite good for a novice user to get the confidence to keep exploring and changing things.

    What GNOME is growing into is a wonderful system where the elements that make any GUI great are all there, but it's up to the user to decide which bits are of value to them. If you like taskbars, have a taskbar. Virtual desktops, take them or leave them. Start menu, optional extra.

    For me, this is the major strength with GNOME. It doesn't judge other systems. It embraces and extends. :)
  • That requires your end user to know patch and have whatever compiler you used.

    Perhaps, but if they're on a Linux system anyway, it's your duty as any kind of developer to make your instructions lucid and clear enough for anyone to be able to patch your version of Qt into the main one. Standard tools such as diff and patch are available with *every* Linux distro that I know of, as well as *BSD and most of the UNIX variants in existence. If your grandma can't follow simple directions such as "Download it to this directory and run these commands" then maybe your grandma doesn't speak english?

    Your argument has some holes in it...

    If you want to write programs that use QT and are not GPL, you must pay the man.

    Not quite- your app doesn't have to be GPL, it can be GPL or QPL or a couple of the other OSI approved licenses. However, your source must be available or else yes, you do have to pay the man. What's wrong with that?

    It fails on the basic, very basic, premise that an open source application should allow derivatives under the same license as the original.

    All future versions and/or derivatives are going to be released under the QPL. That argument is just false.

    ... I cannot effectively EVER release a derivative anyone but a hacker would use.

    Taking your grandma analogy farther, would you really want her to be downloading/installing unchecked versions of libraries? If she has any common sense, she should only be using the Troll Tech version of Qt- you never know what other people might try to put into the library. If you have a truly useful patch, you can submit it to Trolltech and they'll incorporate it into their main branch. If you have a cute little patch which makes all QObjects place your name in text in the lower right corner, that should not be releasable as the official Qt library and I wouldn't want you to name it that and put it on your web site.

    Basically, all that I can say is that Qt provides two distinct ways to write software for people who want to use the toolkit. If you want to make money off of it, you have to pay them first. If you're going to make your product free and reusable, then you don't owe them anything. What's the matter with that?
  • What exactly are KDE and Gnome? Are they a combination of the GUI toolkit and a collection of programs like the toolbar and Gnumeric and such?

    Pretty much. They consist of a set of libraries, including a widget library, inter-application communication, and other useful utilities like printing, a set of utilities like file managers, and applications which make use of their facilities.

    Where do they stand in relation to X itself and a window manager?

    They stand above the X protocol, and therefore machines using either have all the nice networking abilities of X. All existing X applications run fine under either system.

    Any window manager will work with either KDE or GNOME, but there are some window managers which have extra capabilities which make them work better with the systems. KDE ships with its own window manager, kwm, and GNOME ships with Sawfish, but GNOME has shipped with Enlightenment in the past.

    Is there any real difference between KDE and Gnome, or are they just two different products filling the same niche (like IE vs. Netscape)?

    From a user's perspective, there's not a great deal. Frankly, until the office suites get closer to release, the decision isn't all that important.

    From an ideological perspective, Qt (the base toolkit on which KDE is derived) is under a licence which is free enough to be regarded as open-source and RMS-free, but is a real pain as it is viewed by many (including the Debian project) as being GPL-incompatible. Therefore, in the view of Debian, KDE violates its own licence! The KDE people, however, disagree.

    From a programmer's perspective, the toolkits are different - Qt/KDE is based around C++, and Gtk+/GNOME are based around C. Up until recently, the C++ support for GNOME has been regarded as pretty bad, and the C support from KDE equally so. They have made some other differing architectural decisions - GNOME is using CORBA to support object embedding, where KDE is using their own protocol.

    Finally, I'd just like to point out that GNOME apps run fine on a KDE desktop and vice versa. So, provided you have enough memory to keep both widget sets at once without thrashing, choosing one doesn't mean you've lost the other.

    Disclaimer: I use and develop with GNOME, but have no experience with programming KDE apps.

  • FUD. (Score:3)

    by rjh ( 40933 ) <rjh@sixdemonbag.org> on Monday May 29, 2000 @04:40PM (#1039663)
    First off, there is no war. There is no conflict. Hell, there isn't even competition for mindshare, since all of the great KDE apps get GNOMEified in short order and the great GNOME apps get QTified in short order. It's possible that in the future this will cease to be the case as GNOME and KDE focus on not-entirely-compatible technologies (GNOME uses CORBA, while KDE is moving to a more lightweight toolkit), but for right now it's the case.

    1. SPEED AND RESOURCE USAGE.

    Benchmarks are lovely things; there are so many results you can choose to get. :) Find me a benchmark which says KDE is slow and I'll find you one that says GNOME is slow.

    2. INTEGRATION BETWEEN APPS.

    Oh, yes, we've seen in Windows 98 how integration between apps is always to the benefit of the end-user. (Note to KDE fans: I'm not comparing KDE's level of uniformity to Windows' sickening degree of the same. I'm just pointing out uniformity and integration are not the be-all of environments.)

    There's a wise proverb about "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds", or something to that effect. Consistency is good up until it becomes a foolish consistency, at which point it becomes horrible ("WTF does Microsoft mean, it's `intuitive' to view my hard drive as a freakin' webpage?!"). Does KDE have a more consistent look and feel? Yes, I'd agree that it does. Is this a selling point? Personal preference. To me, it's a nonissue.

    3. APPLICATIONS AND DEVELOPER SUPPORT.

    Both environments are breaking out all over with new applications and new developers. Last year I had to special-order Dallheimer's Using QT and Harlow's Developing Linux Applications with GTK+. This year there are far more books on the shelves relating to both environments. They're not on the bookshelves for their own sake--they're on the bookshelves because people have been asking for them, and because people are buying them. That shows more than anything else that both are alive and quite well.

    4. KDE IS MORE FAMILIAR.

    Only if you've got a lot of experience using KDE or Windows. Remember: a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin... If GNOME thinks they have a better GUI, then they should put that forward. If the GNUStep people think the OpenStep interface is the be-all end-all of GUIs, they should put that forward.

    Horse-and-buggy transportation was much more familiar to people at the turn of the century. Should I take it they were all fools to abandon the system they knew to experiment with the newfangled, crochety, prone-to-breakdown Model T?

    5. HONORABLE MENTION IN THE FUD CATEGORY

    "[The GNOME developers] seem to think that putting the biggest, most memory hogging features into the DE will automatically make it better..."

    If you didn't bother to read the press release, GNOME 1.2 takes up fewer system resources.

    "Software size and quality seems to not be a very top priority, and software speed seems to be an even lower priority..."

    Strange. Most of the GNOME apps I've seen are pretty modest in their memory footprint. Insofar as quality goes, I've never had any complaint.

    "Features seems to head the list, and everyone knows what that mentality gets you... it gets you Windows 2000."

    GNOME is not about features. Making that assertion shows that you really don't grok the free software movement at all.

