• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

GNOME vs. KDE

B

blazerazor

Golden Member
I am currently using Fluxbox under kernel 2.4 slack Linux.

From my understanding, I could run any X Windows system I choose to install. Correct?

So what are the advantages and disadvantages of the two big 'X' dogs?
 
Gnome is simpler and generally a little easier to use, their primary goal is usuability. KDE is more "everything including the kitchen sink." It has more customizability at the expense of being more complicated; their primary goal is functionality.

I was a KDE fanatic for years, but I've just switched to Gnome and I think I'm going to stick with it for now.
 
Well, if you're going to go with Gnome, you're going to have to go with one of the community projects like Dropline Gnome, as Pat dropped support for Gnome.
 
There are too many things mto learn today with Windows and Linux.

I started with Gnome and I know there KDE fans out there, but I like the simple life. Gnome definitely is simple for guys like me.🙂
 
Originally posted by: GML3G0
Well, if you're going to go with Gnome, you're going to have to go with one of the community projects like Dropline Gnome, as Pat dropped support for Gnome.
Click to expand...

I'm sorry, but I don't understand? Who is 'Pat'?

Btw i found this karubik.de/projects help.
Sounds like GNOME is for me. Even though I'll probably try both.

 
I like the functionality of KDE, but the looks of Gnome. I think I'm going to get KDE with a GTK theme tbh.

The one thing about Gnome I hate is that they cut functionality. Maybe if they would just stick it in a "hard to reach for noobs" place so advanced users can access them, then that'd be great. Till then, I like having options and customization.
 
Bah. The dropline guys were doing a better job anyways.

Also I think it was also because he wanted to keep the number of cdroms used by slackware install to be very low.

--------

The difference between KDE and Gnome is a big one. Much bigger then, say, Windows 2000 vs Windows XP.

Which one you would want to use is a matter of taste. Some people love KDE and despise Gnome. While KDE makes my eyeballs bleed.

KDE aims for eye candy, lots of flashy features, lots of configurability, and extensive functionality. It's primarially programmed in a C++ language and they've developed lots of fancy applications like Amarok, Koffice, and K3b (all of which I like also). They are stable and full featured. KDE is based on QT, which is a graphical toolkit provided by Trolltech. People say that it provides a more familar interface for users used to Windows.


Gnome on the other hand is trying very hard to perfect their UI for maximum usability by streamlining functionality down to what the user actually needs most. Sometimes this has a cost of easy configurability and such, although most of the configurability that anybody wants is hiding underneath the surface. Unfortunately it's not well documented stuff. Gnome is mostly C-centric, but they are beginning to incorporate high-level languages like Python or C# (like MS .net stuff, called mono). Their eyes are looking toward a corporate desktop.

KDE tends to suffer from Not-from-here syndrom. They have KDE-specific games. KDE-specific office suite. They have their own html rendering stuff. Everything written specificly for KDE. This is normally a very bad thing, but with KDE it's pretty ok since their applications tend to be of high quality irregardless and fairly neat. I guess they just like to be interesting.

Gnome aims to for a more of a 'big tent' sort of approach. Aiming to take best of breed applications and then try to shoehorn them into the Gnome environment. They use the ghecko HTML rendering engine from the mozilla project instead of trying to program their own, like kde. Their 'Gnome Office' (which pales in functionality to Koffice) consists of applications from completely different projects.

Both KDE and Gnome provide massive amounts of features and functionality. Gnome bills itself as not only a desktop environment, but a entire programming and developement environment. KDE has Kdevelop. They have art programs, simple office games, audio, multimedia playback, instant messaging, VoIP, etc etc etc. Almost anything and everything people would want or need for general purpose applications.

As long as you stick with either KDE or Gnome apps each environment provides a high level of UI consistancy and uniformity. Going from one Gnome app to another should not be confusing.

Using KDE apps inside Gnome or visa versa ruins it quite a bit though. They are compatable and you won't loose any stability, but when you run apps in another enviroment they bring a lot of their own stuff that you probably won't want. File dialogs won't be consistant anymore. You try to open a browser from one app and it will open konqueror and if you try from another it will try to open up Firefox or Epiphany. Theming won't be consistant across apps without extra work and you will consume much more RAM resources.

So for best performance and usability you should stick with one or the other.. but very few people do that because you'd miss out on the nice apps from the other desktop.

