Without tip-toeing around the matter, Linus Torvalds made his preference in the GNOME vs. KDE matter quite clear on the GNOME-usability list: “I personally just encourage people to switch to KDE. This ‘users are idiots, and are confused by functionality’ mentality of Gnome is a disease. If you think your users are idiots, only idiots will use it. I don’t use Gnome, because in striving to be simple, it has long since reached the point where it simply doesn’t do what I need it to do. Please, just tell people to use KDE.” Also, “Gnome seems to be developed by interface nazis, where consistently the excuse for not doing something is not ‘it’s too complicated to do’, but ‘it would confuse users’.” Update: More of the discussion here.
“If you think your users are idiots, only idiots will use it. I don’t use Gnome, because in striving to be simple, it has long since reached the point where it simply doesn’t do what I need it to do.”
That may be so, but if we could target the “idiot” type of user, the Linux desktop user base would increase significantly.
You have to realize that asking what DE is best for Linux users, and what DE is best for Linux, currently are two very different questions.
It is just as true that if you design for the elite, only the elite will use it. The difference is, that people that are not idiots will be able to switch to KDE by themselves, the “idiots” on the other hand will not be able to switch from KDE to Gnome.
So perhaps Mr Torvalds (if he actually wrote this) should leave usability to people that knows more about people than computers.
+1 agree!
I think, Gnome does a great contribution to Free Software, because they strive to make it simple, and the best of their Ideas will be carried on by others and benefit tp all like that.
What I think really useful would be links to a comparision of those two with the fokus on the people to whom certain features appeal.
Then it would be far easier to decide which one to recommend to the different kinds of newcomers.
Wishes,
Arne
What’s the point with making UI simple if you can’t do what you want it to do, the way you want to do it? There are users out there who do not want UI designers making too many decisions for them by limiting what they can and cannot do. I rather have too many choices than no choices at all. Gnome, in its current state, is taking too much away from users that some people feel their intelligence is being insulted. I’m being one of these people.
got to love KDE!!!
This article is somewhat related to the issue:
http://www.securityfocus.com/columnists/374
In my opinion, this matter is so clear that Linus could understand it if someone would explain it slowly to him: different users simply have different needs.
Not all users want to fiddle with every knob – some users just want to get their work done. Some users care about aesthetics and some do not. Giving a user choices she doesn’t understand is often even a security hazard.
It’s interesting to see that usability has obviously never been a design goal for Linus Torvald when he wrote the Linux kernel. Linux is about hacking and tweaking by design – looks like a hobbyist thing to me. It’s not a coincidence that other Unix/BSD systems give users a far more clean and consistent experience, because some projects take these things seriously as a design goal.
…and just because Linus is a public figure with influence does not exempt him from having one. I saw no personal attacks, but clear and concise criticism in his comments. He is entitled to complain or make suggestions just like everyone else. Surely the size of his contribution to the community should earn him the right to make valid suggestions and criticisms of a project that he disagrees with. Quit acting like he betrayed the community.
I agree with Linux entirely, though it is dangerous to say such stuff around here (I would not phrase my opinions so roughly though). His reasons for preferring KDE are my reasons.
Those are my reasons *for myself* though. Unlike him, I am not as certain about reasons (or lack of them) to recommend one over the other for the general public.
“If you think your users are idiots, only idiots will use it.” This is very harsh sounding on the surface. However, Gnome is trying to be a project for the average computer user, and the average computer user is a computer idiot (face it, people want their computers to work like their toaster, and want to have knowledge of how they work). I think Gnome fails in some of their goals, but they actually are aiming at the (computer) idiot as Linus says.
That doesn’t mean KDE isn’t as well, but they do (IMHO) a better job at also reaching out to the advanced users, the type of user who would realistically actually be using Linux right now.
And of course plenty of advanced users like Gnome, so one can’t say Gnome leaves them out in the cold either. Things are obviously not black and white. KDE can work for the newbie (ask Xandros) and plenty of advanced types prefer Gnome.
Still, my reasons remain valid for me, and they are pretty much what Linus enumerated. Choice remains for those who feel differently, and Linus won’t be taking that away, so we can continue to have our two big DEs and the lovely discussions about them
F&ck both Gnome and KDE. They both too bloated. XFCE is so so much better!
Some more cool replies from him:
http://lists.osdl.org/pipermail/desktop_architects/2005-December/00…
http://lists.osdl.org/pipermail/desktop_architects/2005-December/00…
PLEASE READ THEN MOD ME DOWN/EXPRESS YOUR FRUSTRATIONS — BUT I DO WANNA KNOW WHAT YOU GUYS THINK
Hi, I just want to add my 0,02$ because I think we are all concerned about this. The never ending KDE vs Gnome battle is almost like the Linux vs no Linux battle. It does matter. And I do believe that the WM in a Linux distribution is the number one factor of its success. Not only its success, but Linux success.
I do agree with Linus. Gnome sucks. Why? Linus said it all. It doesn’t do what you want most of the time (unexpected behaviors) and it forces you to use it in a way you probably don’t like. Take for exemple the font config dialog of Gnome. What the … is that? Best shapes, best this, best that. OMG. Can I be free to consider what is best and what is not? This is one single exemple but there are others. Why not just allow me to pick up fonts and set properties like Anti-Aliasing directly? WAY LESS CONFUSING. And I don’t believe in the Gnome number one excuse: “it would confuse too much people”. Lies. These folks are just unable to deliver alot of changes within an acceptable amount of time. Yes, I do believe that Gnome developers are way less experienced than KDE ones. Gnome is still way too much simplistic after all these years…
So, all you guys want to tell me: use KDE and shut the … up for god sakes! But it’s not as simple as that. Like I said, the WM is the number one factor of a distro’s success (for most people). We all know it’s pain in the ass to use a Gnome centric distro (like Fedoracore) when you want to use KDE. Everything is GTK based and the KDE integration isn’t really good. Finally, you really do have to pick up a KDE centric distro but they are rare these days (enterprise level). You have SUSE (now OpenSUSE for me) and Mandriva that I don’t really like. (Don’t tell me Kubuntu, I know it exists but I’m talking about enterprise level distros with enterprise level tools, think about RedHat…). It’s kinda hard to be happy you see? And it’s getting even worst with news like SUSE is about to drop KDE (probably not true anyway).
Anyway, that’s my opinion. And don’t think I’m a KDE fanboy because I’m not. KDE is problematic too but way less than Gnome. The number one problem is probably the fact it was made for blind people (sorry we are no more in the Windows 3.1/Windows 95 640×480 era folks) and when you want to use it high res with small icons it just behaves weirdly sometimes. Also, there should some Advanced settings tabs everywhere so it would please people that believe that KDE is too complicated. Finally, it really needs a better look (why is KDE4 taking forever? 🙂 and they need to change some of the basic behaviors to match popular GUI ones (Windows,OSX). But anyway, I do believe that one day they will do it all because they are talented after all.
Oh, and don’t tell me it’s all about QT. There are way to get around this issue. SUSE got over it and Mandriva as well so I don’t know why RedHat wouldn’t be able to get over it as well. Licensing isn’t really a problem with everything remain open source…
“And it’s getting even worst with news like SUSE is about to drop KDE (probably not true anyway). ”
SuSE will not drop KDE, but they will be gnome-centric. ie, they will certainly drop many k* applications off the CDs in favor of some gnome apps.
You *can’t* have the same level of gnome and kde app on the same cds. Only debian can pretend this. (btw, they install gnome by default)
Fedora got 4 cds and they have nothing interesting for kde. SuSE will go through the same path ! gnome-centric, f–king crap.
You can count the number of *good* distro that’s DM agnostic in just one hand.
Debian, Gentoo, Slackware. That’s all.
There is no GOOD pro-kde distro. Mandrake is not pro-kde, even if in the birth of the distro they were just a redhat with kde. A very large number of Merdrake users are gnome lovers too.
Kubuntu and Ark Linux are jokes.
We seriously need a good, all-public distribution that support KDE ! gentoo and slackware are not for newbies and debian stable is going through the obsolete path. I’ve got some fear when i think of the kde fate. There’s no good newbie distro that support it, that’s really sad. SuSE were really good but novell will screw it in its next version.
> but they will be gnome-centric.
Wrong.
> they will certainly drop many k* applications off the CDs in favor of some gnome apps.
Wrong.
“Only debian can pretend this. (btw, they install gnome by default)”
Wrong again, they install both, they just use gnome and gdm by default. But KDE is there.
“Wrong again, they install both, they just use gnome and gdm by default. But KDE is there.”
stfu, the last time i tried a debian netinstall with sarge it installed me gnome but no kde by default. I saw some libs but not the true desktop.
Myself i don’t really care of the default install. Just wipe that out, apt-get install x-window-system kde and it will rock.
There is no GOOD pro-kde distro.
I think exactly the same. It’s sad to see the only near good KDE-centric distro (SUSE) going Gnome. The KDE integration in SUSE was near perfect! And I sadly don’t believe in the OpenSUSE project… too much people hate Novell to participate…
> KDE-centric distro (SUSE) going Gnome.
Wrong!
Please people, if you don’t have any constructive arguments then stop posting here. But please also stop spreading false statements and pure FUD.
” Please people, if you don’t have any constructive arguments then stop posting here. But please also stop spreading false statements and pure FUD.”
The corp. editions of the novell linux will be gnome-centric, and i can’t imagine they will really make a parallel opensuse edition that will be as KDE-centric as today. Waste of resources.
Novell is not about charity, but rentability. They will sell gnome based, not the actual opensuse. Opensuse ? they don’t care.
> Novell is not about charity, but rentability. They will
> sell gnome based, not the actual opensuse. Opensuse ?
> they don’t care.
Novell continues supporting KDE as well as GNOME as they did before. SUSE will default to KDE as it used to be but also offers GNOME as option.
