Clear Linux Switches From Xfce To GNOME, Benchmarks

[starshipeleven]

starshipeleven You may be trying to get actual data, but all you have is localized data from one German server, bad data is even worse than no data, because with no data you do not have an answer, with bad data you have misleading answer.

I also have polls.

And that's still much better than your walls of text or Griffin's faith.

Why should KDE be more popular in Germany compared to other places, well,

No, I wasn't asking for text, I wanted numbers.

On DE stuff, here is the thing, you need to be clear to what consist of DE, when i say GNOME-based, since all GNOME Project DE's and applications use GTK+ toolkit, it's practically a synonimus, and most (if not all) applications in Cinnamon/MATE have GNOME root, for example, text editors, xed is actually gedit changed to suit Cinnamon DE, pluma is old gedit from gnome2. now improved and transitioned to GTK3+ toolkit, nemo is based on earlier version of nautilus, caja also from gnome 2, ofc. all of that software is forked and changed, in some cases drastically enough, but still they share quite a bit of underlaying code. XFCE is exception here (ofc. KDE also, since it isn't GNOME-based or using GTK toolkit), since it uses GTK toolkit but it is developed from scratch (to my knowledge, I could be wrong).

No I'm talking of desktop bars, start menu, file manager and other basic parts of the user interface. Not about auxiliary and sometimes very crappy bundled applications.
Cinnamon's or MATE's or XFCE's or KDE's filemanagers don't look like GNOME 3's, their default user interface looks more similar to Win7/XP while GNOME 3 is a thing of its own.
And so on.

You are clearly speaking about layout,

No, I can move the panel around and install docks also in Windows (it's more limited, more or less like Cinnamon). I talk about how the panels behave, how the programs behave and how the program's UI is set up.

They are all set with the traditional Desktop PC user interface paradigms, small icons, menus, many options.
While GNOME 3 is clearly following touch user interface paradigms in many places, large icons, not much options, minimalist, cool icon theme, actively fights against any attempt to use more than a single application at a time (does not show windows until I go in a corner or press hotkeys, does hide an application if I click on another, and so on).

I'm not saying it's wrong, just that it's painfully obvious that it's very different from other DEs (Cinnamon and MATE were born because of this obvious difference after all).

I don't know, probably most GNOME users use extensions, but yet again, no other DE offers such feature, so we can't really compare it.

??? Lolwhut?

KDE (Plasma) has extensions too (plasmoids), so does Cinnamon (obviously, it's similar to GNOME 3) and MATE. Sure MATE does not have a lot http://wiki.mate-desktop.org/plugins but the functinality is there and most of those actually make sense.
XFCE also has panel plugins.

[leipero]

starshipeleven You may be trying to get actual data, but all you have is localized data from one German server, bad data is even worse than no data, because with no data you do not have an answer, with bad data you have misleading answer.

Why should KDE be more popular in Germany compared to other places, well, multiple factors, first, most of developement started and is managed there, another reason is location itself, spreading "by word" is more common, and some sort of "patriotic" element can't be ignored also. And since you mentioned France, I used to play one French developed game, to no suprize, it was most popular in France, and very popular in Germany and in Europe in general, while in North and South America wasn't that popular at all. So we can't ignore those factors for any software when we work with statistics, why that is the case? I do not know, my assupmtion is spreading "by word" influence, marketing failure (and GNU/Linux have no marketing, so it's even more important in spreading "by word" factor) and other factors to the lesser extent, sure it is assumption/speculation, but it is logical and informed one.

KDE was extremely buggy on Ubuntu side, and it is true, Ubuntu regulary messed things up with KDE, but also with GNOME 3, i acutally disliked GNOME 3, and community edition "Ubuntu GNOME" was by fat the worst Ubuntu edition, even worse than Kubuntu that was a buggy mess. Ubuntu MATE was also terrible back in 2015, and people recommending it really got on my nerves..., there was a panel indicator arrangement bug that was so annoying, and was a bug from gnome 2 days, the caja root crashes, layout switcher and MATE tweak would offten crahs and much more..., but I'm getting off topic...

