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

[ObiWan]

From the headline I didn't expect a GNOME vs KDE comparison.
And as KDE user I have to agree with ericg on most of his points considering the design of the apps.

But for a fairer comparison he should have compared fedoras gnome vs kubuntu or netrunner.
GNOME is made for Fedora and RHEL so it's no wonder it works and looks perfect on a RedHat OS.
So using one of the two BlueSystems Distris for a comparison would have been better, even if the points probably stood the same.

For me GNOME3 looks polished but I just can't stand it's default workflow, and after adding some extensions it just feels a bit slow.
Not to forget Nautilus is an awful file manager, if you compare it to Dolphin.

And using Arch compatibility with earlier versions is a thing too, as an outsider it seems that GNOME tends to break themes and addons regular at version updates.

[Zan Lynx]

I use startup automation to setup my desktops and applications at login, and that's something that KDE makes trivially easy. I used to do the same with GNOME, but it required coding a script on my part for no particular reason. There's a user base for every desktop environment, so I find comparing them kind of pointless. An apple isn't a very good orange, and an orange isn't a very good apple. That doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with either of them.

I may not have understood, but if you are starting up a bunch of applications, you don't need a script. I believe this works with Gnome and KDE, see how you can just link desktop files into the autostart directory:

$ ls -l $HOME/.config/autostart/
total 28
-rw-rw-r--. 1 zlynx zlynx 235 Jul 12 16:54 dropbox.desktop
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 zlynx zlynx  39 Mar 16 10:33 empathy.desktop -> /usr/share/applications/empathy.desktop
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 zlynx zlynx  39 Mar 16 10:33 firefox.desktop -> /usr/share/applications/firefox.desktop
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 zlynx zlynx  52 Mar 16 10:33 gnome-system-monitor.desktop -> /usr/share/applications/gnome-system-monitor.desktop
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 zlynx zlynx  39 Mar 16 10:33 hipchat.desktop -> /usr/share/applications/hipchat.desktop
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 zlynx zlynx  51 Mar 16 10:33 mozilla-thunderbird.desktop -> /usr/share/applications/mozilla-thunderbird.desktop
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 zlynx zlynx  41 Mar 16 10:33 rhythmbox.desktop -> /usr/share/applications/rhythmbox.desktop

I suppose that's a bit command-line, although I am very comfortable with the command line myself some people may not like it.

[Aeder]

The part about the printers is so true it hurts. I deal with this shit a lot since I often have to reconfigure printers.

The prompt for the key-chain is annoying, it should offer to remember the password every time you log in. And if you want, it should allow you to keep typing it over and over.

The Fedora login is ugly, that much is true. They should have stuck to the default.

I disagree partially with the part about the music/video player mainly because it's a matter of tastes and because there's plenty of alternatives that are better than both.

And yes the sound settings in KDE are atrocious, and for all the complexity they show, sometimes they don't work as intended.

[Ericg]

I use startup automation to setup my desktops and applications at login, and that's something that KDE makes trivially easy. I used to do the same with GNOME, but it required coding a script on my part for no particular reason.

You can add applications to autostart via gnome-tweak-tool

[Delgarde]

this may seem a little off topic. in my experience and from a desktop perspective, gnome 3 feels more polished . however if you run on hardware a couple of years old. it gets sluggish and starts to get in the way.

I suspect that depends a lot of the actual hardware, rather than it's age. I've got an aging 2009-era netbook - not exactly a powerful machine even when new, never mind six years later - and it runs current Fedora. A little slowly, granted, but not so bad as to be unusable when I go traveling with it (it's a crap machine, but it's small and lightweight).

[Delgarde]

If they agree that it crossed the line into ranty-ness then yes, I will pull the article and try to tone it down a bit.

Please don't - this is the first *good* editorial story I've seen on this site for a long time. Yes, it's critical - that's the point. But it's not offensive about it, and you're saying things that do need to be heard.

The kind of issues you're pointing out - this kind of thing has been part of the Gnome / KDE divide for a very long time... Gnome oversimplifying sometimes but doing a much better job of usability and consistency, while KDE has provided more functionality, but often done a poor job of presenting it. So one one hand we get a software installer that can't see command-line applications - on the other hand, we get media players that make you go looking for your media instead of putting it in front of you on start-up. Neither of them gets it quite right, but it does show just how much work KDE need to do to get the balance right...

[baffledmollusc]

I sent an email off to Michael, as well as my faculty supervisor, asking for their opinions on the piece. If they agree that it crossed the line into ranty-ness then yes, I will pull the article and try to tone it down a bit. But if both of them say it didn't cross that line, in their eyes, then it will stay up.

It certainly didn't cross that line. Unlike a lot of editorial commentary, it was well-reasoned and cited evidence and examples.

I found it a good read.

[Windywoo]

Luke Wolf seems to think that ranting means criticising something he blindly adores.

[Sho_]

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).

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.

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.

[Okki]

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??!?!?!?!?

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