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.
My desktop is better than yours.
Which is better?
Commandline :p
Commandline :p
You are so bloody lame!
He gives his opinion flat out, no gentle ways of nudging. And he has a sense of humor.
I’m not sure I agree with his opinion on Gnome; I think simplified platforms with the complex options hidden is a very noble way of doing things (and finding settings in gconf is actually easier than kcontrol, the search is better).
The trouble with KDE has been, for the last 3 years, that one release will be great and stable and another will be almost unusable! 3.5.0 is probably the best 3.x.0 release I’ve seen from them; and they broke konqueror (it crashes, occasionally; it was rock solid), kopete (so slow it’s unusable, on an athlon 1800 I wait about a half second for it to process the message into the chat window), and konqueror’s sftp functionality (it’s on/off, sometimes it works sometimes it just craps out and you have to restart konqueror.
I’m not complaining. Just saying KDE needs to take some notes from Gnome and try to avoid coding features until bugs are squashed. Actually, they need to take the notes from the emacs team
.
What does KDE provide that Gnome doesn’t: A file manager that can actually replace a lot of shell functionality. A pdf reader that’s stable, fast, and pretty (aliasing and all that) (is evince up to snuff and in Gnome now?). A real text editor that’s almost good enough to replace emacs (kate – gedit’s tabs are very limiting as to how many files you can realistically work with; I want to work on 20ish files – in emacs I can type and autocomplete there names, in kate I have a full height list of files).
What does Gnome have on KDE? Better support for removable media: And by better, I mean Gnome’s is good, KDE’s is pathetic (I can mount easily but I need su to umount?!). Better written apps. For the apps gnome has they’re usually significantly better; they may lack features but at least you can figure them out and they don’t work in one version and break in the next.
I usually send people to Gnome if they’re non-techie; and I send them to both if they are techies. If you like using your computer and you haven’t tried: Gnome, KDE, Xfce4, WindowMaker, and Blackbox or fluxbox you’ve got work to do: You’ll thank me later.
If you don’t like your computer, well, I’m sorry?
And he has a sense of humor.
Calling someone a F.I. or “Nazis” is not very funny to most people. I swear a lot when I talk and I generally consider it a bad habit and a sign of of general thoughtlessness and not a “sense of humor”.
The whole Gnome/KDE debate is null and void and completely uninterresting. Use whatever floats your boat and stop derriding others for their choice. Both have their good sides as well as bads so none of them are perfect (and no Mac OS X & Windows are jsut as bad in this sense)
Almost everything inside of kdelibs are LGPL’d, you should sometime take a look at the LICENSE file found from the source tree.
“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.”
Amen. The new file dialog is pretty, and the hotlinks to special places is nice, and you can type into the list (but it doesn’t put it in for you in the save dialog), but it’s just not up to where the old dialog was. I am glad to see the type into the list functionality added. I’m not sure I agree with the way it’s done, but it beats nothing.
Ede is better than both , why choose a bloatware over another? we know both KDE and Gnome Are superslow if you try to learn linux on a pentium pro 133mhz f–karound-pc =)
True, he is supporting KDE which is the more ‘geeky’ DE out there (in comparison to Gnome). As a result he is just showing that geeks prefer KDE.
I use FreeBSD and GNOME and many people call me geek. 😉
heh I use FreeBSD and fluxbox and people also call me a geek – but I don’t disagree : )
>Show me one KDE application that has a Toolbar which
>looks differently than other Toolbars used in KDE.
Well, that wouldn’t be so hard to show. It’s just about having two different toolbar classes with different outlook, just like Gnome does have. So, go and get kdelibs source, modify, build it and make your app to use that then
Take a look at here: http://live.gnome.org/ThreePointZero
“So, then why do people attack Bill Gates so much about Windows? I don’t see Bill Gates’ head as the Windows logo either.”
Because he makes more than 50% of the profit from it. He runs the company that ships it and is the CTO of said company.
Really they shouldn’t just blame him. For example, if Vista sucks you should probably be calling Jim Alchin names: But generally, the people who know who Linus is are well aware that Bill Gates <=/=> Microsoft; most people who know who Bill Gates is don’t know who Linus Torvalds is. So, it’s not really fair to attribute their comments on us, know what I mean?
“i agree that linus could have used better words, but i have to agree with im 100%. Gnome is just not usable, kde has so many applications and technologies that are so much better than what is in gnome, you cant even compare it( look at k3b, kopete, kpdf, konqueror(with the kio’s))”
I can’t stand all those IM’s except for GAIM.
Hey, you can do the same with KDE!