On DE stuff, here is the thing, you need to be clear to what consist of DE, when i say GNOME-based, since all GNOME Project DE's and applications use GTK+ toolkit, it's practically a synonimus, and most (if not all) applications in Cinnamon/MATE have GNOME root, for example, text editors, xed is actually gedit changed to suit Cinnamon DE, pluma is old gedit from gnome2. now improved and transitioned to GTK3+ toolkit, nemo is based on earlier version of nautilus, caja also from gnome 2, ofc. all of that software is forked and changed, in some cases drastically enough, but still they share quite a bit of underlaying code. XFCE is exception here (ofc. KDE also, since it isn't GNOME-based or using GTK toolkit), since it uses GTK toolkit but it is developed from scratch (to my knowledge, I could be wrong).

So when you say "I find MATE, Cinnamon, XFCE and KDE (and Windows XP/7 for that matter) very similar in overall layout and design", i wonder on what actually you base that. You are clearly speaking about layout, and, I can assume you are talking about default layout, since all DE's (including Winsows XP/7) have layout change as integral part of the DE/system. Defaul layout could be diferent depending on distribution, but, when we talk about DE's layout, I always go with "vanilla" layout as project developers intended it to be. From that, i can't find similarity between MATE/XFCE and KDE/Cinnamon/Windows XP/7, both MATE and XFCE have default layout with panel on top of the screen, with bottom panel in MATE having task/windows lsit, while in XFCE having launchers and different layout (not stretched), while KDE, Cinnamon and Windows XP/7 all have similar layout, with panel on the bottom of the screen, with tasks lists on the same panel, some sort of "start menu", clock (sys try in general) on similar places, and similar structure. Those are default layouts, now Xubuntu uses non-standard XFCE layout that is more similar to KDE/Cinnamon/Win XP/7, but that is "non-standard" layout, so I wouldn't count it as such obviously.

Guest It's not about missing option..., it's about what I have to do in order to change that, name me those "missing features" in GNOME 3 vs. KDE and most likely, theya re not missing at all, and most of them are in tweak-tool, and can be easily changed with few clicks, now, what I have to do to stop KDE from tracing everything I do? Can you give me one/few clicks solution? Or do i need to edit config files, or even worse i have to recompile KDE session (or something) and cahnge code manually to remove that thing? It's about that, I am hearing "GNOME lacks options", but no one ever says what options does it lack? I was clear what option KDE lack, and last time i checked it was next to impossible to actually change it unless you change code and recompile whole thing, maybe it's different now, tell me, youa re the one who uses it, not me, I don't know.

I don't know, probably most GNOME users use extensions, but yet again, no other DE offers such feature, so we can't really compare it.

[DebianXFCE Jr]

Now enlighten me, how are DE's that lack some basic features and have some completely irrelevant disorganized settings better than the one that does not lack at least basic features?

Well it's not my fault you take Mate for disorganized. For me it's more organized and has more options out-of-the-box than gnome 3. Everything you need is placed in Control Centre.

[sirblackheart]

The "old concepts" are tried in tested, a doctor wouldn’t stop prescribing it because it's an old drug. What I am saying is that GNOME has pushed a paradigm based on new ideas, but with little to no usability testing to see how good/useful it actually is, and without a simple way to roll it back, without the use of extensions.

How is using gnome 2 not a working rollback for you?

Should we really start to compare tools with medicine?

[danielnez1]

Again i did not ask for studies of the old concepts but some that show the new ones suck. And I only asked for this because a personal opinion was not marked as one.



Yes and therefore it is perfectly fine if people say what they like and not like in the current GUI. I believe there will be some pretty valid points in such critic. But just saying GNOME has no sane GUI as it would be a fact while it is a personal opinion is more of flame then anything else.



See here we have valid problems with the GNOME Ecosystem that are not part of the it has no sane GUI. Yes and if enough people like, contribute and use the forks they will enjoy some more years. I for one am mostly happy with the direction GNOME has gone. There will always be some points you will disagree with a DE and if those points are crucial to you, you will have the possibility to switch to something else, because someone put up the time and energy to form something that is more to his liking in the hope others will also like it.

But this also should not mean GNOME is a lesser DE to those others, it just means that its vision of a DE does not overlap with yours and others anymore.

The "old concepts" are tried in tested, a doctor wouldn’t stop prescribing it because it's an old drug. What I am saying is that GNOME has pushed a paradigm based on new ideas, but with little to no usability testing to see how good/useful it actually is, and without a simple way to roll it back, without the use of extensions.