    GNOME is about choice. Don't want to use Gnome Terminal? Great, use Powershell. Don't want to use Powershell? Fine, use an xterm.
  • 1 & 3

    /*
    These are probably incompatible. Network Neighborhood is IMHO one of the top 3 things wrong with Windows.
    */

    How so? Exactly what is wrong with a system that will show NFS and SMB shares in your local network requiring '0' effort from the user?

    All the problems I have encountered while using Network neighborhood are actually in the underlying protocols and the general buginess of the OS. The idea of browsing computers and shared resources on a lan just like browsing directories and files on a local file system felt natural the 1st time I saw it and still dose.

  • Re:Gnome Vs KDE (Score:4)

    by blakestah ( 91866 ) <blakestah@gmail.com> on Monday May 29, 2000 @02:33PM (#1039668) Homepage
    I mean dont get me wrong I like gnome alot but KDE has alot more going for it in terms of applications and install base so what gives? I mean I know the whole QPL shit was a problem for most of the Zealots but gnome is still really damn buggy and a fresking resource Hog, Hell compare to kde 1.9 I just dont see why slash has the bias it has.

    KDE is based on a proprietary library. A library that cannot be ported or forked except by its authors. A library that reserves some rights to everything that even links to it. A library that demands a copy of everything that links to it, even if it is private. A library that reserves the right to take your patches and roll them into its proprietary product, all the while NEVER allowing you to distribute anything except its product with your patch separate. You have to distinguish your code from their by separately distributing it - they do not have to distringuish your contributions to their code at all.

    The QPL is about assuring a lifetime of riches for the authors of QT at the expense of the freedoms of its users. GNOME was started specifically to provide freedom to its users.

    All that aside, there are two and only two key factors in the popularity of the desktops GNOME and KDE. Factor one is the preload factor. The more computers come with a desktop loaded, the more it will be used. Helixcode is a HUGE step in getting GNOME onto people's desktops more easily. Other factors are primarily OEM loads (Compaq, Dell, VA Linux...) Most US computers will come with GNOME, most in Europe with KDE.

    Factor two is how easy it is for a non-hack. A successful desktop will make Grandma happy, and Grandma is not a hacker. Grandma wants to download digital photos, print them, send email, shop online... EASILY.

    All this fussing over ORBs and libraries and bloat is worthless. It just doesn't matter in the long run, except for the pride of the programmers. Make it easy, and market it well by getting it preloaded everywhere - or at least making it dern easy to upgrade (witness Helixcode).
  • I agree that GNOME should not be trying to emulate Windows 95. It should be trying to pull the best of Windows 95 and the Macintosh. Right now I'd say that GTK people need to start looking at Quartz (the new graphics engine in OS X) and start looking at trying to implement that functionality.

    Emulation isn't a strike against GNOME or KDE. The Start Button isn't anything new. Look at the Apple menu. And Windows 95 was emulating the Macintosh, which was emulating the Xerox Star (I can't remember if anything came before that). I don't think that emulation is necessarily evil. And by the nature of Open Source, it is in some ways more difficult to emulate. A lot of what drives Open Source development is people seeing a feature on some other system and clamouring to use it on Linux (or BSD or whatever).

    Still, as long as KDE and GNOME have enough modularity and flex built into them, people can experiment with stuff on top of them. The whole window manager issue is no doubt going to go through a lot of evolution over time, at least on the GNOME front. I don't think Sawmill is going to keep its position without a bloody fight.

    KDE and GNOME are playing catch up to Windows and the Macintosh. Maybe to some extent they'll always be playing catch up (at least to Apple, which likes to innovate and push ahead). But maybe someday someone is going to look at some experimental setup out of some university doing work on innovative new user interfaces and decide they want that on their box (or that university may GPL the source code) and Linux GUI's will shoot ahead.
  • "It seems to me that GNOME is just another step in the total GUIness of linux. Sure it's nice, it can do alot of stuff for you, but it's a huge resource hog, and all in all, it seems to me to be reminiscent of some of the bloat that i switched to linux to get away from."

    Okay. I have to ask if A: you read the article; or B: have tried the new release of GNOME? If you haven't then I would suggest you look before you rant.

    According to the article, the resources required by GNOME have gone *down*.

    But if your rant was about GUIs in general then, yeah that's your opinion. Quite frankly, the GUI is the modern interface and is more sophisticated than the command-line.

    And how is this about Microsoft? It has *nothing* to do with Microsoft!! Look, you are using GNU/Linux, browsing the web with Netscape or Lynx, typing your documents with Emacs or Vi, and TeX, and doing mail with Mutt or Netscape Mail. Microsoft doesn't affect you anymore! They are our past. They are gone! Why must you dwell!

    (Okay, I'll calm down now.)
  • 2) there is a way to ask an NFS server for its export list: showmount -e hostname

    That's a bad thing. You should never give up information; if somebody doesn't know what share they want to connect to, they shouldn't be trying to connect.

    I wonder if there's a way to shut that off.
    --
  • I am becoming increasingly disconcerted with the amount of applications that are REQUIRING gnome libs to run.

    Why? I have apps that require imlib, GL, gtk, ncurses, or many other libraries to run. Those libraries make it possible for the app authors to get more functionality out of less new code by accessing the work of others, and they reduce the amount of RAM in use on my system by allowing the same code pages to be loaded once and used by many different processes. Gnome libraries aren't any different; they have extra widgets, XML support, printing support, and other things that every app writer shouldn't have to reinvent.

    And how is this any better than somebody writing an application for Windows only?

    Because Windows isn't freely downloadable, won't work alongside my other Linux apps, doesn't use portable APIs, and takes a hundred times the space of the gnome libraries.

    On a related note, I have been told by friends on the gnome mailing lists that Helix isn't going to make Debian packages because they feel it is "too hard". What the hell kind of logic is this? As if it is any harder to make a .deb than it is to make a .rpm?

    I wouldn't know... but I've made well-written tarballs into RPMs in fifteen minutes, so I doubt making a .deb is any harder; you could do it yourself if it's that important. Otherwise, I wouldn't expect it to take too long for a third party to take care of it.

    I've even had apps spawn a GNOME Panel when I run them.

    Not apps, but applets. I agree, it'd be nice if they'd run in their own Xwindow. I suppose that will be done eventually, but the regular Gnome developers have enough on their todo lists now, and I don't see anyone else interested in doing the work.

  • Re:At least the installer is well-designed (Score:4)

    by miguel ( 7116 ) on Monday May 29, 2000 @04:51PM (#1039694) Homepage
    That is correct. GNOME is still not ready for the general public for consumption. Not just yet. But we do acknowledge this problem, and we are working towards addressing those issues: redoing the user interface elements that are not trivial to understand, using better wording, giving a better visual layout, redoing things so that they are conceptually cleaner, and easier to understand. But our work does not stop there. We are doing new applications, adding new features to the system (user-level for instance, historic configuration) that will provide the GNOME user with a better user experience. As any other technology, we are still on the early days of GNOME, and people using GNOME are still early-adopters of this technology: the GNOME team is working very hard to make GNOME ready for everyone, and bringing free software to everyone. With your help (providing good bug reports if you are not a programmer, documentation improvements, constructive comments, code, patches, contributions, enthusiasm) we will be able to achieve this goal sooner than later. Miguel.
  • "Why is /. so Gnome enthused?"