GtkToolbar is significantly less restrictive…
I do believe there’s a good reason for that.
Gnome, in a sense, is starting from behind on this because most GTK applications don’t want to be Gnome applications; they want to be GTK applications. Why? They want people who use WM, flux, etc to use their app and not be burdened with 100MB of Gnome libraries.
In your shot, the apps that don’t have text under icon are not Gnome apps:
easytag depends on:
id3lib
gtk2
libvorbis
flac>=1.1.2
libmp4v2
abiword depends on:
fribidi
enchant
libgnomeprintui
Abiword’s Gnome deps are optional.
What you’ve done here would be like me finding a QT application, running it under KDE, and complaining that it doesn’t look like the other KDE apps!
*Deps taken from archlinux.org
That’s what I think the message hides. When you program for corporations, like RedHat, the priorities of the corporation are different than most people. It’s so it, that RedHat’s CEO said that the Linux desktop isn’t ready for most people, so RedHat decides what their developers should work on, which is not necessarily best for most people.
KDE, on the other hand, has had the initiative as the best supported desktop for common people along with corporate people. So, up till now, I have been using mostly Gnome and GTK+, but I’m willing to give KDE and QT a shot in the future. All this in the name of providing useful tools for users.
Corporate IT sucks in closed and open source.
Try putting it to Google. At least Finnish version of Google gives you some links (like one to Wikipedia) which will tell you who he is. If you don’t know something, just google for it, it usually knows something about it
Easy parady:
So you’ve decided to move to Windows. Good for you. Ok, will you need XP Pro, XP Home, or MCE? Oh, well one is for “professionals,” one is for home, and the other is if you’ll be using media like videos and such. Confused? I know, just pick pro.
Ok, so now what do you want to do? Oh, e-mail. You use webmail right? Oh good. Cause don’t ever use Outlook Express, it’s a virus mess waiting to happen! If you wanna use one make sure you pick something like thunderbird.
Ok, so you’ll need to pick up some AV. Norton or McCafee will both work. You’ll also need to make sure you get adaware or spyblock! Go ahead and run all of those every other week; and don’t forget your updates every first Tuesday! It’ll tell you to install them.
Don’t worry, you can use firefox on your Windows machine!
Because there is a platform out there which has no complex little things you’ll have to learn. And it is called NULL, nil, 0.
Mac zealouts: option click, hold click, apple+option or w/e it is to get “advanced” options; etc.
It also invokes Godwin’s law here
.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin‘s_Law
Technically speaking, I think Linus lost the conversation. But I suppose this isn’t usenet, and he didn’t really compare them to nazi’s he used a colloquism which means you’re being over-controlling; so maybe it can pass?
and I would love to see someone clicking in the ‘…or read all 415 comments in a single page’
X-D That would be hilarious!
I already did, just to see how long it would take…surprisingly, it only took 10 seconds.
D’oh… it’s true… only takes 10 seconds (I’m on a 1Mb/s cable connection)
But damn! It’s a big one anyway! If this gets 1000 comments (since it’s obvious it will reach 500), I’ll pay you a WebBeer®
Yes, actually for non-Gnome apps:
Open ~/.gtkrc-2.0
Add this line:
gtk-toolbar-style = GTK_TOOLBAR_ICONS
That should shut the text off for icons on non-Gnome GTK apps. Unless the developer overrides you… Gnome may actually do this, but many apps may override it.
You guys need to get a life. Use the desktop you like best and get over it, that’s what linux is all about- choice. Get real, and quit wasting your time.
> that’s what linux is all about- choice.
There is no such thing as choice anymore these days.
Linus must be in crack, wtf cares. i will still go with windows
If you can’t handle the different interface required by some aspects of a CLI you’re definitely not in the target group for a CLI. Does gterm bind Ctrl+C to copy?
Would be pretty stupid to bind Ctrl+C to copy. I assume you never worked on the CLI, because if so you would use Ctrl+C for something else.
“I still prefer the old text-field for adress since I can change the current adress without rewriting the location of a file or simply paste the adress into the input field… I think the old text field was far superior than the current buttons.”
The other nice thing about the text fields in KDE’s open dialog is the ability to use kio-slaves. In the directory field I can type for example “locate: foo” to find all files with foo in the name. Or “locate: bandName” to find all songs by a certain band, and have the list appear in the dialog, where I can also drill down by directory through the results. And that’s just one kio-slave.
No noob would ever do that, but what power user, on finding out about it, wouldn’t?
Edited 2005-12-13 21:35
Ok Linus = Linux as said Linux is just the kernel.
Linus != GNU/Linux
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.
true so true. 🙂
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.