” Novell continues supporting KDE as well as GNOME as they did before. SUSE will default to KDE as it used to be but also offers GNOME as option.”
I don’t say they will *drop* kde, i’m saying they will be very less kde-centric.
There is five CDs in suse, and a VERY LARGE percentage of KDE applications.
There is four CDs in fedora, and a VERY large percentage of gtk/gnome applications.
You can’t have the two, or your name is debian and you got 12 cds to sell.
Fedora support a KDE, but crippled, with very few kde apps in the distro.
Suse used to support a crippled, old gnome, with few gnome apps.
Now, Novell will be gnome-centric for their corp work. And, they don’t do charity, so they won’t maintain the same level of KDE-friendlyness as before on OpenSuSE.
> Novell will be gnome-centric for their corp work.
I already said that you are wrong. You agreed and still keep posting that shit.
YOU are the shit.
“Novell is making one large strategic change. The GNOME interface is going to become the default interface on both the SLES (SuSE Linux Enterprise Server) and Novell Linux Desktop line.
KDE libraries will be supplied on both, but the bulk of Novell’s interface moving forward will be on GNOME.
“The entire KDE graphical interface and product family will continue to be supported and delivered on OpenSuSE,” said Mancusi-Ungaro.”
They will serve a less kde distro. Because if they want to add a certain number of gnome apps to make it ready to be the default desktop, they can’t have the same number of apps, or they will need to add more CDs to the distro and it will be the new debian.
> YOU are the shit.
You are disqualified.
The announcement you quoted was Novell’s first shot out. They instantly row back after some heavy noise from the public. They corrected their statements and clarified that everything is as it used to be with the only exception that there is a GNOME option in SUSE.
“And I do believe that the WM in a Linux distribution is the number one factor of its success. Not only its success, but Linux success.”
I’m curious as to what your metric for success is. According to this:
http://distrowatch.com/index.php?language=EN
Rank Distribution H.P.D* (Hits per day)
1 Ubuntu 2623
2 Mandriva 1686
3 SUSE 1611
4 Fedora 1082
5 MEPIS 937
I think we could safely say that Ubuntu tends to be Gnome centric. Granted these numbers don’t tell the whole story for a couple of reasons. Distrowatch isn’t the only source on the planet for finding a distribution (but I’d say it’s a major one).
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=distrowatch
Results 1 – 10 of about 1,820,000 for distrowatch. (0.10 seconds)
People can also change the WM to whatever they want once it’s installed.
You then go on to say:
“Finally, you really do have to pick up a KDE centric distro but they are rare these days (enterprise level).”
Maybe there are some valid reasons for that. I could give you mine, but it would be speculation on my part and might be completely off, or may give an impression of my personal bias that I don’t wish to convey.
IMHO your entire comment came off as a tirade to me. What was your point? Gnome is the suXorz because it’s too simplistic and less “Enterprise” distributions are supporting KDE? Gnome/GTK centric distributions make using KDE/QT have crappy integration? All of the above?
And finally:
“Oh, and don’t tell me it’s all about QT. There are way to get around this issue. SUSE got over it and Mandriva as well so I don’t know why RedHat wouldn’t be able to get over it as well. Licensing isn’t really a problem with everything remain open source…”
SUSE has always been over it. Mandriva, back in the days when it was called Mandrake, was born due to Red Hat 5.0 only coming with Gnome for a DE (even when it was utter crap. Basically a panel and used FVWM for a Window Manager (its only redeeming feature IMHO)). Mandrake Linux’s initial claim to fame was as a Red Hat compatible distribution that came with KDE by default (very nicely configured). In short, Mandrake/Mandriva has always supported KDE/QT to begin with. There was nothing for them to “get over” either.
Red Hat’s commitment to Gnome has been because they have so much stake in it as far as money/developer time/promotion (which all equate to money, really). IIRC, until Red Hat 7.0 came out, if you wanted KDE on it, you had to either download third party RPM’s (some were better quality than others), or compile it from scratch. Either way, it fell on the user to do post install.
mmm…
I make that Gnome – 3707, KDE – 4234
Seems about right.
On the subject of “commercial interests” I think Novell have shot themselves in the foot Gnomifying SuSE (in its Novell form) because they had to justify their prior purchase of whoever-it-was’s desktop.
… as usual. Who needs GNOME anyway …
i feel sooooooo sorry for poor linus. he’s going to have one hell of a hangover and bad feeling when he wakes up in the morning and realises the total crap that he came out with the day before.
poor linus
> i feel sooooooo sorry for poor linus. he’s going to
> have one hell of a hangover and bad feeling when he
> wakes up in the morning and realises the total crap
> that he came out with the day before. poor linus
Don’t worry about him. He’s doing fine and probably has tons of people protecting his back – and I am included here.
i always thought he is a friggin stupid geek with no engineering in mind (look at the mess over at LKML and kernel). but now i started liking him.
kde sucks bad ass when compared to a vanilla OSX desktop, but GNOME? – man twm has more functionallity than gnome.
kde sucks bad ass when compared to a vanilla OSX desktop, but GNOME? – man twm has more functionallity than gnome.
twm has more functionality than KDE as well. I don’t see the point of these bloated candy-coated, buggy, extraordinarly limiting interfaces for anyone who’s not a beginner. IceWM, Fluxbox/Blackbox, fvwm, etc. (+ desktop icon manager of your choice if you’re noob enough to rely on desktop icons) run circles around both KDE and Gnome in functionality, customization, stability, and performance.
about the Gnome project that bothers me is that it is increasingly the choice for corporations. I feel that the feature delete that Gnome is experiencing is the result of pressure from large corporations who are more concerned with keeping sheeplike, cubical bound workers on task. Providing features gives workers more flexibility and more chance that they will get off task. It is well know that Gnome is very heavily influenced by Novell $$$, and one of their best designers is a Novell employee. I prefer KDE because it has not yet succumbed to the agenda of big business. This is, of course, only my opinion based on personal observation.
Edited 2005-12-13 13:44
Is this F.I. a new short term for f–king Idiots or I am missing something? The fact that I am using KDE and support it doesn’t make me any better than GNOME users. I support the GNOME users in any mean, what they do, how they work, their community at all, although sometimes I use to make light jokes for things that seem funny in the work of GNOME with my close GNOME-using friends. But this is no joke anymore and seems to make another flame war between the users of the free software. It is like, I am not using GNU but rather Linux or I will throw Linux from GNU/Linux and use GNU only. Which is not possible.
We have right to choose, Linus is nothing more than a kernel creator and ego-centric hacker who thinks has the right to call the users of Linux based OSs to use this or that, however there are some blind “followers” of his idealism and will agree on this, as much as there are the hardcore GNOME users which will try to deny what the first ones would say and that is war. However if you are sane and think twice, you all stop here, even lock this article for replying cause it leads to haterd and that would lead to making differences in the core of the open source community which is the less thing we want now, don’t we?
Aleksandar,
Macedonia
Whereas Linus may have been more polite, i understand what it says. For Desktop users Gnome is fine and you don’t need to expose PPD options. BTW most inkjet printers ( for desktop usage ) doesn’t provide PPD files.
However as a workstation in a profesionnal environment, you need the PPD options. Indeed in enterprise most of the time, you will be using PostScript Laser printers, and theses printers work out of the box because they understand PostScript, but also because they are exposing theirs options thanks to a common format : PPD ( http://www.linuxprinting.org/ppd-doc.html ). Thanks to the PPD files and theirs options you can :
– switch the printer to “low quality mode” to preserve toner if you’re just going to printers hundreds papers that don’t need high quality
– select the input slot/tray to use ( each tray may have different type of paper, different quality of paper, etc … or you may want to use the bypass to put bristol paper which can’t be put in the tray )
– select the output slot
– specify if you want to automatically staple the paper
– store the print in the printer Hard-disk and make the print happen later
– manually set the paper type because you know that the printer may incorrectly detect the paper
– select a different printer color profil in order to have sharper or brighter or whateveryouwant prints
– and so on …
It means that you can use the advanced options for which you pay for a 5000$ ( or more ) printer !
Under Windows when you install theses kind of PostScript printers with a PPD file, in the print dialog, when you go in the properties, there’s a new tab that allow you to easily change and modify theses advanced settings.
The same for OpenOffice ( which even provide it’s own set of PPD files ) and for KDE in the driver settings tab : http://printing.kde.org/screenshots/
http://docs.kde.org/stable/en/kdebase/kdeprint/cups-and-ppd.html#id…
CUPS also allow to configure these settings ( system wide in this case ) during printer installation.
Printerdrake allow to do this also (system wide ) during printer installation :
http://doc.mandrivalinux.com/MandrakeLinux/101/en/Starter.html/prin…
This is not possible with Gnome, and not so far away for most Gnome application you couldn’t even select the printer from a list. I’d even opened a bug report about this concerning galeon and epiphany some times ago. See :
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=126304
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=120924
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=141241
Just my 0.2€ ( and I’m french
)
> http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=126304
> http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=120924
> http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=141241
More unfixed GNOME Print bugs:
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=316011
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=312757
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=311348
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=311338
And hey, these are just for trivial printing stuff.
It has just a simple solution to the GNOME problem that doesn’t make the system hard for starters: put an advanced tab on the systems configuration options!
It’s hard to do that?
I really like GNOME but the lack of options really makes me feel like a bird in a jail!
> It has just a simple solution to the GNOME problem that
> doesn’t make the system hard for starters: put an
> advanced tab on the systems configuration options!
>
> It’s hard to do that?
Yes it’s that hard. Due to GNOME’s ugly framework these things are not easy to implement and requires a disciplined change in many areas.
Linus Torvalds’s view of GNOME is irrelevant. I can’t believe anyone still listens to the guy when he goes off on one of his rants.
He lost all right to authority when he chose a commercial program made by a guy who doesn’t understand free software to manage the kernel, and then backed him when he turned on a free software developer acting in good faith. Any technical credibility he had went out the window when he claimed that all specs are useless.