    Why are you asking us?

    "I mean dont get me wrong I like gnome alot but KDE has alot more going for it in terms of applications and install base so what gives?"

    I would say they are about equal. But I would wait for *real* statistics before I come to any conclusions so what gives?

    "I mean I know the whole QPL shit was a problem for most of the Zealots but gnome is still really damn buggy and a fresking resource Hog, Hell compare to kde 1.9 I just dont see why slash has the bias it has"

    That was a run on sentence. The QPL *was* a problem, not anymore. Gnome *was* buggy, not anymore. Why do you have such a bias?

    And the people at slashdot, Rob, Hemos, etc. can you please add an entry to the FAQ of something like "Why does slashdot like GNOME better, whaa whaa?" so that the KDE advocates will stop reminding us about this problem? Pleaaaase?
  • <ol>
    <li>If, in a GNOME article, someone mentions KDE, mark it off-topic. The same goes if the reverse happens.</li>
    <li>If, in a GNOME article, someone mentions Microsoft, mark it troll. The same goes for KDE articles.</li>
    <li>If, in any article, someone mentions that the Slashdot have a bias towards GNOME, then mark it off-topic. These messages should go to the Slashdot team and not to public in general.</li>
    </ol>

    Just trying to disern the signal from the noise.
  • What color is the Sun in your world?

  • Re:It's all about apps... (Score:3)

    by be-fan ( 61476 ) on Monday May 29, 2000 @03:26PM (#1039704)
    One of my points was that it was all about the apps, and KDE has the good ones. Though the Gimp is probably irreplacable, KDE has the majority of the good apps. KDevelop alone is worth the price of admission (which of course is $0.) In addition KOffice is shaping up startingly quickly, and though the spreadsheet may never be as good as gnumeric (doubtfull, as the KDE guys seem to know their apps pretty well) the rest of KOffice will be a major factor. Also, KDE has a lot more developer support than GNOME does at the moment, and in general the KDE apps are far more mature than their GNOME counterparts. (Aside from a few exeptions like Gimp and Gnumeric.)
  • My account info got lost so I m posting as an ac (e-mail mike@redtux.uklinux.net)
    >>>>
    Sure

    Points in no particular order 1.
    KDE is faster? In my experience KDE has never been faste. I recently installed mandrake 7 on my work box with
    kde 1.1.2 and october gnome. KDE is still far, far , far slower than gnome to to do anything useful. I don,t care
    how fast it redraws the screen, ftp transfers in terms of bytes in a term I do care about.
    >>>>>>>>
    Doing the French add an 'e' to every word thing? Are you a desktop user or a server admin? Of course screen redraws matter. Whats the point of using Linux if your GUI is going to be slower than Windows? And what does the DE have to do with FTP transfer? If anything, it would be faster under KDE due to fact that the ftp program would have more memory left.
    2. Gnome unstable
    yeah!! nuff said
    >>>>>
    Face it. GNOME stability sucked until 1.0.50 came out, and even then it was crappy. The first stable GNOME (by Linux standards) was October GNOME running a WM other than enlightenment.

    3. Better integration of KDE apps. I use Linux - I do nort want a monolithic desktop.
    >>>>>
    Did you read my disclaimer? Linux grass-roots zealots weren't invited. I was talking about KDE and GNOME in terms of a viable desktop environment, not something that fuels some nerd's desire to be 'leet just because his apps don't match.

    BTW I
    stopped using KDE at 1.1.1 because it was so slow and buggy and went back to fvwm and then started using
    gnome at 1.0
    >>>>>>>
    The sheer fact that you'd fvwm shows that you aren't a desktop user, and the fact that you think GNOME 1.0 was anything but alpha software (again by Linux standards) shows that you're on crack.
  • How so? Exactly what is wrong with a system that will show NFS and SMB shares in your local network requiring '0' effort from the user?

    Because there's two ways to do it:

    1) Implement a protocol whereby everybody broadcasts their information all the time (the Microsoft solution).

    2) Perform IP-scanning discovery all the time.

    Either way, you're talking about massive BS traffic on your network; which is a problem on Microsoft LANs.

    We don't want to implement that problem any more than we have to.

    Also, NFS doesn't have a mechanism for saying "show me all your shares". That would be a security problem, like it is on Microsoft LANs.

    Network Neighborhood is a performance and security disaster, and the best thing to do if you have a network is disable it and browsing as much as possible.

    It's fine for 6-station office workgroups, but it's a freakin' disaster in an Enterprise.

    --
  • blame sun, and firewall port 111!
  • > on a quad Pentium II Xeon 450, I got tired of asking to switch windows with the mouse, waiting ten seconds, and still typing at the wrong window

    I'll take the "ten seconds" as hyperbole.

    I run October GNOME on a K6-III-450 w/ a G200, albeit with lots of memory (256Mb). I use enlightenment and (gasp!) pixmap theme for GTK. I run big wallpaper and a couple of animated panel applets.

    The only times my desktop is sluggish enough to attract my attention are (a) when I get up to 35-40 windows open at once, or (b) when running a few certain GUI apps with very many widgets packed together into a single window, such as the city display under Freeciv.

    I can cure (a) at any time by ditching enlightenment, and (b) by switching to a non-pixmap theme.

    However, some minimal amount of hardware is important: at work I run on a 200MHz Intel system and 64Mb of memory, and GNOME+Enlightenment is noticably slower there. (Still not too bad, unless overloaded as described above.)

    In no case does it require 10 seconds to switch between windows. On the nicer system described above, I suspect I have seen as much as 2 seconds when the WM was loaded to the gills, some of the apps had very complex UIs (including animation), and a handful of number-crunching jobs were nicely eating 100% CPU in the background.

    Of course, 2 seconds = infinity when you're waiting for a window to pop up. Perhaps this sloth is fault with GNOME, or perhaps I was just trying to squeeze too much out of my system.

    At any rate, if you do try GNOME again, start with frills turned off and then turn them on selectively until you start getting more sloth than you can deal with. Also, I suspect my large system memory and the K6-III's large L2 cache may be as important as, or more important than, the CPU speed.

    --

  • Re:Quick questions... (Score:5)

    by miguel ( 7116 ) on Monday May 29, 2000 @05:01PM (#1039723) Homepage
    Part of the services that Helix provide for the packages we ship is
    the updating service: this is a service that lets people deploy
    fixes, improvements, and new GNOME packages in their system with a
    simple to use user interface.

    Currently our updating service works with RPM and Debian packages
    (In Debian we just use the great apt infrastructure to achieve
    this), but other platforms do not have very sophisticated packaging
    systems that support upgrading and that support vendor tagging.