My Desktop is for desktop use. To launch applications. The REAL advanced user doesn’t click around and uses the CLI like I do. I want my desktop show me the time, lauch and handles an office suite and to play my DVD and a few things more. The average user doesn’t need a GUI to configure CUPS.
I am reading and reading and reading and reading and I still don’t get why people expect a desktop to have advanced funtionality. For what for god’s sake? I don’t get it. In my opinion it’s the applications that have to have functionality.
I doubt many people will read this, with over 450 previous comments (and I certainly didn’t read all 450 of them) there are still a few points I’d like to make.
First on the new-computer-user issue. I don’t think you can equate less of a learning-curve with better for new users. Unless the new user in question is at least in his or her forties getting someone used to the presence of a learning curve is not just good but possibly essential. Computer capabilities are still changing at a rapid rate and interfaces will follow. Anyone new to computers today will probably have to keep adjusting to smaller and greater changes to the interface for the rest of his/her life. In my opinion starting with that realisation, and picking up the skill to deal with new interfaces when they come is better for new user than having no learning curve to begin with and spending the rest of life confused.
Second, even if you want to keep menues simple and streamlined this is no reason to cut out the options themselves. In a worst case scenario you can just stick them behind an “Advanced Options” button and leave those who dare to deal with the more confusing menu. This does seem like an excuse to cut options for the sake of cutting options rather than anything actually to do with usability.
Third both KDE and GNOME could stand some improvements, neither is perfect. But in the context as I understand it Linus was probably right. For someone who wants the advanced options available now using KDE (or something else other than GNOME) that does offer them is the most likely way to get them. I also agree with his more general comment about whether no features equals usability (also see above), though it could have been put somewhat more diplomatically.
Otherwise, I’m moving to a BSD.
Wow.
GNOME runs very well on FreeBSD. :>
I mean come on.
He made a couple of statements that were obviously second-hand so-and-so told me it worked this way comments that do not even apply to the current Gnome desktop.
He complained about functionality not being there that is in there. The functionality in that instance needs to improve but …. still its there.
And his main hack off is with Metacity and WM-functionality that he wants to be more traditionally Unix-like. I cannot blame him its been due for a while and Havoc just has not gotten there in his patches.
The funny thing is that I see features that were gone back in the day with early 2.x releases that have come back to Nautilus and the pref menu compared with 2.0 is well almost well in Ubuntu anyway its really long.
Cairo integration and a proper esd-replacement for the sound server that actually works with existing programs and integration of Beagle into file manager are all coming mind you but we need to keep something in mind…
KDE was there first and the Gnome and KDE have different goals.
I like choice and I am not sure why the guy who made the damn kernel because he wanted choice and did not like Minix felt the need to as one developer put it go around and p*ss on everyone’s heads.
KDE and GNOME are both useless pieces of shit compared to Aqua. Wake up and smell the coffee!
How many first time users can find the way to configure the network or even turn off the annoying dialogues and blinking cursor shit.
“KDE and GNOME are both useless pieces of shit compared to Aqua. Wake up and smell the coffee!”
Isnt Aqua an interface while Gnome and KDE are DE’s.
ZSH is way better.
Gnome has cooties, Linus confirms it :^P
People, really.
You must have known what would happen.
Why, why did you do this?
… I am impressed how clear-headed and insightful Linus is – it’s clearly not by accident that he still is regarded as an authority.
A lot of people tend to make a religion out of their views, thus clouding their vision, and happily Linus does not belong to them. He has a very clear vision and stays level-headed about it – one can see that when one reads his mails. Very refreshing.
http://img111.imageshack.us/img111/1594/gnomenewlogo1ix.png
Both projects’ developers need to have a serious look at Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines.
And so does Apple…
like Linus trying to emulate Steve jobs. won’t work dude, the latter got vision.
hey..i’ve never said such a thing 😐
Linus has wipped up a storm. I think this is kind of what Gnome needs.
I like Gnome and KDE, But I see some of the points that he has made.
Linus has wipped up a storm. I think this is kind of what Gnome needs.
I like Gnome and KDE, But I see some of the points that he has made.
Yep – heads have been clunked, although these situations often have the habit of focusing minds – No doubt some positives will come out of this episode
This should have never happened. That list is about KDE and Gnome coming together and sharing stuff, making the linux desktop as a whole a better.
Linus wasn’t using his brain.
maybe linus should stick to kernel programming and leave usability/accessibilty to the experts.
Yeah, and Linus didn’t?
people, the 500th post is near, let’s break all records!