It’s sickening to see people pandering to him and trying to calm him down just because he’s Linus. There are easier ways to make our users rock than wasting time on this kind of shit.
http://blogs.gnome.org/view/bolsh/2005/12/13/1
For the record I am a GNOME (and Mac) user. I would consider my self a tech user (ie I code, most used apps – vim, xterm).
I have no problem with GNOME dumbing down interfaces. I actually think this is a good thing. But why they hell cant they provide an “Advanced” button or Tab to let people (who want to) have more config options.
Too many times the GNOME group act like Nazis – example when they changed Nautilus behavior some time back (open folders in new windows) and did NOT provide a way for people to configure it back to the old design. yes I know it is possible to google and find out how to do this but why was the config option not in GNOME?
On the other hand calling designers FIs is not really going to make them listen to you. Linus’s approach is not constructive – only good for a flame war
Interesting set of comments. Most are more cogent and helpful than the original post being commented on, thanks. As an “elderly” user of the computer world, these type of extended commentaries are very useful to me. I pick up lots of small and ancillary things that I can then test to see what they do. Oh yeah, by “elderly” I should add that I’m 67, male, retired (small income, durnit), reasonably healthy, and haven’t lost my mind yet (although posting this might belie that).
I have three computers set up, even though using a slow dial up connection, and they are all using different systems. The main one is Debian Sarge, Gnu/linux running the Gnome environment (did I get that right?). Another is a Windows 98 system on it’s last legs and used to play the books-on-tape from Audible.com since I’m not enough of a geek to have figured out just yet how to get wine or something else to run the Audible material. Another, formerly a Windows XP system and now a happy test system, is used to run any kind of “distro” that catches my attention and I feel like paying the toll to have sent in. It has run quite a few systems, every thing from Symphony to SUSE and Puppy. Right now, it’s a Debian Sarge Testing system to keep me from crashing the other Debian Sarge Stable (at least for the moment) system.
While that doesn’t give me any credentials to discuss things on the level of Linus Torvald, I’m still the most important person in the Linux world. I’m the “end user” and no one is more important. If it’s not used, it just dies, no matter how wonderful it is. Think about all the Linux software that was started, showed great promise, and simply faded. Some of that was potentially able to change the computer world but didn’t get used. Us little people make it all work.
While I’m presently using Gnome I have used KDE extensively. Lots of good to both and some not so good on both. Yes, Gnome might suit the elderly, not so smart, casual computer user better than KDE. Good for them (not to say Gnome was written for AARP). KDE might be written for the more involved user or possibly those users with a few more cerebral cells remaining. Good for them. Isn’t that kind of important? Lots of choices? I’d like to try even more environmental systems to see what fits the elderly but still curious human (well, even the elderly are still human, you know).
Linus Torvald’s remarks indicate a focus on what he’s doing and it is important to him. Doesn’t especially help me, the end user, unless it improves the environment I find in my computer. I don’t care much about speed (retired and on dial up, remember) but I do like to be able to mess with the system some. I think of it like a large sponge ball with lots of decorations pinned to the outside. I want to play with the decorations, not crawl inside the sponge ball that’s holding up the decorations. Probably most end users feel the same.
All in all, the comments generated by Mr. Torvald’s statements (if he did, indeed, say them) are more interesting and useful to me than the original Torvald statement. So, once again, thanks.
I just wonder.
He tried to code linux with c++, and he told us it sucks.
I guess, May be GUI implementation wih c++ is different.
pygtk, gcj(java-gnome), ruby(ruby-gnome), mono all is all and good for me.
I am using garnome-2.13.2 with LFS-style debian.
When i was a kid, i used to use kde. and i grown up.
Here in the third world, which means most of the world, IceWM, Fluxbox, and Ion3 rules.
KDE and Gnome are products for the first world users with new computers that no matter how fast, can’t keep up with the bloat of the software.
These entities should stop wasting our time and dedicate their valuable time to things that are important like wifi, lean/fast software, accounting and cad software.
It’s a sad day to be a Linux user – to realize that a pillar of the open source movement would be so rash to call people he disagrees with “f–king idiots.” If only the Ubuntu code of conduct applied to the whole FLOSS community.
I’m reminded of a scene in “Just for Fun” (a book about Torvalds from a few years back) where Linus is visiting the author’s house and notices the author’s Mac. He sits down and complains about the display and tries to change it to his liking. He complains that he can’t do what he wants on the Mac.
While I’m sure the PPD options are needed in some situations – where corporations have $10,000 printers, etc., for cases like mine (running a small business) GNOME provides much better for my needs. In GNOME, I plug it in and it shows up. I like this. And in GNOME, NetworkManager makes using my wireless card painless. And GNOME Volume Manager does the same for CDs, DVDs, floppies, iPods, etc.
By and large, I really like what the GNOME crew have been up to. There are CERTAINLY problems here and there, but they are have little to with mouse button assignment and the like. So, in conclusion, almighty and ever-righteous Linus Torvalds, drop the attitude, refrain from calling the people who have made Open Source accessible to me and my business “f–king idiots” and learn to treat the work of others with respect. Otherwise, I’m moving to a BSD.
“Otherwise, I’m moving to a BSD.”
Do not think *bsd developpers are more angelic than Linus. Theo de Raadt is a really really good troller, hehe. I love that, even if i’m a linux user and he’s saying linux sucks. That’s part of the game. Enjoy it.
If Linus say so must be true…. NOT.
“In GNOME, I plug it in and it shows up. … And GNOME Volume Manager does the same for CDs, DVDs, floppies, iPods, etc”
KDE desktop -> right click, configure desktop -> behaviour -> device icons.
Or
Kicker right click -> add applet to panel -> storage media.
Insert CD/thumbdrive/whatever, see it appear on the desktop or in the kicker. Granted, setting it up for the desktop is a bit buried, but one only does it once
or the distro does it for him.
That is something that should be on by default I think, and Gnome is right to have it so. It is there in KDE though, and by default too with Kubuntu and others.
yes, but it works in gnome. it never works properly in kde.
Linus is just avoiding the redundancy that many people love: saying “In my opinion” after every sentence.
It’s fun to notice how relatively friendly the replies are. Who else could’ve posted the same message and lived?
In an earlier comment I mentioned that Gnome was in fact aiming at (computer) idiots, that is to say potentially brilliant people who don’t care to know how a computer works. Linus is right to say they do.
Just thought I’d back up that assertion:
“I totally understand where you’re coming from. In fact, I spoke about this at length during my keynote at GUADEC earlier this year. *Putting GNOME on a long-term mission towards the 99.9% of users who don’t care about computers* involved a massive cultural shift.” – Jeff Waugh, from the discussion the article linked to (emphasis added)
Why doesthis stupid argument go on and on and on. People can choose their own WM or DE on *nix and that’s the way it should be. Why must there always be people who want to tell others which one to use. Anyway everybody’s got their own opinion on this. It’s just one more of those stupid my Desktop’s better than yours discussions where somebody wants to feel good about calling others stupid for not using theirs.
Didn’t believe Linus to be that religious about his preferred software.
Sorry if my English isn’t all correct. Not a native speaker.
I like his brutal honesty and opinion. If only more ppl took that route. Drunk or not it reflects his true feelings which are what we need more of in this world. Now, if he tried messing w/ the Gnome project that would be another story.
First the lawship against people who use his copyrighted name (Linux) then this shizoid article about interfaces..
The big advantage of Linux (can I still use the name Mr Linus??) is its openess and freedom of choice, even users of KDE benefit from the existance of Gnome and all other interfaces. Why’s this anger Mr. Linus?
use of the word “Nazi” don’t you think?
http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/genocide/Norway1.htm
No not really.
It’s pretty common in many countries.
Using nazi or fascist in combination with other words are pretty common, at least in Denmark.
Interface Nazis would in Denmark probably be Interface Fascists but that’s the only difference. Interface Communists could be another good term to show that somebody are abusing their position to force people to do something a specific way.
It’s good someone of real importance is showing that he isn’t bowing down to what we find politically correct, for lack of better terms, in the computing world. The man prefers KDE, and he’s not scared to tell you that, no matter how much you gasp or groan. I applaud Linus. Now, what on earth is the man talking about? KDE’s a dog
Yeah, guess that’s my opinion *grin*
When the man’s right he’s right but that’s still no reason to suffer KDE.
Linus is entitled to his opinions like everyone else. Why should he be “tip-toeing” around ? Steve Balmer has even crazier outbursts and he is even more influential then Linus
This isn’t a debate about Gnome or KDE, or KDE versus Gnome. Who cares. This is really about the degree to which Linux (or elements of it, like the desktop environments) listens to its users and tries to make them welcome.
It’s fairly clear that elements of Linux do not listen to their users. Far from it. Gnome generally doesn’t. They’ve set a clear course and implement “Do it our way or hit the highway.” Not surprisingly, some folks don’t like that attitude and I can’t say I’m surprised.
Together with this, there are some crude and unattractive attitudes towards end-users. The talk about morons, bright users and hackers is a giveaway. Those who treat other users (i.e., other people) as idiots or “newbies” have no concept of service and no place serving up open source software. Mentally, they haven’t yet grown up and left school.
There’s more than a trace of this in Gnome (and a huge element of it in distros like Debian). No wonder people can be repulsed and become annoyed. Totally understandable. I’m glad Linus Torvalds has enough humanity and common sense to call out some puffed-up twits then he sees them.
This entire conversation will be rendered moot by the release of E17.
More than 17 comments in 5 min!!! Great troll. Even if it is true 😉
Same troll with Ubuntu and Kubuntu
This is pretty much a non-issue IMHO. Who cares what Linus Torvalds thinks about a DE and GUI and how they function? It’s largely a matter of personal taste and what each individual user finds comfortable for what he/she does with a computer. Linus should avoid ex cathedra prnouncements on anything other than his kernel.
i agree. nobody should care one bit about what linux thinks about the UI. he is the kernel writer, not a designer. its a bit like the maker of the engine telling ferrari how to design the appearence of a car.
so, linus, why don’t you just belt up and stick to what you know and shut the f up about what you don’t.