    Building software with RPM is very good, as we can keep the
    original source packages plus all the patches required as well as
    the detailed instruction list of how the package was build in a
    single location (the Source RPM).

    This is what we used to do the Solaris port of Helix GNOME. And
    naturally, RPM produced RPM packages, which we could easily
    integrate into our updating service.

    Using Solaris packages would be an option, but by the time we were
    done with the packages, it was too late on the release cycle to add
    support for Solaris packages (not to mention that Solaris packages
    are not as powerful as RPM packages).

    Hence, we decided that it was in the best interest of end users to
    use and distribute RPM packages for this release in Solaris. This
    might change in the future though.
  • Enlightenment, especially older verions have terrible focus behavior and defaults. I would recommend getting a new version of enlightenment and looking through focus settings. The sawfish window manager works better with gnome, though you will have to fix the focus settings also(very easy). I would recommend using helix gnome, it works very well and is far better out of the box than any other distribution. I think it can be used with any 6.x version of redhat, and apperently the rpm version is very easy to install.
  • By no one's estimation do I run either GNOME or KDE, yet applications for both run just as well as my xterms under a rather spartan WindowMaker desktop.

    I am not concerned about disk space, so I don't mind having both sets of libs installed, and there is no desktop overhead when I just have xterms up.

    So yes, the choices are manditory, but the great thing is I can choose "D) all of the above." -- without having any stupid (IMO) start menu at all.

    So what are those "consequences for not using the window manager that everyone else is using"?

  • Mark Me Down, Baby! (Score:4)

    by Hrunting ( 2191 ) on Monday May 29, 2000 @03:01PM (#1039732) Homepage
    I think both GNOME and KDE have taken the beneficial parts of Microsoft's GUI and left out the parts that are either extraneous or just plain bloated. I can see why Slashdot has a bias towards GNOME as the screenshots released are pretty slick looking, although I will note that the last time a KDE article was posted, everyone bitched about how Slashdot had a KDE bias.

    See how silly moderator rules are? I just mentioned all of the items you spoke about in a very respectful way that actually may have added a little to the discussion.

    And frankly, I'd like to see more mention about KDE when talking about GNOME, not less. The fact that these two are out there and somewhat competing against each other gives us a) choice and b) better features as they continually learn from each other and play off each other. The progress in both GNOME and KDE this year has been amazing and it's probably a direct result of each group's desire to make a better interface than their counterparts.

  • bias for Gnome / KDE (Score:3)

    by timothy ( 36799 ) on Monday May 29, 2000 @03:02PM (#1039733) Journal
    isolation wrote: "Why is /. so Gnome enthused? I mean dont get me wrong I like gnome alot but KDE has alot more going for it in terms of applications and install base so what gives? I mean I know the whole QPL shit was a problem for most of the Zealots but gnome is still really damn buggy and a fresking resource Hog, Hell compare to kde 1.9 I just dont see why slash has the bias it has."

    Since I posted this story, I guess I can offer at least a small bit of explanation, but can't speak for the other slashdot authors.

    I use KDE most of the time, on a AMD K6 233 running Mandrake, and I recently installed RedHat 6.2 on a pentium 90 machine as well, with its default Gnome desktop.

    I like KDE a lot -- Koffice is exciting to me (hey, I have a boring life), the KDE work is well integrated and thought out. Since I've never been all that much of a Windows users, I'm fairly neutral about / unmoved by KDE's similarity to the Win95/98 interface, though I've seen a lot of friends impressed by it.

    Gnome 1.2, though, I admit I am excited by, just like I'm excited by Eazel. No accounting for taste, of course, but I think the aesthetics of Gnome outpace the Windows desktop by a good stretch, and the internationalization / userfriendliness that's gone into it is incredible. When I see what the installation shots look like, I know it is something that even computerphobic pals of mine would be happier with than Windows' install screen, sort of like Linux Mandrake's install is nicer than putting on Windows (in my experience).

    And as leaders of both projects have been saying, while you may only be *running* one of these environments at a time, applications written for both can be used, so long as you have all the right libraries in place. (Please correct me if that is in error.)

    My bias is toward improved interfaces, whatever they're called. A search for KDE on slashdot does pull up quite a few things -- "KDE 2.0" got 4 relevant stories on that as well, including the release of 1.90 -- and the sponsorship of new developers for KWord was mentioned in the recent Slashback. We're ("I'm" =)) definitely not trying to give KDE short shrift -- that would definitely not be in my interest, since I use it daily! It's just that Gnome has had a flurry of neat developments lately, and the release of 1.2 is probably the biggest one since October gnome, as far as releases go.

    Sorry to rant so long. But really -- I use both, I'm happy to see both KDE and Gnome making giant strides, and glad that helixcode seems like a good focal point for those who complain that the various desktops available are too difuse in management / release info (a common complaint for people to whom freshmeat is still what the butcher hands over the counter).

    That's all :)

    timothy
  • I tried versions up to 1.0 and still they had panel crashes every hour or so.
    I was bored this weekend so I decided to download GNOME 1.2. It was like I didn't even have to install it, I'm so used to having to compile packages--the Helix packaging was a real nice touch. The stability surprised me--I finally decided (just now after 2 years) to move from KDE to GNOME. I have seen the panel crash once, but it suddenly resurrected itself from the grave, so it wasn't a problem. The two things that GNOME has going for it over KDE are looks and configurability. Some of the packaged themes are crappy but some are beautiful. Rather than having to open a special menu configurator, you can edit the menus just by opening one up and right-clicking on the menu (if you want to add something) or a menu-entry (if you want to edit or remove it). Very nice. I am very impressed given how skeptical I was of GNOME until now.
  • Unfortunately, I've had similar problems, although with other bugs in the installer:

    Remote install - Downloaded the RPMS, then said, "RPM is for wrong architecture" - The installer subsequently deleted all the RPMs and quit without installing the RPMs or giving any notice of a problem. (The errors were in the console - not everyone looks there!)

    Local install - Installer segfaulted.

    I downloaded the RPMs and installed manually. Once the installer is fixed, Gnome 1.2 is quite good.

    BTW, on the stability/bloat issue everyone harps on - I've never had stability issues with the versions of GNOME that RedHat packages with their distros, esp. not 6.2

    Bloat - This is enlightenment's fault, not GNOME. GNOME ditched E for this reason among others. Sawmill (sawfish now due to trademark issues) is just as pretty, and is MUCH faster. And of course, those that read the article will see that gdk-pixbuf's aim is for a major speed increase.

  • Re:Gnome Vs KDE (Score:3)

    by nitehorse ( 58425 ) <clee@c133.org> on Monday May 29, 2000 @03:42PM (#1039739)
    KDE is based on a proprietary library.

