KDE SC 4.4 Release Imminent, RC2 Released

[Joe Sixpack]

You KDE fanbois have you actually used this pile of trash called KDE? Or you are judging it based on screenshots?

I have been using it on Arch for 2 months 4.3.2-4.3.4 and it still has so many bugs it is not funny. I could not even reliebly copy a bunch of files without fear of some missing their target. Dolphin sucked with some major bugs(international encoding for example created zombie files) and i experienced overall instability.

And all these for what? An overall look inspired(in other words copied) from windows vista/7? Some plasma widgets no one is using? A mediocre at best windows style?

I switched to GNOME(again...) and i do not intend to go back to KDE soon. Maybe testing it(4.4) in a VM and that's about it. GNOME is far more reliable and stable at the moment, and for the eye candy factor you could always use a better gtk engine/compiz/cairo-dock and create a modern looking gui. I find it more usable too, and GNOME 3.0 looks really exciting.

Stop saying GNOME sucks just to prove it to yourselves. Most people still use GNOME...

Calm down, young angry one...

1) KDE does still have some bugs, but Arch is another meta-distro and it's not known for it's stability. Most people who like KDE use SUSE, while a lot of others use Kubuntu - both of which supposedly have better KDE experiences than Arch. Source distos (Gentoo, Arch, LFS) are never more stable than binary distros. Although I will admit that's the fault of KDE, not Arch. It's just hard to simulate how things will compile in a 100 different configurations.

2) KDE's base is superior to that of GNOME. Still having to use GConf Editor in 2010? Seriously? Which brings me to the next point:

3) Don't ever say eye candy and gtk in the same sentence. QT is so much more advanced than gtk it isn't even funny anymore. In Gnome you still have the same themes installed 4 times because gtk doesn't support color themes as well as QT does.

Both KDE and GNOME have problems. The question is, which problem would you rather have: A lack of maturity (KDE), or a lack of features and innovation (GNOME) ?

[BlackStar]

Both KDE and GNOME have problems. The question is, which problem would you rather have: A lack of maturity (KDE), or a lack of features and innovation (GNOME) ?

[start fire]

Definitely stability over features. This is a DE, not a 3rd person shooter.

[add wood]

That said, Gnome 3 looks pretty innovative to me, certainly a larger paradigm shift over the existing Gnome / KDE (and to a lesser extent Win7 / MacOS X) desktops.

[add oil]

Moreover, what features is Gnome currently lacking that cannot be covered trivially through existing applications?

[flamewar, go!]

[Joe Sixpack]

[start fire]

Definitely stability over features. This is a DE, not a 3rd person shooter.

[add wood]

That said, Gnome 3 looks pretty innovative to me, certainly a larger paradigm shift over the existing Gnome / KDE (and to a lesser extent Win7 / MacOS X) desktops.

[add oil]

Moreover, what features is Gnome currently lacking that cannot be covered trivially through existing applications?

[flamewar, go!]

LOL! Who would flame you? It's simply a matter of preference.

1) I agree, stability over features. However, if I have to sacrifice too many features for stability, then I'm just going to boot up Windows XP til it gets sorted out. (This happens about once a year for me).

2a) I agree, GNOME 3 looks quite nice. I wouldn't call it innovative though. A lot of things shown in screenshots were already done in SuperKaramba, and are doable with Plasma. They're innovative to diehard GNOME users because they stick to GNOME, so they aren't aware that other features exsist elsewhere. (Which is why they are always making off the wall comments about GNOME being better at something when it clearly isn't).

2b) What concerns me is stability. When GNOME3 drops all these new features how do we know it will be stable? A total rewrite leaves a lot of room for bugs and instability. (See Windows XP, Windows Vista, KDE 3.0, KDE 4.0, and GNOME 2.0 for proof).

3) It's like we discussed a few months back: The argument by GNOME people is that there are special configurations or third-party apps to bring GNOME up to speed. If someone were to do that they could just skip GNOME altogether and do the same with XFce. Out of the box, it's severely dated compared to even KDE 3.5. Which brings us to upcoming Gnome 3.0 - which brings us back to point 2a and 2b. It almost a circular argument.

[kraftman]

Here's probably quite good explanation what's wrong with Gnome:

http://www.novell.com/prblogs/?p=82#comment-129

Thanks to this I even realized why they're reaching for Mono.

[Joe Sixpack]

Here's probably quite good explanation what's wrong with Gnome:

http://www.novell.com/prblogs/?p=82#comment-129

Thanks to this I even realized why they're reaching for Mono.

I agree with what he said because I've read it before from several different programmers. However, his example about the toolbars is a terrible one. 2 of the 5 applications shown (EasyTag and AbiWord) aren't even Gnome apps. They have no dependencies on Gnome libraries - they're just written in gtk+. Even Evolution was developed by a third party (Ximian) and wasn't included into Gnome until much later on. Someone claiming to be a former Gnome developer should know that. From the post:

I already reported many of these issues and recently my toolbar bugreport to gnumeric got closed as NOT A BUG with some random intransparent excuses why the HIG cant be applied to gnumeric

HIG standards can't be applied to Gnumeric because it isn't a Gnome application. I've haven't written a single line of code for Gnome and even I knew that. Personally, I think he's greatly exaggerating his involvement with the Gnome project - if not outright lying.

However, although he gives a completely invalid argument, he inadvertently proves another point. What he complains about is the side affect of what BlackStar is advocating: You can lump a bunch of programs together to fill gaps and duplicate what KDE does, but when you do that you're still going to lack cohesion and polish. Outside programs don't play as nice together, and they aren't bound by the same guidelines and regulations as native DE apps.

Perfect example: Install your favorite Gnome theme and fire up compiz to make Gnome beautiful. The native music manager (Banshee) is still lacking the sort by genre feature, so install Songbird to get around that. Not only does Songbird not use Gnome color schemes, it doesn't use any of the window effects from compiz. It looks horrible unless you use a light colored scheme, and even then it still sticks out because of compiz.

[kraftman]

Someone claiming to be a former Gnome developer should know that. From the post:

So it looks he only claimed he was a Gnome developer

[BlackStar]

LOL! Who would flame you? It's simply a matter of preference.

Damn, I'm losing my touch. I'll leave the stage to TemplarGR then, he looks promising.

[Smorg]

KDE makes a beautiful classic desktop. Good for them.