> so, linus, why don’t you just belt up and stick to what you know and shut the f up about what
> you don’t.
I told the GNOME people to do the same unfortunately they still continue messing up GNOME Desktop.
“i agree. nobody should care one bit about what linux thinks about the UI. he is the kernel writer, not a designer. its a bit like the maker of the engine telling ferrari how to design the appearence of a car.”
Yeah, nobody should listen to potential users’ opinions. At least not if they aren’t interface designers.
Way to go OSNews! Congratulations! You bought into the ranting of a troll hook, line and sinker, and trashed Torvald’s reputation at the same time. Nice job!
I mean come on… Did you read some of the follow up posts? Cursing? all caps, illogical arguments, etc? This is clearly not really Linux posting. It is a troll using his name.
OSNews is getting to be worse than Slashdot when it comes to not verifying whether their info is accurate, and posting sensationalist headlines in order to boost read count and reply count.
What happened the OSNews that uses to be a legitimate news site? It sold out to the wanker wannabes, just like slashdot did.
> I mean come on… Did you read some of the follow up
> posts? Cursing? all caps, illogical arguments, etc?
> This is clearly not really Linux posting. It is a troll
> using his name.
I don’t think so. Have you ever read the LKML?
If it really is Linus, then I must say it is truly sad that he has decided to join the “immature asshole zealot” camp of Linux hackers–the camp that derides and ridicules other people for having an opinion different than their own. They are a dark stain on the entire Linux community–especially when the founder himself decided to join them.
> “immature asshole zealot” camp of Linux hackers
Sorry I can not confirm this. Linus Torvalds was always very friendly and calm to me whenever I contacted him. Though I am one of the SCSI driver Maintainers (amongst two other buds). Linus was always correct and honest. All I can see in his reply was, that he finally set the butts of the prideful GNOME crowd who believes to be correct in all they do on the pot. And hey, they deserved it. There are no bigger egos and assholes than those from the GNOME camp.
> Sorry I can not confirm this.
I still don’t think it is really him. I don’t read the kernel lists, but when I have seen stuff from Linus before, I have not known him to resort to things like all caps cursing and that kind of crap.
All I can see in his reply was, that he finally set the butts of the prideful GNOME crowd who believes to be correct in all they do on the pot. And hey, they deserved it. There are no bigger egos and assholes than those from the GNOME camp.
I feel ANGST here.
This is true: “There are no bigger egos and assholes than those from the GNOME camp”
KDE and GNOME are both useless pieces of shit compared to Aqua. Wake up and smell the coffee!
just read the thread
– kozo
I like Gnome’s mentality quite a bit. For some reason, I never could find the need for a powerful windows environment for power users. Everything I need is in the command line. I just need my desktop environment to open Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice, a few video-editing applications, and I need it to be able to print. I also want it to get out of my way as much as possible (not too flashy, not to clutterred, not too complex) so I can concentrate and think right. Otherwise, I don’t care what it does, how it does it, or how it looks (as long as it isn’t hideous like KDE
is.)
A lot of people seem to forget that Linus is human and has his likes and dislikes just like the rest of us. He likes KDE? Kudos and bouquets for him.
Just because the benevolent dictator likes KDE and not GNOME does not make GNOME users scum, nor does it make KDE users gods. Free software is about choice, and no desktop environment pundit, pro-KDE, pro-GNOME, or otherwise can change that fact.
Everyone who is getting so heated and passionate about this debate needs to have a cold one and relax. Hell, I love Linux while my wife hates it, yet we are able to be civil about it, even if she is a little Windows loving… (just kidding 😉 )
Why can’t we learn a lesson from the Swiss? :-p
Well, I don’t much care what Linus thinks about Gnome vs. KDE either. But Linus really needs to either learn how to have civil dialog, or get someone to sanitize his posts for him. It’s just very bad PR for someone in such a prominant position in the Linux community to be trashing others in his own community with that kind of venom spewing forth from the hole in his face, and and it reflects very poorly for him to resort to childish antics like all caps cursing and such.
GNOME has serious problem in their UI design and lack of function. I can see GNOME somtimes is trying to learn from Mac OS X’s simplicity. However, they don’t really understand Mac OS X. As a former KDE user and now a Mac OS X user, I can see Mac OS X is the easiest to use, and also looks simple and elegant. Compared with GNOME, GNOME simply “looks easy” but using it is a pain. Mac OS X looks simple, but it has so many advanced tricks which can give you a lot more effiency. KDE may have too many options for you to choose. It is a problem but KDE is also easy to use. Their problem is that KDE needs to hide more options in ADVANCED bottons.
Hey guys STOP trolling for nothing ! This is free world everybody can have his own opinion but yours !
You like Gnome use it, personnaly I use what can be used !! => KDE or Gnome ( I’m not going to be that sort oh hayatolah installing a DW just for console lines
) depending on linux distro I’m on … and on personnal computers fluxbox / fvwm / blackbox depending on time I have to customize and size of RAM …
That’s it !
I’m so sick of this egocentric world of linux where everybody tells you his own truth … You got a problem ?
Answer 1 : try another soft / command line …
Answer 2 ( after trying answer 1 ) : recompile !!
Wher is the “Keep It Simple Stupid” mind nowherdays ?!
i’m beginning to believe that it isn’t linus at all. i bet its a raving ranting kde fanboy such as Ali impersonating him because it wouldn’t surprise me at all.
No no no no no no no! This is Santa Claus! He got a little more than ticked at the whole “Who wrote Linux” ordeal. This is his payback
Linus and I can agree on something!
Well, I don’t agree for the same reason he does, but I do agree that KDE is champ. In my opinion, KDE is more technically advanced and generally a better looking desktop.
That being said, the only thing that holds KDE back from corporate adoption is the GPL. Let’s say if I, as a corporation, want to use KDE in order to develop closed-source applications then I’d probably a) need to get a Qt license, or b) just GPL everything I develop. The problem is, I don’t know for sure if option “a” protects me fully. I mean, I think other KDE libraries are GPL’d as well.
I also believe that KDE could use some cleaning up. Only to assure that the UI is consistent and hopefully more optimized so it can run faster. I’m surely not saying that they should cut out features, just make sure that the code is cleaned out to strip away things that aren’t needed or not used. Anyway, that’s just IMHO.
Linus Torvalds is not professional. This proves Linux to be a hobbysist OS. Anyone who cares whether he likes KDE or GNOME really should get off his ladder or pucker up and like it.
Go to top500.org, then tell us linux is just a hobbyist OS.
For a hobbyist os, it runs on some of the best supercomputers of the world. Truly hobbyist, we can all afford those supercomputers.
OS market isn’t just about office people. An OS isn’t anymore just for hobbyists when it’s used for cricital tasks like that.
and since i am only 15-20min from OSDL should i just go ask if its really him?
and a side no i didnt read all 260+ comments just the first few
“Arguing by reductio-ad-absurdum is a known logical fallacy. Yet you do it.”
http://lists.osdl.org/pipermail/desktop_architects/2005-December/00…
Reductio ad absurdum is a perfectly valid method of argument, it’s not a logical fallacy at all. He probably was mistaken because he saw it listed on a logical fallacy website. Those websites list it because it’s actually an argument AGAINST a logical fallacy; it’s a form of proof-by-contradiction.
You take the person’s argument to its logical extreme and show that because of the absurdity of that extreme, that it must be wrong. The fact that the person’s logic allows it to be taken to that extreme means that it’s flawed. A proper logical argument will account for that and place limits that prevent extremes from being logically valid in their system.
-njyoder
> Reductio ad absurdum is a perfectly valid method
> of argument, it’s not a logical fallacy at all.
Which is rather interesting isn’t it? You’d think the real Linus Torvalds, computer science graduate, would know better. After all, logic classes are an essential part of a CSci curriculum. Again, it sounds like more evidence that this is probably not the real Linus. Resorting to big buzz words to try to intimidate others, and not even knowing what those buzz words really mean.
When will the “leaders” of open source get it? For open source to take off, they need to stop bickering and start working together.
The more that leaders of various large influential OSS projects publicly belittle others, the more they are blown off as immature children. They get the, “Thats nice, go run along and play now.” Much like when Eric Raymond publically posted the ridiculous response to the Microsoft job recruiter, this is yet another black eye to the Open Source Community as a whole.
In other news, it seems like the trend recently is for the KDE lovers to bash gnome to no end. Kurt P certainly ripped novell a new one with his opinion piece full of lies and deciet on linuxtoday:
http://linuxtoday.com/it_management/2005110401826OPSSNV
If you don’t like gnome, fine. If you like to spread fud, post on /. don’t make the whole community look bad. Thanks
I love Gnome, it is clear and it does what a GUI should do without the extra uneccessary eyecandy. I detest eyecandy and especially KDE eyecandy.
KDE is nothing but a WinXP GUI on steroids…
Gnome 4ever!!!
Gnome, by it’s very nature as a Graphic User Interface, is loaded with eye candy. All GUIs have eye candy…get over it. There’s room on this planet for KDE (my personal fave), Gnome, XFCE, Fluxbox, and all the others.
Torvalds is an idiot.
Quoting Nat Friedman replying to Linus:
“We need Linux to grow up if we’re going to make Linux on the desktop a success. Let’s have a grown-up discussion. If I worked for Microsoft I’d be very happy to see you throwing pejoratives around like that on this list.”
LMMFAO….. The folks at Microsoft probably sent Linus flowers and candy, with a note thanking him for his support.
In future news:
Torvalds joins Microsoft Research and Development.
This is probably the biggest KDE-Gnome flamewar ever!