    Hope this clears something up for you:

    If by "proprietary library" you mean Qt1.x, then you are incorrect; KDE is no longer based on Qt1.x. KDE is now based on Qt2.1; just as much as I'm sure you hate people spreading lies about GNOME, I can't stand to see it happen to KDE.

    Your statement should read: KDE *WAS* based on a proprietary library.

    A library that cannot be ported or forked except by its authors.

    If you feel like it, you can port the Qt toolkit to MS-Win32 or to the Mac or to BeOS if you want; there is no license restriction that stops you. The only restrictions on it are that you can't close the source to your ported version, and you have to make notice that your version is not the official version. That's reasonable, is it not?

    A library that reserves some rights to everything that even links to it.

    The only "rights" that are extended to Qt-applications are that the user of such an application is granted the right to the source code. There is no right that is reserved for the library. Please, read the QPL thoroughly.

    A library that reserves the right to take your patches and roll them into its proprietary product, all the while NEVER allowing you to distribute anything except its product with your patch separate. You have to distinguish your code from their by separately distributing it - they do not have to distringuish your contributions to their code at all.

    They're a CORPORATION. They survive by MAKING MONEY. Do you understand that? They are being nice by releasing their software under an OSI-approved Open Source license; nobody REQUIRES that they use such a license. Grow up.

    The QPL is about assuring a lifetime of riches for the authors of QT at the expense of the freedoms of its users.

    Where did you glean this information from? I can find no evidence to support it. The QPL provides a means to preserve Free Software as Free Software. It also provides a means to make money when others don't want to be as nice as you and release their source code as well. Where does the QPL limit the freedom of the user?

    How much hacking on an OS project have YOU done today?
  • Correct. However you conveniently ignore the fact that the reverse can also occur. Will it? I don't know. But it's about as likely as your scenario is.
    >>>>>>
    Not really. There is a thing called a landslide effect. Once the tide significantly begins to turn in one direction, it is unlikely that anything short of a revolution will overturn it. KDE is significantly ahead in the apps and developers game, and it doesn't look like GNOME has anything on the horizon that will turn the tide. (Evolution will only take you so far.)

    Have you by any chance used Gnome 1.2? Didn't think so. Go use it. Then come back and say that again. Or don't, if you suddenly find that statement you made holds no water whatsoever.
    >>>>>>>>
    I have, and my statement still holds water. GNOME 1.2 is still slightly slower than KDE. True, it is better in this release, but here is a good test. Take an app that has a lot of views (like ksysv or whatever the equivilant GNOME app is) and resize it. Watch the redraw. See which one redraws faster. GNOME 1.2 is about on par with KDE 1.x in terms of speed, but KDE 2.0 is actually faster than KDE 1.x on my machine.

    You're some sort of psychic, I take it? It seems to me as though Gnome and KDE are making the exact same types of changes along their paths to 2.0. New file managers, component architectures, themeability on KDE's side, etc. Gnome's added a 1.2 step, but what's the harm in that?
    >>>>>>>>>>>
    Yes, I'm phsycic. My point is that KDE 2.0 has less memory usage than GNOME 1.x. Since KDE 2.0 already has all the new stuff in place, it is doubtful that it will grow too much in the future. GNOME 1.2, however still doesn't have all the features in place, and can do nothing but grow in 2.0. Thus, KDE 2.0 will take significantly less memory than GNOME 2.0.

    And you speak from... how much experience? As I thought, none. Go use it, then come back when you can make arguments and back them up. If you can't back up your arguments, you're just flaming.
    >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
    I don't speak from firsthand experiance with either environment, true, but I can tell you this. Bonobo is similar to KDE's original object architecture, which was based on MICO. They ditched it in favor of the much simpler and faster DCOP arch. I doubt there is much the GNOME guys can do to make an inherently slow architecture (even the Berlin guys admit this) fast.

    Ah, and thus we get to the whole crux of your argument, and the real reasn you're posting: "KDE is better because I'm a Corelite." Let's see your examples. I hve no doubt they probably exist, but where are they? You're certainly not too cooperative in pointing them out. Why not?
    >>>>>>>>
    My first Distro was Slack. My second distro was RedHat 5.1. My current distro is Suse 6.4. I'm running KDE 2.0 beta 1, on kernel 2.3.99pre8 with the beta nVidia OpenGL drivers hooked up to XFree86 4.0 all running on ReiserFS. I am certainly not a Corelite. Even an advanced user appreciates cohesion in their work environment. Plus, it has nothing to do with advanced users anyway. My discaimer at the top got cut of for some reason, but I wasn't talking about the "core" linux crowd. I was talking about the new Linux users (ie. the business) market, those who couldn't care less about GPL vs. QPL and only wanted a fast, stable, COHESIVE desktop. If you use Linux because you love it, then this post doesn't concern you.

    According to whom? KDE has StarOffice, but other than that every KDE app I've seen has a Gnome analog. For the most part, the revere is also true.
    >>>>>>>>>>>>
    KDE has nothing to do with star office. KDE has KOffice, which by itself gives it an enormous lead over GNOME and whatever it's office suite is. (A mish mash of Abiword, Gnumeric, Evolution and a few others.) Aside Evolution, KOffice looks like it will blow the others away. Then, of course, there is KDevelop which again is a "killer app." Both platforms may have similar apps, but in general the KDE ones are higher quality/more useful.

    Again, you conveniently ignore the fact that the people could just as well choose Gnome as KDE.
    >>>>>>
    My whole post is about why people will choose KDE over GNOME! This point only accentuates the fact that people (most) will choose ONE, not live with both.

    Which is...? Your answer is conspicuously absent. As if you realized that since you have near-zero experience with Gnome, particularly recent versions, you just might be wrong. Use them, if only for a little while, so you can make a real comparison in that regard.
    >>>>>>>>>>
    KDE has more and better apps. I've been over this already. KDevelop, KOffice, and the great set of apps bundled with KDE are much better than their GNOME counterparts. Do I even have to debate the merits of KDeveloper of gIDE? I have a lot of experiance with GNOME in fact. I've been using Helix GNOME on RedHat ever since it came it. I had used KDE for a month before that, but liked GNOME's asthetic sense much better. Near the end of my RedHat cycle, I tried KDE 2.0, and switched to it and Suse 6.4 a week ago. (And yes, I do have both Helix GNOME and KDE installed.)

    And please don't forget that even if you are correct, that means little. Remember, people stuck with Windows, which hardly has the "best" apps (the single possible exception being Excel, and both Linux DE's have spreadsheets which are coming along quite nicely in that regard).
    >>>>>>>>>>>
    Are you kidding? People stuck to Windows because it has the best apps. Where it doesn't (ie the high power server market) people don't use Windows! Are you telling me that Gimp beats photoshop, or anything on Linux can beat MS Word, 3D Studio MAX, Maya, SoundForge, Cakewalk, Truespace, IE (it's true, Netscape sucks), Visual Studio (if you're into the IDE thing), and the limitless games available for the platform? These are best of breed apps and are ONLY available for Windows. People don't use Windows because MS forces them to. People use it because it has great apps. People like me reboot into it because they have to use 3D studio or photoshop. (Because they rock!)

