A Week With GNOME As My Linux Desktop: What They Get Right & Wrong

[oleid]

to write 5 page article about something that don't have minimize and maximize.......useless .......do we have to remove the another two buttons of our mouses to follow apple designs??!?!?!?!?

My GNOME Deskop has minimize and maximize (Super+H resp. Super+Up) and the buttons are just a click away via the official tweak-tool (but who uses a mouse for window stuff anyway?)

If you had complained about the missing feature of NxM-Desktops (desktop grids), I'd agree. I know there is an extension, but it has it's issues.

[randomizer]

Every time I use GNOME I get stung by the same paper cut: I cannot adjust mouse wheel scroll rate. I can do this in KDE, but that creates another paper cut because the setting only applies to Qt applications. GTK+ is what is wrong with the world.

[drSeehas]

Next Xfce followed by LXQt.

[Passso]

You can add minimize and maximize buttons with gnome-tweak-tool

This answer is just inappropriate, those missing buttons "by default" are just a terrible and stupid idea ( far more than showing a list of printers on a new left panel for example... )

And as far as I understand this article is about default behavior, no ?

Now please be honest : you can correct ALL KDE's "problems" mentioned in the article using config tools or "view" menus.

That said, good article anyway, because little changes may get KDE even better.

(I use daily KDE, Unity and Gnome, and like all for different reasons )

[Ericg]

Next Xfce followed by LXQt.

Don't tempt me.

[Okki]

Nice!!!!!
Do we have options to have taskbar?

You can use Dash to Dock or Cairo-Dock.

[Ericg]

This answer is just inappropriate, those missing buttons "by default" are just a terrible and stupid idea ( far more than showing a list of printers on a new left panel for example... )

And as far as I understand this article is about default behavior, no ?

Yes, defaults, and I stayed away from bashing Gnome Shell as a whole because, lets be honest, that's beating a dead horse. Everyone knows everyone's complaints about Gnome Shell. I tried to do something different by showing what Gnome does get -right-, and showing what KDE gets -wrong-.

Now please be honest : you can correct ALL KDE's "problems" mentioned in the article using config tools or "view" menus.

You can't fix Muon with config tools and a view menu. You can't fix applications not creating kcm's. You can't fix the brightness and volume key pop ups. You can't fix a complete lack of a cohesive experience with a config option.

[Ericg]

FWIW: As a KDE developer, I find there's a bunch of fine, valid criticism in this article, of areas where we clearly have some work to do (there's also a few things that make me go "Well, actually ...", but Luke already addressed some of those).

Anything you want to single out in particular, Sho_? As far as what you see as definitely valid, vs what you see as me splitting hairs? Also what part of the KDE stack do you work on?

I enjoy making software, so I don't think flaws are a cause for despair: They're opportunities to put in some work to fix real problems, much like software development is one in general. Further, they're problems real enough for someone to notice them and point them out, which makes addressing them certainly worthwhile.

This is the response I was hoping for. As I said in the article: none of KDE's flaws that I pointed out are impossible to fix. None of them are fundamental to Qt or even fundamental to GTK as to offer an advantage. Every single one of them can be fixed if people care enough to do so.

Rather than "We accept patches", then, I think the message should be (to no one in particular): If you're interested in fixing real problems and making a difference, consider signing up to be one of the team.

You can't fix this problem one patch at a time, its a problem of a mind set, its a problem of a culture surrounding KDE that is only just now starting to get fixed via the inception of the Visual Design Group. Any fixes to the overall intuitiveness and user friendliness has to basically come from top going down-- with the current developers and current teams going "The status quo isn't enough." And sure, new members to the teams may very well fix that, getting some new blood in, getting some extra hands on deck so that the developers have more time to care. But you can't fix this from the bottom up, with distributions juggling hundreds of 'paper-cut' patches to all of KDE, or even submitting patches on their own back upstream trying to fix all the paper cuts one problem at a time. If the change in mentality doesn't come from within then the next update will just include more unintuitiveness from the main developer, which means more outside paper cut patches to fix what should've never been a problem.

[Okki]

This answer is just inappropriate, those missing buttons "by default" are just a terrible and stupid idea ( far more than showing a list of printers on a new left panel for example... )

Personally, I never use these buttons. I no longer feel the need to minimize my windows (all in full screen). Now, if I want to maximize a window, I can double-click on the header bar, or move the window to the top of the screen. There are also several keyboard shortcuts (Toggle maximized/windowed : Super+Up / Super+Down; Toggle tiled left/right : Super+Left / Super+Right; Hide window : Super+H...)

I sincerely believe that we must give a chance to this new method, before shouting to heresy.

[oleid]

This answer is just inappropriate, those missing buttons "by default" are just a terrible and stupid idea ( far more than showing a list of printers on a new left panel for example... )

Actually, it makes perfect sense! Since you have no task bar by default, it makes no sense to minimize windows. And maximize was always possible by double-clicking the window title. Thus, these buttons are a waste of space.
If you, however, feel the need for a task bar, it's easily possible to add it and to add the "missing" window buttons.