Thom I humbly ask you pretty please, save this flamewar in a very secure server with some paper copies so that future generations of archilogists can see how in the year 2005 B.C.S. (Before Common Sense) the fanboyism reached the Ultima© Flama®!
YeS, Quintuple, hypEr n0va, Alucard, Shazam, Tripla, Songoku, ZenPowerRangerPlusMegaTransform.
YYYYYEEEEESSSSSS!11!11!!!twentythree!!11!11!!!!!
(Note to you my friend future archologist, back in this era we were poor but very happy, remember this and apply it to your own life in you admirable new world)
> the year 2005 B.C.S. (Before Common Sense)
Are you an oracle, or why do you think common sense will be common (pun intended) in the year 4010?
> Are you an oracle, or why do you think common sense will be common (pun intended) in the year 4010?
‘Cause I said so. X-D Haven’t you read my nick? I’m the TimeRever[ter] I’m the very essence of time. Then again maybe not… BLAME THE CATS!!! THEY DID IT TO MY BRAIN!
*Runs around criyng
I like an interface that don’t stay in my way with lots of silly preferences, just like many MacOsXers and BeOSers. I’m an idiot, so?
I have to agree with Torvalds on something. KDE is without a doubt a better experience than GNOME. Not that GNOME is really bad, I just find myself always going back to KDE. It just seems more polished, seems to run faster, and just has more features that I like.
Really, who cares what he likes KDE orver GNOME? Isnt there a Bajillion window managers to choose from?
I might as well throw my 2 cents in.
I prefer Gnome, mostly because it has been more stable than KDE in my experience. KDE seems much more crash prone than Gnome does, with various parts of the KDE core components generating the crash dialog on a way too regular basis.
KDE vs GNOME – they are both being actively developed and made suitable for at least the people making them so good to them both.
I use fluxbox (on the rare occasion I actually fire up X) and dislike both KDE and GNOME but I’m not going to go and bitch to people about what I don’t like and tell them to use fluxbox. Likewise I use FreeBSD instead of linux but I don’t go and tell everyone to use that and not linux.
Sorry Linus but truly bad idea saying something like that, your reputation grows worse by all of your bad moves not better. Just because you wrote the first linux kernel and work on it with a small group of people doesn’t mean you can be an ass to hardworking people like those working on GNOME.
Linus is a UNIX kernel hacker.
GNOME is for average desktop users.
Linus finds GNOME doesn’t suit him.
Suprise!
This is non-news and there is nothing to discuss.
> Linus is a UNIX kernel hacker.
> GNOME is for average desktop users.
> Linus finds GNOME doesn’t suit him.
And yet KDE does? I’ve always found KDE to be much “less technically demanding” than Gnome. So that logic doesn’t work very well. Gnome is more for power users than KDE is. Gnome is basically infinately customizable. But customizing it required digging around at a fairly low level. KDE isn’t nearly as customizable. But the customizations you can do are easier because they can all bew done from the KDE control panels.
> Gnome is more for power users than KDE is.
Strange that every power user I know finds GNOME scary (including me and Linus and many others). So what ? Either GNOME is for the idiot users amongst us or for the power users. Your “power users” sentence totally contradicts to the “ordinary users” stuff that GNOME aims to target.
> Strange that every power user I know finds GNOME
> scary (including me and Linus and many others).
I don’t use either Gnome or KDE is my regular desktop. Typically I use fluxbox. Since mostly I just want the ability to manage multiple windows, and have the window manager stay out of my way.
When it comes to toolkit issues though, Gtk is a vastly superior toolkit to Qt. And yes, I have programmed in both. Qt has some very bad design flaws. And Gtk is the only one of the major GUI toolkits for Windows that actually takes advantage of standard C++… Hey Qt people? Every heard of something called “namespaces”? Maybe you should look at gtkmm and learn what they are, and how they are your friend… Oh, and while you are at it, adding proprietary extensions to C++ that requires a special pre-processor is BAD.
For XWindows that should have said. The X didn’t register.
I am not sure you are talking about the same KDE as everyone else. I use both desktops on a regular basis and of the two KDE is the one that can be customised a lot more.
Both are good DEs, but GNOME seems to have gone downhill since the 2.x release. GNOME 1.4 was one of the best ever GNOME releases and I wish GNOME had continued in that tradition.
Yeah Gnome 1.x was nice.
Gnome2 is slightly annoying, and I didn’t like the changes from 2.6 to 2.8 – definitely going too far, as Jeff Waugh admitted.
The Gnome desk top has gone down hill since 1.4. Everything that was cool in 1.4 in the way of customizing your environment has gone away. It’s soo dumbed down that it’s annoying to use. Windows is more intuitive now. I’ve switched to KDE and haven’t looked back. Gnome 1.4 was better, but against gnome 2.x, KDE rules.
Linus told the same truth that many have been speaking since GNOME 2.0 came out. Forcing spatial file management on users, as well as reversed save/open dialogs does not improve usability. Hiding the ability to have the window manager act left handed (with close/maximize/minimize buttons on the left of the window manager rather than the right) does not improve usability. Horrid file dialogs do not improve usability. All Linus did was reiterate facts already well known and discussed.
Linus sounds more like a nazi himself.
Good to see a developer doing something about it.
Personally I prefer Gnome, but there’s no doubt it needs get back on track.
Since 2.6 It’s been going extremely downhill.
Torvalds aren’t saying it the nice way – but then, the nice way is never effective.
The gnome simplicity has gone WAY to far. Not that I want the stupid complexity of KDE with absolutely no consistency in UI and mediocre drag’n’drop.
It’s time for K-nome to arrive.
> Not that I want the stupid complexity of KDE with absolutely no consistency in UI.
Excuse me what ? KDE’s UI is by far more consistent than what GNOME offers that’s due to their object oriented approach.
Oh for crying out loud, how is an “object oriented approach” preventing me from creating inconsistent interfaces?
Not only that, but he made it clear he has never used Gtk. Because Gtk *is* object oriented. (Hint to the original poster: It is possible to do object oriented programming in C).
Oh, and if he doesn’t want to… There is always gtkmm, which is vastly more object oriented than Qt is. It actually takes advantage of C++ features and doesn’t resort to old C tricks like macros that break object orientation in evil ways.
> Not only that, but he made it clear he has never used
> Gtk. Because Gtk *is* object oriented. (Hint to the
> original poster: It is possible to do object oriented
> programming in C).
I contributed to GNOME for some years but then, GTK’s great OO approach doesnt help if half of the people use the OO approach and others not. Some people simply call function calls rather than referencing some objects. What benefits does GTK’s great OO approach habe if it’s used half by apps, if people still keep programming the good old ‘calling functions’ and ‘calling functions to alter attributes’ way, what benefits does it have that many bindings or other things don’t implement these things nicely enough ?
http://img234.imageshack.us/my.php?image=screenshot34ji.jpg
Looking at this screenshot gives a great example that the so called great OO approach has miserabely failed. There is not even one common Toolbar object that people can use – and use in an unaltered way so they look consistent.
Show me one KDE application that has a Toolbar which looks differently than other Toolbars used in KDE.
Only one!
“There is not even one common Toolbar object that people can use – and use in an unaltered way so they look consistent. ”
First of all, this has absolutely nothing to do with object oriented programming.
Second, yes there is. There is a complete set of stock icons that come with Gtk, and if you change the theme, those stock icons will be changed too. If developers use those stock icons, their apps will pick up the Gtk theme.
Of course, you can’t force developers to use stock icons in Gtk. But you can’t force them to in Qt either. In otherwords, there is no toolkit that can stop developers from designing back UIs.
> First of all, this has absolutely nothing to do with object oriented programming.
It has.
> Second, yes there is. There is a complete set of stock icons that come with Gtk, and
> if you change the theme, those stock icons will be changed too. If developers use those
> stock icons, their apps will pick up the Gtk theme.
I don’t speak about icons dude – and I give a flying f–k about them too.
I speak about the code, object oriented toolbars (containing toolbar editor, and other stuff) behave similar. If I inherit that toolbar object in all the apps that require a toolbar then they all behave consistent. GNOME is NOT doing this – everyone is freaking hacking together their own toolbar, tweaking around with attributes and other shit. No toolbar looks like the other.
Get some brainz before talking with me and if you happen to not get anything from what I write then stop replying and stop wasting my time.
The toolbars in different gnome applications have similar behaviour but different content.
Your statements are false.
The look of toolbars has nothing to do with object oriented programming.
The look of toolbars in gnome are very similar across applications, though the contents differ. But behaviour is similar in all of them.
You don’t use Gnome apparently.
Take a look at gedit, gnumeric, openoffice, thunderbird, firefox, mozilla, epiphany, bluefish and you’ll see that these applications with some even being non-gnomic actually looks and behaves the same way.
The content is different, but basic behaviour is identical.
> The toolbars in different gnome applications have
> similar behaviour but different content.
No, that’s wrong.
First of all, you do understand the difference betwen ‘content’ and ‘code’ ?
Content is the shit shown on the toolbar.
But I speak about the ‘code’ and their attributes how the toolbar looks once the code for generating it has been processed.
> The look of toolbars has nothing to do with object oriented programming.
The look of the toolbar has a lot to do with programming. Again it doesn’t matter what ‘symbols’ are shown in the toolbar, what I speak about is how the toolbar looks and behaves.
So please again from the screenshot:
http://img234.imageshack.us/my.php?image=screenshot34ji.jpg
Now please have a look at that damn toolbars dude.
a) some toolbars have a drag handle (the small thing on the left side where you can untie the toolbar)
b) some toolbars have icons and text while others not
c) some toolbars are higher than others.
AGAIN I DONT SPEAK ABOUT ICONS or the godamn images shown.
If I use common object oriented approach I would have a custom toolbar class somewhere in my f–king library, that has support for showing icons only, icons and text, make the toolbar show smaller or bigger images, or simply edit the toolbar.