    For better or for worse, Gnome is just as Windowsy as KDE. And both are getting even more Windowsy as the versions progress. It's quite sad, really. You'd think the Open-Source community could do better, interface-wise. It's been done. NeXT had a better GUI which was almost completely original. So did MacOS. Win9x and OSX are fusions of these two; Win9x took the worst of both and added some decidedly anticompetitive elements. It'll be interesting to see if OSX has it done right (I admit I don't like some of what I see, but I'll reserve judgement until I've actually used the thing).
    >>>>>>>>
    You miss my point. I wa critisizing people who think KDE is too Windowsy. I neglected to mention GNOME, but sure, why not. People could really care less about the quality of the interface. People like something that is familier, no matter how hard it is to use. (Of course, they won't bother to familiarize themselves with something that is harder than what they are using now, but also won't switch unless the competitior is revolutionarily easy. People are lazy.)

    Show me your "growing support from the business community." I don't see it. I saw StarOffice getting KDE integration back when it was still proprietary (versus the pseudo-proprietary Community-Source liense it's under now). Oh, and Corel bundles it with their system. That's all I ever saw. If there's more I'd be glad to hear about it, but I simply don't see it anywhere.
    >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
    Oh, and Corel bundles it? Like that is a little thing? Corel is the only respectable (traditionally) company doing Linux, and you act like it is a small deal? Also, must Linux distro's have much better support for KDE than Linux. Go to Mandrakes website. Compare the number of GNOME screenshots to KDE screen shots.

    Give an example of a "big, memory-hogging" feature Gnome has that doesn't make it better.
    >>>>>>>
    Bonobo. It makes it better, but not enough to warrent the weight.

    Depends. Everyone knows that Gnome 1.0 was released too early; I can't dispute that claim. It was underfeatured and unstable. The stability got fixed quite some time ago. 1.2 adds more of the features. Not all of them yet; a few are still in development (Bonobo and Nautilus, most notably).
    >>>>>>>>>>>>
    It took GNOME until 1.2 to become as stable and nearly as fast as KDE was almost a year ago. What does that tell you?

    Speed... well, I'm not so sure. A lot of that seems to have to do with Imlib. Everything that I've seen that replaced it wuth gdk-pixbuf seemed to get a big kick in the pants, speed-wise.
    >>>>>>>>>>>>>>
    Great. 2.0 will be faster. But so will KDE 2.0. At everystep, KDE seems one step faster than GNOME.

    Of course, you can't expect phenomenal speed when you're drawing your entire GUI with pixmaps. That's a large reason of why Gnome feels so slow for a lot of people. Switch out Sawfish for Window Maker and the Pixmap themes for GTKStep and you've suddenly got a much faster desktop. I like Sawfish myself, and used it for several months, but as of this moment it just doesn't seem to be able to touch Window Maker for speed and stability, though Window Maker's icons do get in the way on a Gnome desktop. Things may have changed with the developmental gdk-pixbuf versions of Sawfish; I intend to try it out as soon as I manage to compile the thing.
    >>>>>>>>>>>>>
    KDE 2.0 can draw the entire desktop with pixmaps much faster than I've ever seen GNOME do it. Plus, my themes to use pixmaps, so very little is being drawn with pixmaps.

    Either way, this is what's wrong with the state of discussion on Slashdot. People don't debate anymore; they just flame. They'll spout drivel like this post's parent, which say a lot but prove nothing, and thus are no better than "Gnome sucks! No, KDE sux0rz! No way, Gnome 0wnZ KDE! No, KDE is ph4r m0r3 k-r4d @nd l33t! No, you must PH3AR GNOME!" What happened to people not jut making their point, but backing it up? OK, so Gnome sucks NINJA ass; why? OK, so maybe KDE sucks big fat naked petrified donkey dick; why? The point is, unless we get into real discussion, and point out the relative strengths and weaknesses of the two systems, neither one is going to truly improve. They'll just get stuck in an endless feature war, neither one getting the features users really want. They'll just try to one-up the other, and the end result won't be any better than Win2K.
    >>>>>>>>>>>>>>.
    I just pointed out a dozen weaknesses of GNOME. I'm not saying KDE is flawless, but GNOME is still much worse. I'm sorry if that's not what you wanted to hear, but for the mainstream market, (my disclaimer got cut dammit), KDE is still better and getting better faster than GNOME is!
  • KDevelop alone is worth the price of admission (which of course is $0.)

    I tried it last winter, and found it utterly useless for creating anything but KDE apps. I'm
    trying to write ISO C++ libraries, and Kdevelop (at the time, at least) didn't even have
    a library project template! Maybe I'll try it again sometime, but I was seriously
    disapointed with what I saw.
    >>>>>>
    Huh. If I'd tried GNOME at that version level, I'd have run away screaming. Try anything 1.1 and above. It is rock solid, and now (in 1.2) has integration with GNOME development files. It is a serious competitor to VisualC++ if they can only get rid of that annoying "I" beam, and get IntelliSense type stuff in there. I develop entirely with classes and it is a bitch remembering function headers.
    This is not meant as a slam towards the Kdevelop people, for creating a KDE app it
    would be great. It just didn't do what I needed it to do.
    >>>>
    Try using an app when it is release-quality. I don't judge Linux on my impressions of Slackware 3.5, and you shouldn't either.

    BTW, why did you mention Kdevelop, when you claim you are talking about the general
    desktop market, or as you put elsewhere: "Linux grass-roots zealots weren't invited.
    >>>
    I was talking about the general desktop market. Many programmers are part of this too. Real grass-roots zealots use VIM :)
  • Windows maximize correctly.

    Maximize one window, open another, boom! Maximized.

    Maximized windows don't move.

    Terminals always seem to pop up in the right place.

    Things Just Work Right. By Default. :-)
  • If anything, KDE is more Windows-like than GNOME by a long shot.

    Personally, I use GNOME. Rip out Enlightenment, and it runs great. I do have KDE libs installed for some apps, although I'd vastly prefer if those apps used GTK+ - GTK is just so much more pleasing visually.

    I know of at least one user that basically said about some distros, "I won't use it because I'm sick of Windows and I don't want anything remotely similar." - Thus eliminating every KDE-based distro. Yes, KDE may be a bit more polished now, but people should keep in mind that there are just as many users that are totally sick of what they've been having shoved down their throats and want something completely different as there are users who want something as similar as possible to Windows. For now, I think KDE and GNOME will be filling seperate niches.

  • There is just one problem with saying KDE is going to "win." Both these environments are open source, only QT isn't truly OS because its not GPL'd. This causes lots of problems and is basically why GNOME was invented in the first place.

    GNOME will improve. KDE will improve. GNOME has nothing to hold it back. KDE does currently so I'd have to say that I'm leaning towards GNOME.