Other then KDE vs Gnome there are a lot of other things. XFCE for instance is gnome-like, but is much more geek-friendly and is faster. You have Icewm which provides a Win95 look and feel. FVWM is a old school minimal window manager. Fluxbox is a big hit with a lot of people. Window Maker is a Gnustep environment for Linux.. Compatable with the OpenStep API specifications which is also extensively used to form the Cocoa stuff for the interface in OS X. Ancient Enlightenment 0.16 series is very cool and still worked on and Enlightenment DR17 has more eyecandy then you can shake a stick at. Very 1337, but very much in development. You can get a idea of what it looks like by looking at the fantasy interfaces in scifi movies. (makes Vista look like win2k) Of course you have the polar opposite with Ratpoison and Ion. (which are so 1337 that it makes Windows 3.11 look like vista)

Most people won't know what they like until they've tried a bunch of different stuff.
 
Prefer Gnome over KDE any day, simplicity and function.

KDE has the function but when I open a sub-menu filled with 15 items that contain each another 15 items.... my eyes glaze over
 
Originally posted by: drag
Bah. The dropline guys were doing a better job anyways.

Also I think it was also because he wanted to keep the number of cdroms used by slackware install to be very low.
Click to expand...

Based on comments from OpenBSD porters, Gnome appears to be a PITA and a half to maintain...
 
I <3 gnome.

Mainly because of the attractiveness of the interface. I am a sucker for a clean environment, aestheticly pleasing skins and a slim down software set. If I really need it I can install whatever I need from whereever I want.
 
Gnome. KDE give more functionality, but you'll wear your eyes our porring over the insanely long menus. Gnome looks better anyways, and you can always do everything via command line.
 
I vote for GNOME too. KDE is too overcomplicated and/or intimidating in comparison. The 'default' settings in KDE aren't as friendly as the ones in GNOME either.
 
Gnome is a much cleaner interface and I like it more. In KDE you get so much stuff you start to wonder "...so what?" I'm not saying its bad, but there is a point when so many options become counter intuitive to what you want to acheive.

Simple and Clean..the way it should be 🙂

By the way, this isn't about "expert" versus a "beginner"...but KDE feels like it is screaming at me all day long with all the bells and whistles.
 
KDE is what I use. I find it fits the way I do things.

I like Gnome and it does have a nice interface, but I always come back to KDE.


unmerited
 
Originally posted by: drag
Other then KDE vs Gnome there are a lot of other things. XFCE for instance is gnome-like, but is much more geek-friendly and is faster. You have Icewm which provides a Win95 look and feel. FVWM is a old school minimal window manager. Fluxbox is a big hit with a lot of people. Window Maker is a Gnustep environment for Linux.. Compatable with the OpenStep API specifications which is also extensively used to form the Cocoa stuff for the interface in OS X. Ancient Enlightenment 0.16 series is very cool and still worked on and Enlightenment DR17 has more eyecandy then you can shake a stick at. Very 1337, but very much in development. You can get a idea of what it looks like by looking at the fantasy interfaces in scifi movies. (makes Vista look like win2k) Of course you have the polar opposite with Ratpoison and Ion. (which are so 1337 that it makes Windows 3.11 look like vista)
Click to expand...
I saw this post and decided to try out E17. I fired up Virtual PC 2004 on my Windows box, installed Debian Etch with the desktop packages, and went to town.

Unfortunately, I was unable to find a .deb package for E17. I looked on Google, and tried adding the repositories listed, but only E16 was available. I saw a reference to create an apt preference file and make it only look for E17, but nothing was found at all when I tried that.

I went to Enlightenment's home page, and tried following their instructions. I tried ./configure, make, make install, make clean on the packages they listed per their instructions. Each step of the way it seemed I was missing something. For eet, it was zlib-dev. For evas, it was jpeglibs-dev. Later it was dev libraries for X. pkg-config. etc. I got the packages needed when it crapped out and restarted the whole process several times, but the final package - enlightenment, won't make. It errors out trying to add some JPEG image.

Any tips?
 
Originally posted by: scottws
Originally posted by: drag
Other then KDE vs Gnome there are a lot of other things. XFCE for instance is gnome-like, but is much more geek-friendly and is faster. You have Icewm which provides a Win95 look and feel. FVWM is a old school minimal window manager. Fluxbox is a big hit with a lot of people. Window Maker is a Gnustep environment for Linux.. Compatable with the OpenStep API specifications which is also extensively used to form the Cocoa stuff for the interface in OS X. Ancient Enlightenment 0.16 series is very cool and still worked on and Enlightenment DR17 has more eyecandy then you can shake a stick at. Very 1337, but very much in development. You can get a idea of what it looks like by looking at the fantasy interfaces in scifi movies. (makes Vista look like win2k) Of course you have the polar opposite with Ratpoison and Ion. (which are so 1337 that it makes Windows 3.11 look like vista)
Click to expand...
I saw this post and decided to try out E17. I fired up Virtual PC 2004 on my Windows box, installed Debian Etch with the desktop packages, and went to town.