GNOME has many ways doing a toolbar dude, one from libbonoboui, one from libgnomeui and the new approach in GTK+
> The look of toolbars in gnome are very similar across
> applications, though the contents differ. But
> behaviour is similar in all of them.
No they are not, please look at the screenshot a bit closer.
> You don’t use Gnome apparently.
I do and hell I spent my f–kign past 6 years telling clueeless GNOME developers about this issue.
> Take a look at gedit, gnumeric, openoffice,
> thunderbird, firefox, mozilla, epiphany, bluefish
> and you’ll see that these applications with some
> even being non-gnomic actually looks and behaves
> the same way.
They are not.
> The content is different, but basic behaviour is identical.
No, it’s not.
Omg is this guy still crying about the toolbar issue. Wow it is impossible to have any gnome related thread without this guy crying about some moot issue.
Look nobody cares. Shut up. This has been disputed three ways to sundays. Different applications = different toolbars. Different application developers = different toolbars. What the hell is so complicated about that.
So are you gonna keep bsing that your a developer even though you seemingly have no idea what a toolkit is, and that the developer has no obligation in using a toolkit. Im pretty sure you have no clue whatsoever.
“a) some toolbars have a drag handle (the small thing on the left side where you can untie the toolbar)”
All toolbars have a drag handle…..except galaxy. I have been a gnome user for about a year and never heard of galaxy. I have looked on gnome-files and googled it, I has been 2 hard for me to find it. Conclusion: at the most its a 3rd party application. What does galaxy do anyways. (it might be useful ^^)
“b) some toolbars have icons and text while others not”
hey dumbass, did u realize that the the icons with text are on the applications that have BIGGER icons. Would you understand why developers would want bigger icons then smaller ones for some applications. Would you think that some applications have a WEALTH load more commonly used icons then other application. Could it be possible. Noway!! How could it be possible that users will need more icons to do something in AbiWord compared to gedit. Well why dont we do the kde thing, where they scrunch over 5 icons over to the left and make them tiny as hell? As a person who prefers gnome, I will say no.
“c) some toolbars are higher than others.”
What the hell does that mean. Apart from your an idiot?
I hope you aint crying about toolbar size, because I hope u know that bigger icons = larger toobars.
Going back to Linus. Ill say its impossible to have a war without soldiers on either side. Linus chose kde, and his words show that hes up to defend his choice. Thats good for him. Everyone needs a little of that.
I do understand the difference between content and code, and we agree on the definition. If people cannot see the difference they’ll have a hard time understanding how things work or don’t work.
The look and behaviour is pretty much the same for those applications. Whether they have a handle or not means nothing. It’s just a different value for a certain attribute.
It’s working the way it’s supposed to. You’re making an issue of a non-issue.
And yes. Thunderbird, Firefox, Epiphany, Mozilla, Bluefish, gedit, gnumeric, Totem etc. look and behave similar to each other in regard to toolbars.
You can say “no” as much as you want.
As a user I haven’t met any inconsistency so far in modern Gnome apps (having used Gnome since late 1999).
Different height is a non-issue. It’s just an attribute and is not a part of behaviour.
The same goes for handles.
GTK+ has a common class for toolbars, and look and behaviour is controlled via attributes and events. Just like in all other reasonably modern tool kits.
I got a better idea. Learn how to spell and talk properly, and make you will start looking like you have a clue what you are talking about. It’s clear you don’t.
And in case you didn’t notice, you can do inheritance in Gtk. But I bet you are just too lame to actually have taken the time to figure out how.
> And in case you didn’t notice, you can do inheritance
> in Gtk. But I bet you are just too lame to actually
> have taken the time to figure out how.
Exactly, you *can* inherit, but you are not forced. The mess we see today. Above screenshot is the best example how much it fails.
“Exactly, you *can* inherit, but you are not forced. The mess we see today. Above screenshot is the best example how much it fails.”
Dude, you obviously don’t understand the Gtk structure. YES, you do have to inherit. And you seem to be hung up on the idea of inheritance. If you are subclassing a toolbar class to create your toolbar, you are almost certainly doing something wrong. a toolbar class is almost never a good candidate for subclassing since you almost never want to change the default behavior. Repeat the mantra “Program to interfaces. Not implementations”. Get out of the inheritance trap before it bites you.
And in Qt, there is nothing forcing me to use a standard toolbar either. I am 100% free to create a god-awful mess of a toolbar if I want to. I can use non-standard icons, place buttons in non-standard locations, etc.
> If you are subclassing a toolbar class to create your
> toolbar, you are almost certainly doing something
> wrong.
Exactly. So please tell everyone (including me) why Evince has a Toolbar editor and Yelp for example not. Tell everyone of us why I can change the Toolbar using “Toolbar & Menu” capplet but I can’t change the one from Gnumeric.
Go ahead explaining. I thought GNOME was all about consistency and clean look. But yet the shit doesn’t look that clean because all the Toolbars are behaving differently.
Of course you can subclass KDE’s toolbars too, no doubt but why should you want that ? The toolbar contain all the stuff needed and every KDE app inherits the default toolbar object and only alters the accelerators used.
So why does KDE get it right and GNOME not ? Why do all the GNOME loons talk about HIG and GNOME and consistency in one sentence but still fail with it while KDE (3 times bigger than GNOME, get’s this stuff right) ?
“Go ahead explaining. I thought GNOME was all about consistency and clean look. But yet the shit doesn’t look that clean because all the Toolbars are behaving differently.”
Again, you can’t force programmers to write good UIs. And Gnome toolbars do not behave differently. I don’t see what the big deal is. You add a toolbar in Glade, and you drop in the stock buttons you need.
“Of course you can subclass KDE’s toolbars too, no doubt but why should you want that ? The toolbar contain all the stuff needed and every KDE app inherits the default toolbar object and only alters the accelerators used.”
You don’t have to subclass the toolbars to do stupid things with them, like use non-standard icons that won’t pick up the the theme, etc. you can do stupid things with Qt toolbars just as easily as you can with Gtk toolbards.
Oh, and since you wanted an example of a truly horrible Qt application, I will give you one. Skype. Skype’s UI is a f–king mess.
> Again, you can’t force programmers to write good UIs.
> And Gnome toolbars do not behave differently. I don’t
> see what the big deal is. You add a toolbar in Glade,
> and you drop in the stock buttons you need.
Why not ? I see big issues into that. And how comes KDE doesn’t have these issues ? There is no KDE application that comes into my mind that uses a different toolbar object than the default one. So why are the GNOME developers incapable doing the same ?
So again, please explain why one toolbar has a drag handle, the other has icons only, the other icons and text, why is the one toolbar a few pixels higher than others, why do they still use deprecated UI mechanisms from gnomeUI and bonoboUI rather than having switch to GTK+, why does tools like Evince and Epiphany have a toolbar editor while the remaining rest of the GNOME apps don’t ?
I don’t see that mess with KDE really and your sentence that you can’t force everyone to do the same is quite a bad excuse demonstrating that there is something wrong with the framework that GNOME provides. Why does it work with such a big project like KDE which is by means three times bigger project.
I mean, and you probably agree that the toolbar issue is just a small issue compared to all the other issues (like the one from torvalds) found in GNOME. It starts with basic stuff such as printing, goes on with toolbar issues such as conceptual issues and and and.
You hopefully get the hint here. GNOME developers are generating a lot of own work where it’s not required. Things could have been changed for the better in less amount of time and much frustrations could have been avoided by doing so.
But they didn’t. So Torvalds compliant is justified and correct.
Different applications have of course different toolbars.
The gnome toolbars look similar, yet are different because the applications are solving different tasks.
Would I expect a text editor to have the same buttons on the toolbar as a file windows or a browser window or a spreadsheet application?
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.. I would expect a text editor to have icons relevant to text editing, and a spreadsheet window to have icons relevant to spreadsheet jobs.
The pictures at imageshack shows just how Gnome apps are fitting to their task. And it looks pretty much the same way or all other platforms.
There is no platform, not even KDE where a mail application has a toolbar which is completely common to the one in a spreadsheet.
Different contents in the toolbar yes. A common class for toolbar yes. Gnome has both. As has KDE, Mac, Windows, Amiga OS, MorphOS, Haiku-OS, Zeta, BeOS, SkyOS and etc.
No, you are wrong too, please read:
http://www.osnews.com/permalink.php?news_id=12956&comment_id=72283
To get some enlightenment.
Aaahh shut up. I already that and replied to that you f***ing moron!
I’m right and you’re wrong. You claim that toolbars are not common in Gnome – but hey they are.
Seems to me you don’t know what you’re trying to say.
Are you complaining about the look or the basic behaviour? The look is visual – behaviour is what happens when dragging, dropping and clicking and such.
Look at the screenshots posted from ImageShack. They show how identical the toolbars are.
As a daily user of Gnome and a coder as well, I’m pretty sure I know more of Gnome 2.10’s behaviour than you do.
Whatever..
KDE is too inconsistent. Gnome2 is too simplified.
A blend of KDE, Gnome2 and Gnome1 would be better.
An object oriented approach is always good in regard to GUI. It might not be good in regard to very small CLI programs, but for a GUI OOP is the right choice.
The Gnome simplification has gone too far, but the mess in KDE isn’t the option.
I respect him for his work and what he has done. But this doesn’t really matter whatever his preference. Or that I should use Flux Box, XFCE, KDE or Gnome over another! Or hell whats that’s one that mimics windows really well.
I prefer GNOME because it’s easy to me and I have been using it forever. My only KDE expierence is Kanotix and I find it harder to customize when the default is that big’ol’bar at the bottom.
Linus prefers KDE…great! Glad to know he likes something. Can we all put our efforts into making all software free and awsome and what not now? Then argue which one is better D:
Glad I am at osnews posting and not /. I mean jeese they are at 687 comments in that stupid BBS format making it impossible to read.