It would also seem that Red Hat and SUSE's vision of what a DE should be is also radically different to what the GNOME team feel it should be, hence the rise of "GNOME classic" and SUSE's own desktop which is broadly incomparable with other GNOME releases.

[sirblackheart]

The usability concepts of the Desktop metaphor, windows etc is backed by decades of research and usability studies e.g.:

Again i did not ask for studies of the old concepts but some that show the new ones suck. And I only asked for this because a personal opinion was not marked as one.

That is not to say that things should stay static, indeed with more powerful machines, mobile devices and touch screens, it's natural that things will continue to evolve. However with GNOME 3, it appears that their HIG was changed to induce new paradigms absent in the established desktop metaphor, such as moving from a document centric interface to a mare task oriented interface (kind of like Windows before 95) with an emphasis on what is assumed to be importance to the user.

That is all well and good, however it has never been validated by any sort of formal, large scale user testing like what has been done with the traditional desktop metaphor. The last formal usability studies down with GNOME was done in 2001 by Sun. Given the Linux desktop is pretty much a tertiary interest to the likes of Red Hat and SUSE etc. I don't see them funding any similar usability studies any time soon.

Yes and therefore it is perfectly fine if people say what they like and not like in the current GUI. I believe there will be some pretty valid points in such critic. But just saying GNOME has no sane GUI as it would be a fact while it is a personal opinion is more of flame then anything else.

Anyway regardless of the rights or wrongs about the developers user assumptions, IMO the GNOME developers approach of stripping out a whole bunch of functionality, and usurers having to reply on extensions that depend on a undocumented, and usable API to regain some of the functionality enjoyed in GNOME 2 is not the right approach, hence the many forks there have been

See here we have valid problems with the GNOME Ecosystem that are not part of the it has no sane GUI. Yes and if enough people like, contribute and use the forks they will enjoy some more years. I for one am mostly happy with the direction GNOME has gone. There will always be some points you will disagree with a DE and if those points are crucial to you, you will have the possibility to switch to something else, because someone put up the time and energy to form something that is more to his liking in the hope others will also like it.

But this also should not mean GNOME is a lesser DE to those others, it just means that its vision of a DE does not overlap with yours and others anymore.

[sirblackheart]

I don't know what you need studies for. As someone used to customize my desktop, I can tell you I can't get to grips with Gnome. Yes, it's customizable. No, it's not customizable to the level I need. In that regard, it can be compared to Win8.
At the same time, I can see the above not being an issue for people that don't require as much customization.

I am asking for studies if someone makes a statement not marked as opinion. aka he formulates something like it is a fact. It is as easy as phrasing it as opinion rather then flame bait fact. I just reacted on this as the same guy criticizing someone else for pulling facts out of nowhere presents what clearly just his personal opinion and not something that has been scientifically proven.

In addition I do not ask you to like GNOME or use it. If a distro is deciding to switch to it they can officially make a comment why and that's it. For sure it should not be a popularity choice but one that reflects on the goal of the distribution.

Just use a distro that offers your flavor of DE. Personally I would recommend arch as it was a customize once still keeps running smoothly since 3 years experience.

Adapting to new models is not the issue here. Whenever you change the model, some people will not adapt. And it's not always because they have trouble adapting, it can be because they simply don't have the time or can't afford a drop in productivity for a month or two till they adapt or they simply don't see the point.

That is basically what I said. Having trouble to adapt the mental model, being it time, laziness or just personal difficulty to adapt to change. I also said it is good that those different DE exist so suite different needs. It just kinda is strange that those people with those troubles still have enough time and energy to complain about DE that offers a modern and for me efficient approach.
For me it was never a problem to adapt to something as I tried thorough my life to stay as adaptable as possible resulting in keeping "unproductive" times basically to zero. You know those people having trouble with the axis of the gamepad and have to absolutely change it in the option? A little experiment on myself showed my that adapting to either was rather painless and fast for me. My life is to short to not adapt easily to things. I mean what is point of adapting to one thing at a given point to just being stuck on it for the rest of my life?

Whenever you change the model, some people will not adapt.