Well “CONFIRMED: Apple to use Intel Chips – *updated*” (http://www.osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=10765) had 378 and “Apple to drop PPC for x86?” (http://www.osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=10751) had 325 so not breaking the 500 but those were the two biggest I could think of off the top of my head.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen such debate on OSNews.. almost 500 posts… what score did the previous most high posted topic get?
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.
But there are no “certain attribute” causing the difference, visual and in behavior. There are 3 different libraries used. The “pretty much the same” are not the issue it’s just the symptom of the problem. The inconsistency is in the code.
GTK+ has a common class for toolbars
And it’s only one of three widely used classes in Gnome.
years ago I switched to KDE because I couldn’t figure out how to create application desktop links. With KDE it was already a simple drag and drop from the menus. I am sure it’s solved but the writing was on the wall.
I sure hope Gnome catches up (I use KDE) because we’d have two uber cool desktops for Linux rather than just one.
KDE developpers appear less dogmatic to me. You rarely hear about usability theory in KDE. It’s more of a doer attitude and resolving problems. The fact that you have a search feature for configuration items is shows its very config rich and that developpers realise it’s unwieldy at times.
The search feature in the kmenu is just utter smartitude.
Xfce with its C++ binding is the way to go
Come on! Keep posting non-sense! Let us raise this article to a god-like article!
Thou shalt be immortalized!
I did try KDE (suse 9.0) but got a headache of all these options. Yes, I must be a big idiot.
But this idiot loves GNOME forever!
Reply to http://www.osnews.com/reply.php?news_id=12956&comment_id=72376
Which distro. are you using?
I have a great problem with kubuntu, I was and still will be setting up (just a little later) as a workstations for a friends new company.
The problem is that everything is way too slow and spend way more RAM when is reasonable.
I’ve withnessed amaroK, using 1.4GB+ RAM, playlist about 10 tracks, bad mem leak. On my own PC I havn’t seen this (yet), however it does spend nearly three times as much RAM in kubuntu then amaroK does on my gentoo PC. And that is with a clean platlist/collection on kubuntu and about 750 tracks in the playlist/collection on Gentoo.
I really don’t hope everyone have had this experience with KDE on kubuntu, be course I can understand the claim that KDE weast ressources if peoples only experience this.
I don’t wish too flame kubuntu, I happen to like it a lot if it wasn’t this slow. I’ve just installed it again on an old PC with very limited RAM, too figure this out.
Edited 2005-12-13 23:54
(K)ubuntu is a joke. Try a slackware. All the people i know that tried kubuntu got a lot of kde kubuntu-specific bugs that’s not showing in slackware or suse 10.
For the first time I must admit I do like nazi’s. The kind that build interfaces.
are the comments shrinking? I checked this page 5 minutes ago and there was 489 comments and now there’s only 478? WTF?
Yes I’m browsing at -5 so I can read all the naughtyness X-D
> Are the comments shrinking? I checked this page 5 minutes ago and there was 489 comments
> and now there’s only 478? WTF?
And it’s 466 now. Indeed you are right, I realize the same as you… I also saw that they also remove votes from gnomefiles.org e.g. there was an app that had 142 votes and a average of 7.62 and now it’s back to 92 with an average of 8.43 how’s that possible ?
So, go rewrite all the code that uses the toolbar classes from gnomeui. Gtk hasn’t always has support for everything it has today, and back in the day when it didn’t Gnome fixed the problem by writing their own sections.
It’ll take time for those things to fizzle out. Be patient or get to work.
Generally archlinux, the kde builds are vanilla with a few theming files added, like a custom submenu in kmenu and a custom startup splash.
It’s KDE though I’ve also used: RHEL3, RHEL4, Slackware.
KDE 3.4 has been excellent. 3.5 has a few glitches to work through. 3.2.0 and 3.3.0 were unusable.
I can’t get amarok to run long enough. With the last two versions it crashes if you change out custom playlists very much. I like amarok, I really do.
It’s not KDE which is slow. I’m not sure why, but Ubuntu IME has been plagued by slow builds. It may be that they’re doing 386 builds (a complete waste of time, linux may or may not even work on a 386 without a 387). Or maybe they’re using a really old version of gcc? I’m not sure, but yes I noticed a significant difference in performance between Ubuntu and most other distributions.
Anything is better than cleartype: I don’t like fuzzy fonts.
There’s making it less jaggedy, and then there’s making it so fuzzy the font bleeds back into itself.
Maybe next time Linus will check to see if a list is public before he puts his foot into his mouth.
Torvarlds is full of mistakes, this time.
It was born to write kernels. HCI it’s not his daily bread. So, Linus, go back to lowlevel programming, now.