Can’t imagine he actually said that. And, I disagree. Simplicity IS good, it can be the target of Gnome. Apple does it too, and it works. There’s always the alternative for users, so if Torvald doesnt like Gnome, why does he even bother?
It can also be overdone.
A windows should show exactly what you need. No more, no less.
KDE shows too much, Gnome shows too little.
In general Gnome misses the “Advanced” option.
Bye bye, Gnome!
Bye bye, KDE!
Bye bye, BLOAT!
The wise choose wisely.
Gnome has:
* A freakin’ slow window manager called Metacity, and it’s a huge pile of ##.
* A toolkit that is seriously suffering from performance problems, and has for too long.
* A terminal application that is so slow it’s almost unusable.
* Exaggerated simplicity everywhere.
* Crap like gconf.
* A tightening relationship to diseases like Mono/C#.
Steer clear, like Linus does.
Linus is a normal guy. a funny one at that. I’ve not read many of his emails but of the few things I have I always chuckle.
The funny things about his comments tho are not that they are off. Most if not all _are_ dead on.
If you can’t do something *is* that usability? There are numerous ways of defining usability. I personally use the approach, Can I use it for what I need to? Can I do what I need to do easily?
Gnome takes this backwards it appears.
“Can They do what they need to do easily?” and forget about “Can they do what they need to do?”
Sure KDE has TONS of options that I’ve never touched and never will. I never thought I’d change the window buttons. But I have. I dropped the maximize button and swapped the locations of the close and minimize buttons. Why? for _me_ it’s more usable and safe. When you got a mouse that likes to go out of control sometimes right when your going to click a button and you end up closing out the program. That’s not good.
Should KDE Clean up these dialogs by removing the ones no one uses? I’d prefer they didn’t.
Would a normal user want to do what I did to my title bar buttons? No.. if they removed this I’d be rather upset.
Lets take a different look at things.
Can you go to far if you:
A) Strive for Simplicity
B) Strive for Features
First lets make something clear. How often are you going to be configuring something? Not very often. So are lots of configuration options bad? Well looking in yet another way. When your actually using the WM, are you wishing you could change something so you can work faster and more efficiently? If so then no configuration options are most definitely _not_ bad.
When I work in windows I really wish you could use the scroll button on mice like I can in linux.
click it to paste. Select windows without bringing them forward. change windows and various other things.
This is actually how I get more users interested in linux. we got on the topic and I say I can’t work well in windows and I start telling them how I work faster. All of these are things I do every do on an hourly basis. Hourly basis operations like these are _far_ more important to me any anyone I’ve ever talked to. than any configuration dialog. But I could not have it my way.. and you, yours if not for these options in a configuration dialog.
The beauty of Linux and Open Source solutions is general is; if you don’t like the way it works you have choice in what other options are available. Just because you think a desktop is too simple doesn’t mean someone else has to think your way. It works the same with development politics and teams. If you don’t like the way a group is working you don’t have to use there software.
> The beauty of Linux and Open Source solutions is
> general is; if you don’t like the way it works you
> have choice in what other options are available.
This sentence is NOT VALID anymore. There is no choice anymore. It was a few years back but nowadays the shares have been divided between KDE, GNOME, XFCE.
All you GNOME lovers will change your mind when kde4 comes out.
What gnome(3?) has to offer against kde4?
Why are people reacting to this? Linus is a human and has his personal opinions. No story here.
Bob
…in their own way
I find kde too bright and flashy, and gnome too grey, but the icons are nicer. I don’t like spatial nautilus, but its easy to change to ‘browser’ mode. What else? Kde has a nicer clock and k3b, but, you know.. big deal. I no sooner start using one but then begin missing the other. Its a lot like trying to find the perfect distro; many of us, me especially, are too restless. When will it ever end?
I envy Linus; he’s found his perfect DE.
This is one of the funniest threads I’ve seen, and Linus only made three posts!
Maybe Linus thinks this whole Portland dog’s breakfast thing is as distasteful as I think it is. Just cut to the chase, let’s get something that works and let’s stop arsing about with stuff that isn’t possible. You then got all the politically correct posts after Linus’ saying ‘let’s work together!’ etc. etc.
I prefer Gnome. I’m not a nazi. I am offended by this dialogue. As a soon to switch Mac user, I have to say that similarities are there between Mac OS X and GNOME. Easy, clean interace, but Mac users are not dumb people, nor are GNOME users!
I would suggest mr Linus to be on prozac for some weeks.
Maybe he would be less offensive, while retaining his own preferences like he has the right to do, as do I and everybody.
> I have to say that similarities are there between Mac OS X and GNOME.
There are absolutely NO and I mean NO similarities between OSX and GNOME.
Both allow you to change the desk background by right clicking on a picture in a web browser.
You’re right : OSX is an OS while Gnome is a GUI.
I was referring to the ‘ease of use’ when compared to the cluttered KDE interface. OS X is clean and so is GNOME. That’s what I was talking about. OS X Tiger ‘Dashboards’ resemble GNOME desklets. They sure work different and are different, but as a user experience they look both clean and easy, and similar.
Dude, either you can’t read, or you’re some kind of ambulance-chaser looking for something to get offended by.
No. I can read. Maybe you’re not so well educated :
This is what Linus said :
This “users are idiots, and are confused by functionality” mentality of
Gnome is a disease. If you think your users are idiots, only idiots will
use it. I don’t use Gnome, because in striving to be simple, it has long
since reached the point where it simply doesn’t do what I need it to do.
Please, just tell people to use KDE.
Linus
Well i do not feel an idiot because I use GNOME or because I prefer to use a GUI instead of a terminal.
I have the right to feel offended by these words, and you should better connect your brain before speak.
No. I can read. Maybe you’re not so well educated :
No you can’t, and your usage of the english language shows that you are probably less educated than you think. (English isn’t my native language either.)
This is what Linus said :
This “users are idiots, and are confused by functionality” mentality of
Gnome is a disease. If you think your users are idiots, only idiots will
use it. I don’t use Gnome, because in striving to be simple, it has long
since reached the point where it simply doesn’t do what I need it to do.
Please, just tell people to use KDE.
Well i do not feel an idiot because I use GNOME or because I prefer to use a GUI instead of a terminal.
I have the right to feel offended by these words, and you should better connect your brain before speak.
Ok, smartass. Where in the quote above does he state that those who use gnome are idiots? Nowhere. He speaks of a mindset among the gnome-developers, that makes them treat their users as idiots. A HUGE difference. You need to brush up on your reading comprehension before you run around and get offended by everything. In fact, I find you are quite insulting yourself, since you can’t be arsed to find out what someone actually is saying before you jump them. Not that I expected a zealot do something that complicated, but it would have been nice to be proven wrong on that one.
… for being such a good troll
The flamefest is so quick that there’s no time to mod posts down
Torvalds is the Troll Chieftain!
Who cares what linus thinks about desktop environments? He’s a kernel hacker, does it make him an expert of desktop environments? Of course not. What if he said to drink coke instead of pepsi? Would you do it?
I use gnome and won’t switch back to KDE because linus said so. It’s a personnal thing.
Are all the other DE/WM complete crap? No they aren’t, they simply have different supporters and contributers. The more the better if you ask me. They can steal ideas from each other and they all benefit.
comment number 340! Can we get it to 400? I think we might! C’mon team, go go go!
Firstly, If Linus doesn’t care about Gnome that much, WHY is he posting on the mail.GNOME.org forums! *rolls eyes*
Secondly, I would be 100% happier putting somone on my Solaris machine running JDE (Gnome based) then I would running KDE… Sure, KDE is VERY NICE, but it is the other side of the coin.. too many options.
Mr Torvalds, some of us really LIKE Gnome, sorry
Oh right, so this is why OSnews went down with the “Dang” message. Without reading 345 posts I KNOW what it’s about, so thats why i’m not doing to.
To claim what Linus always says is the holy grail is stupid, if he like KDE more good for him. Mocking your own OS like that just because he dont like GNOME is childish. Go back to coding the kernel Linus.
I do agree his opinion about the file dialog though
“Same with the file dialog. Apparently it’s too “confusing” to let users
just type the filename. So gnome forces you to do the icon selection
thing, never mind that it’s a million times slower.
”
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I don’t, just do ctrl-L and you can type whatever you like. So Linus => RTFM!
> I don’t, just do ctrl-L and you can type whatever you
> like. So Linus => RTFM!
GNOME is simple, you shouldn’t have to RTFM to find out how to do these kind of things.
To GNOME developers KISS is “Keep It Simple and Stupid”.
I find grossly ignorant the words of Linus. doubtless lacked wisdom and discernment for utter you have phrases
This looks like a fake quote.
Both KDE and Gnome are good and I use them both.
So what’s the big deal?
Who knows.
I always hack metacity to not raise the window when it
get’s the focus (Talk about confusing for it’s users!). This is becoming a pain and I don’t know if I will put up with it. I might have to switch to KDE.
Kees.
I am not going to read through all 360+ posts right now, but i just wanted to mention that i thought this was the point? To get the so-called “Idiots” from the windows world to switch to linux? That is why the race to hide complexity and make the interface less intimadating, its for users who were use to windows.
To me its an obvious choice, if you like simple and clean, use Gnome. If you dont want to be scared with features and the underpinings of your OS/GUI use Gnome.
For everyone else, there is KDE and a host of other windows managers such as AfterStep(my favorite) GnuStep, enlightnment. And for true minimalists there is black box (and the like)
I see no problem with Linus’ statement. He is just stating the obvious.
since you almost never want to change the default behavior.
And it only shows you are totally clueless of what he is saying. If you look at the example given it shows three different default behaviors. A proper class and inheritance structure would not allow this.
I am 100% free to create a god-awful mess of a toolbar if I want to. I can use non-standard icons, place buttons in non-standard locations, etc.