And that is ok. They can use the old model for the rest of their life (Well not always and in all situation. To some things you just have to adapt or visit a doctor to help you cope with the change e.g. when an old model is not acceptable any more by the society). Just don't bash on every new model just because you are having trouble to adapt. Use your time and resources to perfect that one model you like and use it till you die.

To a finish line. Rather then flaming around use your time to support the projects you like (No bashing other projects just makes your community seem toxic keeping away possible contributors, looking at you Debian XFCE and Griffin) or try to adapt to new stuff once in a wile.

P.S. GNOMEs tabs suck but that is a different story

[danielnez1]

That is nothing but assumptions on your side. Till you bring hard evidence trough relevant user studies showing that GNOMES HIG and GUI causing troubles to several different people (including those not having trouble adapting to new and efficient mental models) in comparison to the ones you mentioned you are doing no better then Griffing here.
Not everyone wants to be stuck on the win95 and pre methaphers. But I understand that there are people having trouble to adapt their long trained mental models so I think it is great there are several open source DE out their tailored to their needs.

The usability concepts of the Desktop metaphor, windows etc is backed by decades of research and usability studies e.g.:

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/5387632/?reload=true

http://www.jstor.org/stable/248990?seq=8#page_scan_tab_contents

http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=286577

http://www.sigchi.org/chi96/proceedings/desbrief/Sullivan/kds_txt.htm

That is not to say that things should stay static, indeed with more powerful machines, mobile devices and touch screens, it's natural that things will continue to evolve. However with GNOME 3, it appears that their HIG was changed to induce new paradigms absent in the established desktop metaphor, such as moving from a document centric interface to a mare task oriented interface (kind of like Windows before 95) with an emphasis on what is assumed to be importance to the user.

That is all well and good, however it has never been validated by any sort of formal, large scale user testing like what has been done with the traditional desktop metaphor. The last formal usability studies down with GNOME was done in 2001 by Sun. Given the Linux desktop is pretty much a tertiary interest to the likes of Red Hat and SUSE etc. I don't see them funding any similar usability studies any time soon.

Anyway regardless of the rights or wrongs about the developers user assumptions, IMO the GNOME developers approach of stripping out a whole bunch of functionality, and usurers having to reply on extensions that depend on a undocumented, and usable API to regain some of the functionality enjoyed in GNOME 2 is not the right approach, hence the many forks there have been.

[bug77]

That is nothing but assumptions on your side. Till you bring hard evidence trough relevant user studies showing that GNOMES HIG and GUI causing troubles to several different people (including those not having trouble adapting to new and efficient mental models) in comparison to the ones you mentioned you are doing no better then Griffing here.
Not everyone wants to be stuck on the win95 and pre methaphers. But I understand that there are people having trouble to adapt their long trained mental models so I think it is great there are several open source DE out their tailored to their needs.

I don't know what you need studies for. As someone used to customize my desktop, I can tell you I can't get to grips with Gnome. Yes, it's customizable. No, it's not customizable to the level I need. In that regard, it can be compared to Win8.
At the same time, I can see the above not being an issue for people that don't require as much customization.

Adapting to new models is not the issue here. Whenever you change the model, some people will not adapt. And it's not always because they have trouble adapting, it can be because they simply don't have the time or can't afford a drop in productivity for a month or two till they adapt or they simply don't see the point.

How you managed to miss what i wrote is beyond me..., I gave an argument that KDE is NOT as customizable as you KDE fans claim it to be, i gave simple example of privacy settings, you didn't even bother to cover that section, why? If having ability to change the theme and layout out of the box (mind you GNOME can do that perfectly fine with tweak tool, in fact I don't use standard theme or layout - slightly different layout) is priority over privacy settings for you, hey, that's fine with me, but not addressing my argument is very dishonest, and I am not going into GTK+ and it's pros and cons, it's a toolkit, and it is constantly evolving, it's mostly not object oriented, and that is a good thing in my view, less confusing..., but that's beside the point.

So, we have one option in Gnome which is missing in KDE vs. dozens of options in KDE not available in Gnome. Take a look at panel customization, Dolphin features and so on. KDE is far more customizable and I don't mean themes.

From multiple studies, it is known fact that most people do not cunstomize theming etc., you would be suprized how meny people do not chage their desktop background even.

We need such study for Gnome which is far from standard desktop principles.