Jeje, I create a funny post + pic about KDE and Linus, check out in http://blog.alucardx.net/blogfiles/ltorvaldskde.jpg
I don’t have GNOME, and don’t work with KDE, WindowMaker just rulez for me
enjoy!
Well, I’m going to sleep. If tomorrow, when I check back this article, the comments still haven’t reached the 500 mark I’ll have to spank all your zealots ass.
Ya have been warned!
(P.S.: I’m aware of the grammatical errors, but I don’t give a fsck)
Zero to godwin in less than 5 minutes ! lol
One of the KDE developers brought up the Portland project. It’s really too late for Gnome or KDE in the grand scheme of things. They had their chance and the numbers just aren’t that favorable towards them 6 years after Year of the Linux Desktop was declared.
The best thing these guys could do is to join forces – yes I know it would be hard – and stop fscking around with all this duplication of effort. KDE should ditch Qt (the bad license will never work) and the Gnome folks could learn how to do APIs.
Gnome and KDE are all dead in the water no matter what Torvalds says.
Microsoft just laughs at this idiocy. The Linux desktop would be at about 10% of the market by now if it wasn’t for the short-sightedness, childish behavior, and all around bickering among the different camps.
Oh well, OSX intel is almost here. We’ve already got a real desktop for Unix.
welcome to the new millenium
First, I’d like to know what grants all of you, who think you can decide what “responsibilities” Linus has towards a community who uses what he – by his original choice – chose to give away, the right to restrict his freedom with moral judgements and other pointless talks on his “status” within your “community”. He lives in a western democracy of which freedom of speech is a crucial component. So, if Linus chooses to voice his oppinion, that just makes him another guy like yourselves. The little short of 500 comments on this “news” item shows that voicing one’s oppinion is a much practiced passtime in the Free Software and Open Source world.
Also, that users should have the freedom to change some things taken away from them, because someone decided – for them – that it’s not good for them, sounds to me more like the totalitarian mono-cultures of the corporate world (which by the way embraces GNOME) than the principles of freedom so valued and fought for by the FS and OS communities – as Linus points out, if you care to read his postings.
Don’t give me “spatial view is better”. Who says so? Why? For whom? Does this mean that you’ll all stop drinking coke and beer, forget the pizzas, exercise a couple of hours a day, cut your time in front of the monitor to a minimum and start taking meditation classes? Am I to take it that you’ll all be studying philosophy, reading the classics, enjoying the outdoors, getting spiritually revived and drop your pie-throwing contests on OSNews?
Well, you should, ’cause it’s “better for you”.
I, for one, don’t think it’s anybody’s business how I choose to spend my spare time (except my wife’s and son’s, of course).
When my left index finger gets tired, I want to use my right one, or maybe my thumb. Or why not my nose? If I like 117 icons around my windows so I can click on them – or JUST because I feel SAFER that way, then none of you have the freedom to say “you can’t”.
That’s Linus’ point:
That freedom was signed away with the advent of the open source model: The freedom to restrict other people’s freedom.
I have used and admired both desktops and watched both develop into something amazing (XFCE has gotten quite good too).
Starting at 2.0 it seems the Gnome developers took a hard look at what they were trying to accomplish and make the desktop into something coherent, clean and elegant. Since 2.8 (IMHO), this hard work started paying off and really shows. The impression I get is they are trying to make everything work well, then gradually add features, while keeping things intuitive. Things have improved greatly (2.12.x), and the desktop is still clean (maybe even cleaner), almost zen.
Gnome is not be as feature rich as KDE, but I each targets a different type of user. KDE, feature rich, everything in your face. New features rapidly added, and gradually refined. Gnome, very usable, but more uncluttered. New features integrated slowly, but well implemented (generally).
Linus farted again. Everybody bow…
It’s all about freedom. Don’t like it ? Don’t use it, don’t diss it. Why you want to force someone to us what YOU like ???
I like spam. You don’t ? I don’t care. eat it… (with this topic).
who wants to pick a fight over kde vs gnome? why dontpoeple just use what they like?
but no, little young guys that spend 90% of their life in front of a computer doing god knows what while they’re killing their eyesight wants to argue over what desktop is better. is it just me or are a lot of those people rapists and pedaphiles?
If I want an expert distro. I choose Gentoo
Slackware is good too, just not my taste.
But I want an easy (and binary) distro with a descent package manager and frontend. for a desktop enviroment for non-experts, I just need to find the right distro.
Also access to newest (or at least) nearly newest software, like OOo2.0 and KDE3.5, is a must otherwise I would have choosen Mandriva.