And it don’t have anything at all to do with this case, they would still look and behave like the other toolbars as they use the same toolbar class. The look and placement of the icons are irrelevant.
“And it only shows you are totally clueless of what he is saying. If you look at the example given it shows three different default behaviors. A proper class and inheritance structure would not allow this.”
Bullshit. You don’t know what a proper class and inheritance structure is do you? A decent class is loosely coupled. Again, “program to interfaces. Not implementations” Programming to concrete implementations is bad. It results in an explosion of specialized derived classes. That is BAD. If the default toolbar doesn’t work for me, I should NOT have to subclass it to change the icons, or change the order. In fact, the buttons themselves have NO BUSINESS being part of the toolbar class. That results in a highly specialized class that is not reusable.
Repeat the mantra: Inheritance is bad. Composition is good. A tightly coupled class structure like you suggest means that things can’t be built through composition. And that leaves you with having to subclass. And results in an explosion of highly specialized derived classes.
Please read a good book on design patterns.
Of course a proper class and inheritance structure would allow such a thing. That’s the whole f***ing idea of class and inheritance.
I did a Debian net install a few times, and I was amazed at how many Gnome programs and libraries had to be downloaded, as opposed to the KDE programs and libraries. The Gnome stuff took about 40 minutes to download, and the KDE stuff took about 10 minutes. Yet, KDE is more powerful and configurable and more feature rich than Gnome, by an order of magnitude. Plus, KDE manages to be faster and less memory intensive than Gnome. Go figure.
This is all an indication of library dependency labirynth and bad internal design on Gnome’s part. You’d think that with feature deprication, and a nice, intuitive, simplistic interface, the guts of Gnome would be simple and light. But it’s not. It’s apparently a bloated, complex mess.
Then there is Xfce, which is light and fast and still feature rich, and uses GTK and a clean, simple interface. I look at Xfce as Gnome done right. It’s everything that Gnome should be. It has the best features that Gnome has (namely the simple, clean, easy to use interface guidlines), but lacks Gnomes weaknesses (namely structural bloat, key features depricated, resource hog, lack of key configurablity).
Maybe Linus’ post was flamebait, but at least it led to intelligent discussion in response on the mailing list. I have never seen a forum where one can bring up the subject Gnome’s “feature vs usability” design intent without being flamed to high hell by self-righteous Gnome users. I’m not singling Gnome out for this, since certainly the KDE camp has more than it’s share of equally self-righteous zealots, but it is nice to see a rational discussion follow because that is probably the single biggest thing that irks me about Gnome.
Frankly, I share Linus’ opinion, I’ve always felt that Gnome’s superior usability was simply a shield to hide behind when it came to functionality or configurability. Is KDE perfect? No, and KDE has even acknowledged this as being a topic of focus for 4.0, but having said that, I’d much rather dig through an options list to find the one I want rather than find that the option didn’t exist at all.
Yet I’ll admit that’s strictly my personal preference. Do I think lesser of people that don’t share that opinion? Of course not, I firmly believe both DE’s are integral to the success of desktop linux because they are so different. I’m even willing to admit that because of my background (cut my teeth using a CP/M-based Osborne as my first computer before climbing the ladder from PC-DOS 1.0 through Windows XP with all of the incarnations in between), I probably take things for granted that not everyone else would. I am unable to put myself in the position of less-experienced computer users, something I realize every time I help someone my office with a Windows or system problem, so I’m willing to realize that maybe my experience, my perception and my choice of what works best isn’t necessarily applicable to everyone.
Personally I can’t get comfortable with Gnome, I feel like it’s looking down on me when I try to do things a certain way, I can almost imagine it tsk-tsk’ing in the background. And it seems to me that as many people defend Gnome’s usability, there are a considerable amount that question or dislike it. That makes it a valid topic for intelligent discussion (how can you boast about a desktop for “users” if you invalidate other user’s opinions that differ from your own?). Yet all I ever see if needless flaming (“KDE sucks!” “KDE fanbois get a life!” “Gnome rulz, you’re 2 stupid!”), which accomplishes little, any time the subject it brought up and does nothing to help sway opinion or allow others to consider alternative points of view.
(And again, let me stress, I’m not taking the high-road and saying KDE doesn’t have it’s share of flamers, because it certainly does and I find it equally counter-productive)
Both desktops complement each other, in that they address things in ways that are almost diametrically opposed. To me that means users don’t have to compromise, chances are you’ll prefer one or the other, you don’t have to sacrifice. If Gnome suddenly became the only desktop choice on Linux, I’d probably re-evalutate whether Linux was acceptable to me as a day-to-day platform. But by the same token, if KDE dominated and was the only choice, I’m not sure I’d like that either because invariably the product would suffer and there would likely be little incentive to truly innovate or improve (as always seems to happen). I much prefer having Gnome as an available option, even if I may not be using it today.
The “desktop war” can be constructive if both sides can accept differences of opinion, look at areas where they may be weak and strive to improve, and continue building upon the co-operative efforts to ensure interoperability (which, really, is the most important thing).
But useless flamewars just force both sides to hide behind their own rhetoric and cliches, attacking the other side while ignoring their own issues. No progress can be made that way.
For crying out loud, this isn’t Highlander. There can be, and should be, more than only one. So good on you Linus for at least spurring intelligent debate, even if that wasn’t your intent.
mmmm Linus ? Torvalds ? who is Linus Torvalds ? i think the name is familiar, yes, yes, mmmm ……
I have tried KDE at different times but have always backed down since I never liked the look and feel of it, I never liked any theme enough to hide away all the other things that make me uncomfortable with KDE.
True so true.. 🙂
You want to know why it is that most of us out here who are reading this on their Windows XP machines haven’t switched to Linux yet? Linux is a confusing, tangled mess of techno bable and complexity that the average Jane/Joe doesn’t want to think about. Here’s a recent conversation I had with a neighbor:
“So Mrs. Jones, you’ve decided to take the plunge and switch to Linux and get Windows 98 off your machine, that’s great! Let’s see you will need to decide which “distro” (new word for the uninitiated) you would like from a list that’s a mile long. Oh, I’m sorry, you’re a little confused?” You go on and explain the whole “open source” thing to her as best you can, keeping the language as non-geek as possible (which is a feat all on it’s own) and she finally says to you “just pick one for me.” So, you do and then you ask her which window manager she wants and here you go again explaining the pros/cons of this wierd idea to her and she says, “Sounds like a mess to me….thanks for your time, goodbye” and hangs up the phone.
So if you ask me, Linus and the rest of you are polishing the brass on the Titanic by flaming one another over which window manager is better. You’d be better served by asking yourself “How do we make it so that the AVERAGE person on the street will come to appreciate Linux the same way they have come to embrace Windows?”
Back to work now geek!
“So if you ask me, Linus and the rest of you are polishing the brass on the Titanic by flaming one another over which window manager is better. You’d be better served by asking yourself “How do we make it so that the AVERAGE person on the street will come to appreciate Linux the same way they have come to embrace Windows?” ”
I f–king could care LESS if Joe Sixpack use or not linux. Linux is about freedom, not taking over the computer world.
Joe got his Apple Mac. I use my linux. Who cares ?
I f–k the guys who needs a linux that do all the things automatically for your little ass. You want a gay os, use OSX and don’t come f–king with us.
Free software is also freedom of choice. Not crappy GUI that tries to think for you.
The reason the hurd is alive is about the freedom of the user, to give more freedom to users with a new architecture towards a more user land based system that don’t need kernel mode for all things. Why we should, FFS, destroy the liberty the free software gives us, to make a Joe Sixpack standard GUI like MacOSX ? if you are not happy with linux, just use windows or mac osx. Or build your new unix system like apple did. You already got some choice, why bother with linux if you are not happy with it ?
I aggree that the gnome Interface Design is to conservative, why do OS Devs always reject USer wishes and ideas?
Apple didnt and have big success with aqua(give me 1000€ and i join in), just copy any GUI toy you can and you get an wider userbase.
But like the KDE guys said, we dont need any/our users to let KDE exist.
I use Gnome, mainly because the QT rendering sucks and hurts my eyes
As for the PPD matter only Linus is perfectly right!
Why don’t you add the PPD explicit support in GNOME?
Umh, I’m sure that KDevelop works under Gnome as does all other KDE apps too… Maybe you don’t have all the libs needed installed or there’s something wrong with your installation, but it’s not that you can’t use KDE apps under Gnome and vice versa.
I’m scared to read anything on here. The words that were stated tend to be fightin words in the community, so I’m going to stay out of it on which is better. I personally prefer KDE (although it still needs more spit & polish) because it’s close to Windows. Not in ease of use, just location and functionality. BASH also tends to get the job done, although I’m not as skilled at it yet. I can do configure; make; make config and edit with VIM, restart services and mkdir rm and cp files all over /. I do wish KDE wasn’t so generically looking, but since I don’t contrib, I don’t get a say.
Umh, KDE lacks screensavers out of the box? I don’t know what kind of box are you using, but AFAIK there’s been screensavers in KDE as far as I’ve been using it. And if you have kscreensaver-package installed, you can also use xscreensaver screensavers.
So, I’d say your problem has nothing to do with KDE but with your distribution.
I just thought I’d say something that I haven’t seen mentioned yet. Linus’s original gripe was that he wanted to configure his mouse buttons in a certain way in GNOME but found that it wasn’t possible, and for this reason prefers KDE. Couldn’t he have just used another WM instead of the default (Metacity).
(Note: I don’t use either, as I find them both bloated. I’m so glad we have a choice of WM/DE)
Today just before i read this article i installed Ubuntu and decided to test the KDE version (aka. kUbuntu). I was quite impressed. Though I am a Gnome user since Gnome 1.4, I found KDE to be both fast and “user”friendly. (Userfriendly = a bit more options then I am used to but nevertheless userfriendly.)
My point:
Use what works for you! Don’t just listen to everybody else, try it and make up your OWN mind.
Regards.