Unfortunately, I was unable to find a .deb package for E17. I looked on Google, and tried adding the repositories listed, but only E16 was available. I saw a reference to create an apt preference file and make it only look for E17, but nothing was found at all when I tried that.

I went to Enlightenment's home page, and tried following their instructions. I tried ./configure, make, make install, make clean on the packages they listed per their instructions. Each step of the way it seemed I was missing something. For eet, it was zlib-dev. For evas, it was jpeglibs-dev. Later it was dev libraries for X. pkg-config. etc. I got the packages needed when it crapped out and restarted the whole process several times, but the final package - enlightenment, won't make. It errors out trying to add some JPEG image.

Any tips?
Click to expand...

Wait for at least a beta release. 😛
 
Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
Originally posted by: scottws
Originally posted by: drag
Other then KDE vs Gnome there are a lot of other things. XFCE for instance is gnome-like, but is much more geek-friendly and is faster. You have Icewm which provides a Win95 look and feel. FVWM is a old school minimal window manager. Fluxbox is a big hit with a lot of people. Window Maker is a Gnustep environment for Linux.. Compatable with the OpenStep API specifications which is also extensively used to form the Cocoa stuff for the interface in OS X. Ancient Enlightenment 0.16 series is very cool and still worked on and Enlightenment DR17 has more eyecandy then you can shake a stick at. Very 1337, but very much in development. You can get a idea of what it looks like by looking at the fantasy interfaces in scifi movies. (makes Vista look like win2k) Of course you have the polar opposite with Ratpoison and Ion. (which are so 1337 that it makes Windows 3.11 look like vista)
Click to expand...
I saw this post and decided to try out E17. I fired up Virtual PC 2004 on my Windows box, installed Debian Etch with the desktop packages, and went to town.

Unfortunately, I was unable to find a .deb package for E17. I looked on Google, and tried adding the repositories listed, but only E16 was available. I saw a reference to create an apt preference file and make it only look for E17, but nothing was found at all when I tried that.

I went to Enlightenment's home page, and tried following their instructions. I tried ./configure, make, make install, make clean on the packages they listed per their instructions. Each step of the way it seemed I was missing something. For eet, it was zlib-dev. For evas, it was jpeglibs-dev. Later it was dev libraries for X. pkg-config. etc. I got the packages needed when it crapped out and restarted the whole process several times, but the final package - enlightenment, won't make. It errors out trying to add some JPEG image.

Any tips?
Click to expand...

Wait for at least a beta release. 😛
Click to expand...
I think I'll be a skeleton by then.

I saw an article from 2003 where some guy reviewed E17 on his laptop. And today, almost three years later, the developers claim that it's not even in an alpha state.

8o

 
I think I'll be a skeleton by then.

I saw an article from 2003 where some guy reviewed E17 on his laptop. And today, almost three years later, the developers claim that it's not even in an alpha state.
Click to expand...

E16 has been a 'development release' since 1997, and practically untouched for like the last 5 years or so until a few bugs were finally fixed. But I still use it. E17 will probably be considered a development release indefinitely as well, but if it ever becomes stable enough and hits Debian I'll probably start using it. That is, as long as all of the E16 features that I use are supported.
 
Ya.. E16 got a fairly large update a bit ago just to keep it compatable with everything. Made it compatable with the EWMH specifications, and that's about it.

For E17 there are Debian packages aviable here:
deb http://soulmachine.net/debian unstable/

http://shadoi.soulmachine.net/2004/11/enlightenment-for-needy.html

But they haven't been update for a few months now. The guy says that they are making a new repository for Debian/Ubuntu here:
http://shadoi.soulmachine.net/

But I couldn't find it.

Here is a nice little python program to help you install and keep your enlightenment stuff up to date.
http://edevelop.org/node/2457

If dependancies in Debian is a problem, then install wajig if you haven't already(install via apt-get, and install the recommended packages also) I'll show you a nice trick.
http://www.togaware.com/wajig/
It's nice.

Then you setup the Debian repositories with the /etc/apt/sources.list entry and /etc/apt/preferences (so it picks the soulmachine deb files over the Debian 0.16 E stuff) files as described in the blog entry link I posted above. But instead of making the entry:
deb http://soulmachine.net/debian unstable/

Make it
deb-src http://soulmachine.net/debian unstable/

Now go
wajig build-depend enlightenment

And that should install the dependancies you need.

Then go ahead and download that python program. Untar that thing. Change to that directory and go:
sudo python e17_updater.py
(or chmod +x them)

You need to have pyqt installed. (in Debian it's python-qt3, I beleive)

That should help you to automate the build and install proccess.

Good luck!

I'm building and installing it right now..

You can find some older screenshots with a avi video at
http://www.enlightenment.org/Enlightenment/Screenshots/

They are old, but it'll give you a idea.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top