Im just about to go to the toilet to chuck a shit, and I’d like to dedicate it to Mr. Linus. Thanks
Im just about to go to the toilet to chuck a shit, and I’d like to dedicate it to Mr. Linus. Thanks
Mac doesn’t get along well as a Unix desktop. It’s incompatible with common graphical Unix tools like: X11, vnc (Mac’s remote desktop is so horridly overpriced…). It doesn’t really integrate with the Unix core, it does everything it can to hide it actually (Finder doesn’t want to show you real folders on the disk, but select subtrees that don’t look like system files; which isn’t so bad in itself).
Basically with OS X you’ve got a Unix system running Macintosh. A lot of people really like this, but to call it a Unix desktop doesn’t seem right to me. It’d be like calling explorer a Unix desktop once you’ve installed services for Unix (in a vague, reversed, and non-exacting way).
Microsoft isn’t stupid, I doubt they’re laughing. They’re probably reading up and taking notes: Hmm, people seem to like this, businesses seem to like this, etc etc.
If anything, we’re probably helping them do their research
. Laughing would be underestimating, and I think Microsoft makes it a point not to underestimate their competition.
He blimming right you know! deep down inside, we all know he is right; the fact is, GNOME is going to the other logical extreme, stripping out anything that could possibly, in the slightest way, confuse an end user – strip out configuration options, strip out this and that – whilst they’re doing all this slashing and burning, they still can’t even get the basic architecture issues correct – the messaging framework is non-extant, the GNOME-VFS has gone through more revolutions that France with zero stability in site, we have a a tonne of small libraries that are poorly maintained and lack integration with each other, and to top it off, the over all feel from a end user and a technical persepective – everything has been thrown into a box with GNOME slapped across the front of it, with little effort to ensure applications integrate well with each other.
Please, I’ll say it once, and I’ll say it again, if IBM, Novell or SUN wish to make themselves the mother thereasea of the opensource world, they should purchase Trolltech and completely re-release the whole Qt library under a licence that allows both proprietary and opensource vendors to hook into the library at no cost – be the library BSD, CDDL or even LGPL – make it free, throw some money at it once and year to maintain its up keep, and voila, Linux, more correctly, UNIX will have a fully mature and integrated desktop ready for the end user.
He blimming right you know! deep down inside, we all know he is right; the fact is, GNOME is going to the other logical extreme, stripping out anything that could possibly, in the slightest way, confuse an end user – strip out configuration options, strip out this and that – whilst they’re doing all this slashing and burning, they still can’t even get the basic architecture issues correct – the messaging framework is non-extant, the GNOME-VFS has gone through more revolutions that France with zero stability in site, we have a a tonne of small libraries that are poorly maintained and lack integration with each other, and to top it off, the over all feel from a end user and a technical persepective – everything has been thrown into a box with GNOME slapped across the front of it, with little effort to ensure applications integrate well with each other.
Please, I’ll say it once, and I’ll say it again, if IBM, Novell or SUN wish to make themselves the mother thereasea of the opensource world, they should purchase Trolltech and completely re-release the whole Qt library under a licence that allows both proprietary and opensource vendors to hook into the library at no cost – be the library BSD, CDDL or even LGPL – make it free, throw some money at it once and year to maintain its up keep, and voila, Linux, more correctly, UNIX will have a fully mature and integrated desktop ready for the end user.
I must say I’m starting to loose all my respect for this guy. I think he developed some serious personallity issues. Not only does he make halfassed remarks, but also refering to people as N*zi is so low, that everyone should just stop reading right there! I’ve been using Linux since 1996, but I’m thinking now of celebrating my 10th OSS OS aniversity rather on FreeBSD. Not that anyone cares. But he should get his senses checked, and publicly apologize for this outbrake. There is actually no way I can express my disappointment. And I must admit, although I’m not a Microsoft fan, but we won’t ever hear anything like that from MS.
My recommandation would be, switch to Windows or *BSD, and ignore him.
Im with you, Linus is just pure ego, he had his time but now he is annoying.
All my GNU/Linux boxes run GNOME and always will. KDE is a bloated, buggy piece of shit and way too much like Windoze, which I haven’t used for nine years.
This statement doesn’t sound like Linus but if it is, he is getting bloated and buggy as well.
Linux is just a kernel and I would be just as happy to use HURD on all my Debian computers. If Linus thinks I’m a “f–kING IDIOT” for that reason, he can kiss my rosy red GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNUUUUUUUUUUU loving ass.
If you haven’t used it for nine years, then you need to SHUT THE F*CK UP. YOU obviously don’t anything about KDE and its progress. Take your gnome and shove it.