  • Troll go home.
    --
  • Both the Gnome and the KDE teams have been pretty good about trying to
    make their applications usable under plain X. Of course it isn't
    going to be possible to make this work properly: you can't have dra
    and drop capability under plain X, but there is a lot of flexibility.

  • Helix Preview Release 2 Review (Score:3)

    by Semuta ( 193948 ) on Monday May 29, 2000 @03:50PM (#1039775) Homepage
    I was impressed with Helix's work.

    Riding off of a stock RH6.1, it installed like a dream. I chose [INSTALL ALL PACKAGES]. Installation was maybe 30 minutes off of a T1, bombed out once... I restarted the script, it picked up what was already downloaded, and continued without a hitch.

    The UI polish is exceptional. The new Sawfish windowmanager default is a godsend from the clunky old Enlightement. The MacOS-style menu up top is actually usful. The width and breadth of applications it comes bunded with is incredible.

    I got:

    Development Tools
    15-odd games
    A word processor
    An extremely competent spreadsheet
    A flowcharter
    Themes for everything
    Multimedia applications (xmms et al)
    A dozen and five text editors, and mini-word-processors
    Hex editors, calculators, basic address books, index tools, palmpilot tools, calendars...
    The panel/applet system which is extremely pleasurable to use coming off of Win9x
    A goddamn online dictionary reference
    A much improved control panel
    Endless tools and monitors and just tons of other things...

    Cost:

    Economic price of $0.00
    Time price of 30 minutes
    Effort price of Zero

    This is a significantly better value proposition for me than paying 100 dollars or more for a near-useless-by-default Windows 9x, several hundred dollars for a flakey and inflexible WinNT, lots for a MacOS-capable hardware setup, or anything else...

    Helix gives gnome polish, like Corel and SUSE did for KDE... It's nice.

  • Okay, I've been using Helix's tweaked GNOME 1.2 for a while now. The (non-mandatory) graphical installer was extremely impressive.

    As for GNOME itself, Helix and their friends at Eazel and elsewhere have done a lot to make dialog boxes and menus consistent and rational, less of a homage to Emacs. Most apps still lack consistent keyboard accelerators across the UI, but they're getting there.

    The control center, written largely by the RHAD folks, has also got a better, friendlier layout.. but its fundamental UI design borrowed from Linuxconf, of "swallowed" dialog boxes that you have to OK/Cancel out of before being allowed to switch cleanly to another panel, is still idiotic and has no precedent anyhere in the past 20 years of WIMP GUI design. Fix it. Now. Quite a few of the individual control center dialogs still can't hold a candle to MacOS, WIn98/Win2K or KDE in terms of clarity and ease of use.

    The taskbar/panel is still fugly and still handles mouse events in nested menus in an uncivilized, amateurish manner. You need some subtle delays and stickiness, folks. By default.

    Thank goodness for Sawmill/Sawfish. The window manager configuration is now swallowable by (and largely incorporated into) "GNOME" configuration. For non-geeks this is a Good Thing.

    The Helix GNOME Updater is also slick and nice, very clear and friendly. But its UI is different from the Helix GNOME installer. As it should be. Except that Helix leaves you with no easy, friendly, non-geek way to install GNOME modules you passed on during the original install. For that, it's back to manual RPM or .deb installation or the powerful UI nightmare of GnoRPM or whatever your distro or OS makes you use. Boo, hiss.

    Without Helix's enhancements and interface tweaks, GNOME 1.2 is a more stable, less bloated version of the same poorly-designed desktop environment we've had for a couple of years now. With Helix's tweaks, Miguel and crew have shown they understand that a well-thought-out GUI is something desirable. But there's still a lot of work left before GNOME will be fit for everyday use by non-techies. With 1.2, I can run GNOME now without too many problems, but I wouldn't wish it on friends or family. KDE, whatever else you might want to say about it, still has GNOME beat on usability hands-down.
  • KDE's always felt more sluggish to me. Of course, I stopped using Gnome for a while waaaaaay back when because it taxed my system too much. That seemed to go away in the 1.0 days. Using gnome with a lighter weight window manager than E also helps (Although E's also improved a lot recently.)

  • Puh-lease!! (Score:5)

    by Stiletto ( 12066 ) on Monday May 29, 2000 @03:59PM (#1039780)
    Please describe what is functionally different between:

    struct widget_s {
    void(*open)(struct widget_s*);
    void(*close)(struct widget_s*);
    };

    and:

    class widget {
    void open(void);
    void close(void);
    };

    This "you can't do OO in plain C" attitude is silly and immature. Anyone who has done any work on a large (>100,000 line) C project has probably run into OO methodologies employed within the program. Heck, you can do OO in assembly if you have a good design and structure your code properly.

    On the other hand, I've seen plenty of C++ code that was far from object-oriented--inelegant, over-classed, and buggy C++ code. No matter what language you use, you can program it wisely or poorly, elegantly or hacked together.

  • Re:Every version of GNOME is the stable one (Score:3)

    by Black Parrot ( 19622 ) on Monday May 29, 2000 @04:01PM (#1039782)
    > The problem is, every version of GNOME was supposed to be the stable one. GNOME was released early, oh well, it's a 1.0 release, what do you expect. 1.01 is stable. Oops, it's not, oh well, 1.02 is stable, oops it's not...

    Sorry, but you are misrepresenting our claims. I have never said that GNOME 1.0 was stable. I even complained about it to the developers. On the other hand, I have always said that GNOME 1.0.53 is stable. I'm still using it. It's stable. I run it at home. It's stable. I run it at work. It's stable. It won't go unstable when I get around to upgrading to 1.2. It won't go unstable when I upgrade to 9.0.

    If you don't like GNOME, that's fine. I'm not aware of anyone who is going to make you use it. But there's no reason to misrepresent the facts about it. Or about those of us who actually use it.

    --
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • *sniff* (Score:2)

    by Danse ( 1026 )

    It's beautiful... *sob*

    I love you man...

  • i just think it's ironic how alot of people talk about the inevetable death of microsoft, etc. etc.

    It seems to me that GNOME is just another step in the total GUIness of linux. Sure it's nice, it can do alot of stuff for you, but it's a huge resource hog, and all in all, it seems to me to be reminiscent of some of the bloat that i switched to linux to get away from.

    that being said. it does look pretty fucking cool :)




    FluX
    After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
  • One thing the LinuxPower article talks about is enhanced language support, including Japanese.

    I'm currently running Red Hat 6.2/J, which has an integrated Japanese environment and the included GNOME works well. However, my Japanese support was practically destroyed when I downloaded a previous version of HelixCode GNOME. I did submit a bug report at that time.

    I've been running this new 1.2 version for a couple of days now, and I've tried to set my language environment back to Japanese (also tried Japanese.euc), but the menus only appear as gibberish instead of in Kanji.

    Therefore I'll probably wait until Red Hat 7.0/J is released (with XFree 4.0, GNOME 1.2, Linux 2.4.0, Wine 1.0, etc. :-D~~~) before worrying too much about getting Japanese working. For now, I have my kterm, my yudit, and at least Nutscrape can view the pages right.