–Your Dad
“All my GNU/Linux boxes run GNOME and always will. KDE is a bloated, buggy piece of shit and way too much like Windoze, which I haven’t used for nine years.”
If you haven’t used it for nine years I don’t think you can realistically judge KDE today (aka version 3.5) KDE was announced as a project is 1996, nine year ago, but it wasn’t even at version 1.0 until 1998, just seven years ago. So judging something as buggy based on what could only be early pre-1.0 software doesn’t seem to be realistic.
I’m also not sure where you’re coming from with “bloated”; booting my system (Arch Linux) into GNOME leaves a memory use of 11% (excluding cache) say 55 MB (total memory is 512 MB). Doing the same for KDE (which has two more applets running on the panel) only takes around 50 MB. Note this is GNOME 2.12 en KDE 3.5 both running from a full clean reboot. I’m inclined to think the difference may actually be just rounding up or down slightly differently, but I can’t see how KDE is bloated based on this.
I thought he meant he hadn’t used windows in all this time? However, just let the troll alone
Sorry Linus, your pathetic trolling won’t make me switch to KDE.
*sigh* So many trolls in the KDE community.
dude. that’s the pot calling the kettle black.
Hah! Just wait until this gets posted to Slashdot…
WARNING: OSNews database meltdown eminent.
I have never seen so many comments on one article on OSnews. So here is another one. Just for the record I vote KDE. Hava nice day.
I’ve been using Linux before KDE or Gnome were even gleams in their papas’ eyes. Now I use both of them. KDE is definitely overkill on the desktop, with all its options and menu items, but overkill is exactly what I need on my server and number crunchers (I’m a scientist). On the other hand, I run Gnome on my laptop, and also a couple of workstations that are reserved primarily for student and assistant use. Everything seems to work just fine.
If Linus really did write that comment, he just needs to get out a little bit more. In spite of all their many quirks, no one should take anything away from these two awesome pieces of open software development, or the small army of developers who have made the modern Linux desktop for us.
I actually totally 100% agree with Linus, if you can’t use the damn system because you are scared of how it will look, pull your head out! Try instead to make everything work and THEN figure a way out to make it look nice. DUH!
Hello Everyone
I am just going to give my suggestion for a person who is very objective …
I have used both kde and gnome for a long time and I think kde is much better and the kde develeopment team is doing a great job … I also realy like kdevelop which is a fantastic IDE to create both kde/Qt applications …
Use EDE http://ede.sourceforge.net/page/
That got ugly!
Linus use to sign his messages with 2 Tabs and then his name “Linus”, in the message showed in the article I can see 3 Tabs before the name “Linus”.
:-/
Is it relevant who uses what?
Personally i think whatever works is good.Furthermore i think it’s wise when public figures in the community don’t get involved in trivial talk about which desktop flavor to use.
I just spoke to Linus on the phone. He says he is giving up Linux and that he has repented for doing this to mankind. Never did he intend for his kernel to be the seed that would unleash a war seeing developers attack their brothers in the KDE/Gnome saga.
He wants you all to know that he is alright and that he now uses OS X.
Rrgds,
FGA
i use gnome, kde has a more bloated feel than windows. i hate kde.
All users who registered here has probably posted so here goes mine: I currently use Gnome coz fonts seem cleaner, Icons seem better on me eyes. I have missed kcontrol though… but both DE’s are only all they can be… which is “incomplete” for every person out there who has ever tried to use them. GNOME aspires to be MacOSX while KDE to Windows. Pick which one you came from. If you can afford it, just buy fscking Windows or a Mac… they are, and I’m reluctant to say this, BETTER in every perspective.
maybe he knows something we don’t know.. He is the father of linux, guys, he has the right to talk about gnome or kde the way he wants. Show some respect to the man when he has something to say.
This is great. At the end of the year the Linux community usually gets boring (due to many releases around October) but Linus fixed that by fanning the most useless flamewar ever!
I now have to add my worthless comment:
I will never switch to KDE till one of its themes can give me the pure whiteness of Gnome’s Industrial Engine. The rest does not matter- I do not fear gconf!
Nothing wrong if he thinks we should use KDE! Problem is its Linus who is speaking this and with some really bad language! If you check the TUX magazine they also prefer KDE over GNome… but they dont make public statment like this… this is really shame on Linus to make a irresponsible statment like this. I guess he has started his own down fall with this statment. People might not take him seriously anymore.
“People might not take him seriously anymore.”
If irrational and irritable behaviour really mattered for being taken seriously noone would take Ballmer, Gates and Jobs seriously.
I have to disagree. Choosing one of the two major window managers (KDE,Gnome) will have a very good effect on pushing a somewhat standard linux desktop.
Perhaps he was being very clever and trying to incite that discussion, albeit with foul language and all..
Povocative title really inspired a heated KDE/Gnome flamewar.
IMHO, the topic of the original discussion was different. Gnome is becoming a serious commercial product distributed by Red Hat. This is why Gnome developers do not listen to end users’ concerns. The are not arrogant, they do what they’re told. They just “know it so much better, so everything will be just fine”.
May be it is the time for a fork of the Gnome project?
542? Damn you saved yourself from some good spanking!
(In a previous post I said I would spank all of you if this thread didn’t reach the 500 comments mark)
Besides what I’ve stated originally on “He’s mostly right”, I’d like to point out the hipocresy most gnome users/developers have regarding desktop discussion:
while it’s fine to bash other DE (Icaza, other Gnome dev’s) it’s not right to criticise gnome proyect (¿why?)
And also to point out that the excuse kde is windowslike or gnome is mac alike is just bullshit: they’re configurable enough -ok, kde is more configurable than gnome- to look like anything you want.
Acroding to uncyclopedia:
KDE philosophy is “if you find an empty space durinK one seKond, add an useless feature or somethinK very very irritating. The iKon must be shiny and rotating”.
While uncyclopedia is a humor site the only thing they actually got wrong there was the “rotating”.
Hum, in the Gnome “article”, they also said this :
Following this policy, GNOME is the only piece of software with fewer features every release.
* The 0.1 release was a full networked-component desktop.
* The 1.0 release was a real big desktop for power users.
* The 1.5 release temporarily broke the GNOME naming convention by adopting the name “Gnome Iconz Editon.”
* The 2.0 release was for average users.
* The 2.4 release is known as the “brain dead moron user” release.
* The 2.12 release is known as the “W” release (for George “W” Bush)
* The alpha 3.0 release, Project Topaz, is expected in its final version to be a white screen telling you to use a pen and a piece of paper to do your work and to shut this bloody computer off. As of the early alpha version, the keyboard interface and serial port are still active for debugging purposes. Gnome 3.0 will require 1GB of Ram and a modern graphics card with OpenGL support; the graphical debugger requires a 64-bit processor and a 256 megabyte video card,
Hum, in the Gnome “article”, they also said this :
Yea, but that doesn’t mean that the KDE article isn’t accurate.
Oh I wasn’t meaning anything, only laughing. It’s an “article”, not an article…
GNOME is the FUTURE.KDE is run by a company which will ask royalties from users anytime…Also GNOME is technically superior.so stop kde narzis chirping….
What are you smocking ? It seems to be an interesting blend.
Anyway : KDE is not run by any company.
Qt is published by Trolltech. As it has been said, the Qt lib is published under the GPL license. Ok, you have to pay for Qt3 if you want to use it under Windows or if you want to write closed sources applications, but still, the GPLed versions (Qt3/X11 and the whole Qt4) are here to stay if any change of mind happen at Trolltech.
You know, the GPL, the probable reason why we are here arguing instead of having a life outside.
As for “technically superior”, I do not think there is a winner here. Gnome as well as KDE has its merits, but who are you, little troll, to say that a design philosophy is better than the other ? Are you even knowledgeable enough to understand the differences ?
Now wondering What Distro that Linus using
Anyone know?
LOL…. I can’t believe someone actually asked this!
OMG. What a flame bait! This’ll be good. For my worthless 2 cents I prefer Ubuntu (gnome), its themese are clean and pretty, it doesn’t feel like MSFT Windows etc. Stock KDE on the other hand looks ugly, menus everywhere, just a convoluted mess. Custom KDE though like Xandros or Linspire does is nice.
+1 for the flamebaiting !!
lol !
+1 for +1 for the flamebaiting !
Hé, topic has transmutted into a cross discution between X11/Desktops/kernel engineers
http://lists.osdl.org/pipermail/desktop_architects/2005-December/00…
..and as a user I agree with Linus (on the whole), although I’m doing this on a Gnome (Ubuntu) desktop I stuck on an old Laptop when my workstations were incinerated by lightning. Gnome, in its Ubuntu form (I like brown) looks and feels good for everyday tasks but I keep on wondering how to make it do this or that I need – it usually involves fiddling in a terminal. I don’t mind fiddling in terminals, I can do it easily enough, but I’m a graphics man – it breaks my workflow – I think it’s a left-brain/right-brain thing – and I usually have to pause before and after to realign myself to the task in hand.