    If anyone has any insight as to how to enable this language support, I'd be grateful.
  • > GTK+ has both C and C++ to play with, libglade, bindings to lots of other languages.

    This actually matters in some circles. I have seen an ad for a commercial product [adastat.com] built using the Ada bindings for GTK+ [eu.org]. The product sells for $4995US/pop. (No, I didn't leave out a decimal point.) Someone is taking GTK very seriously.

    I know there aren't likely very many Ada fans here, but the GtkAda crew deserves kudos on general principle. In addition to "just" providing the bindings, they have produced PostScript documentation for GtkAda to the tune of 328 pages, and have extended their bindings beyond "pure" GTK+ to include the excellent GtkExtra widgets [fsu.edu] for plotting, spreadsheet-style cells, and dumping plots and text generated by your programs to PostScript files. All under the GPL, with an LGPL-like exclusion for link-only usage.

    I know of at least 3 more non-trivial projects underway using GtkAda, though I might reasonably be accused of pushing vaporware if I said much more about them at this time.

    --
  • I just converted to Linux for good (I'd used it in the past, but only recently become usable for me as my only system). I'm using Gnome because:
    1. I don't really know either Gnome or KDE
    2. RedHat installs Gnome by default

    My questions are:

    Are there any comparisons of the two out there that aren't written by fanatics? Like magazine comparisons, or something like that?

    Is there any real difference between KDE and Gnome, or are they just two different products filling the same niche (like IE vs. Netscape)?

    What exactly are KDE and Gnome? Are they a combination of the GUI toolkit and a collection of programs like the toolbar and Gnumeric and such? Where do they stand in relation to X itself and a window manager?

    What would be the relevant criteria for deciding between the two? Is one better suited for certain uses and the other for other uses?

    --Kevin
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • The problem is, every version of GNOME was supposed to be the stable one.

    Well, all software is supposed to be stable. Whether it turns out that way or not is another story.

    GNOME was released early, oh well, it's a 1.0 release, what do you expect.

    I expected a stable release, and was sadly disappointed. Releasing too early was a huge PR mistake; as your post points out, people become jaded and treat even good subsequent releases unfairly.

    1.01 is stable. Oops, it's not, oh well, 1.02 is stable, oops it's not...

    No, but each was more stable than the last. After about 1.07, IIRC, I never had a desktop crash on my system. With October Gnome, I never saw a crash on any of my friends' systems either.

    Ooops, October release is still not that stable (crashes on my system).

    How often? How does it crash? Have you considered checking your RAM? I'm not saying it's impossible; I've seen one panel crash and I think one GMC crash with October Gnome. But I've been running October Gnome nearly 24/7, with weeks between login and logout, ever since it's release (updating with subsequent releases). If you're seeing a crash every week there may be something else wrong with your system.

    Now, if M$ had done the same (and they are), nobody would believe them

    And nobody does.. but I'm starting to. A friend of mine, after seeing Windows 2000 crashes daily, managed to find the right combination of drivers to leave it rock solid. It's a rock solid lightly loaded desktop, but compared to every other OS I've seen from Microsoft that's still impressive.

    but if GNOME does it, then it is all OK?

    That if statement is false; but that's okay, the premise is false too. Gnome isn't perfect, and stuff like abiword, dia, and gnumeric (the pre-1.0 apps) are probably still unstable, but the core apps seem solid now.
  • get it right. If you knew anything about OO you would know that GTK is a disgusting hack (your definition of OO in C)

    Object Oriented programing in C is not a "hack" as you put it. From a technical standpoint, that is. Prefer C++ if you like, but don't presume to the level of arrogance where you claim to know more than thousands of C hackers who have been doing professional OO programming for years.

    Gnome IS unstable. It is about as usable as some MS hype. The only difference is that this unusable piece of software comes from the supposedly "better" free software community. Gnome is an embarassment. Gnome IS the MS of open source. All talk, lots of bugs and hype, and trashing of an obviously superior product (KDE).

    Perhaps you haven't used Gnome lately. It is rock solid, and is arguably better technically than KDE.
    ----

  • I'll take that challenge... (Score:3)

    by rjh ( 40933 ) <rjh@sixdemonbag.org> on Monday May 29, 2000 @04:16PM (#1039816)
    First, I am not attempting to come down on either side in the "you can't do OO in C" war. Fact is I think you can, but for a lot of reasons I prefer C++ for OO.

    Functionally, OO in C requires you to construct each object manually. This, by itself, is a major pain in the hind end. You wind up having to write code to initialize each new object (big deal--you have to write it in C++, too), and you have to remember to call each initializer.

    Destruction is identical but in reverse. Unless your object is pretty trivial, you've got to remember to free those valuable system resources.

    It's also difficult to do data hiding in C. In C++, you can declare things to be safely inside the black box, away from the grungy hands of the hackers who don't understand your code and whom you don't want futzing around with your code (and sometimes that grungy hacker is you, six months later, doing something hare-brained and stupid because you've forgotten some small detail). In C++, we've got lovely words like "private" and "protected" to help keep us from shooting ourselves in the foot.

    There's foo, bar, baz and quux as well as construction, destruction and data hiding. The fact of the matter is that OO in C is definitely possible, and does not need to be an ugly hatchet job. You can have beautiful, elegant OO code in C.

    Remember that the first C++ "compilers" were really preprocessors (anyone remembet AT&T's cfront ?), which took a C++ source file and mangled it down into OO C.

    OO in C is gruelingly difficult; I always forget to explicitly call my destructor functions, for instance. C++ has better support in the language for OO code, which is why I'm a C++ hacker more than I am a C hacker nowadays. :)
  • 1) it makes migration from existing OSes easier
    2) There's a choice of windowmanagers
    3) most of those windowmanagers are configurable in both look and feel.

    //rdj

  • Re:Gnome feature (Score:3)

    by adraken ( 8869 ) on Monday May 29, 2000 @01:59PM (#1039823)
    Yes, for apps that support it, mini-icon support is automatic. Since a couple beta-release cycles ago, almost every single GNOME app has a mini-icon associated with it. Even Netscape's mini-icons work.

    Sawfish (was sawmill), the new default WM for GNOME, has preliminary mini-icon support.

  • > gnome is still really damn buggy

    For those who haven't been paying attention, GNOME hasn't been "really damn buggy" since October, when 1.0.53 came out.

    --

  • My favorite thing about GNOME 1.2 (Score:3)

    by MicroBerto ( 91055 ) on Monday May 29, 2000 @02:04PM (#1039829)
    Although this sounds stupid, you must admit that the purple flower that is shown when GNOME loads is the coolest looking thing ever! The shades of purple on it are very deep and satisfying, and it is like the doorway to a very pleasant looking system.

    Mike Roberto (roberto@soul.apk.net [mailto]) -GAIM: MicroBerto

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