The KDE vs. GNOME Schism In Free Software

[TheBlackCat]

looking back and considering KDE3 to KDE4 upgrade path, I see one of the reasons, aside old history GPL vs proprietary reasons.

That argument would seem more valid if the Gnome-centric distros like Fedora and Ubuntu weren't the first to switch to KDE 4 while more KDE-centric distros like openSUSE kept the two in parallel. If they were concerned about the updgrade path they would have followed the advice of the KDE developers and held off longer instead of falling over each other to get KDE 4 first.

Yeah right, in what universe? Especially legacy widget style: Plastique and Phase, not to mention horrible legacy Window Decorations like: Modern System, Plastik, Redmond, Web...

Wait, what? You are saying KDE looks bad if you use old, ugly-looking legacy themes? Obviously, that is the whole point of those themes.

but GNOME is again way more popular than KDE.

Source please. Yes Gnome is the default with some distributions. On the other hand KDE is the default in the entire Brazil public school system. If I recall correctly last year's Linux users poll had KDE and Gnome tied for the best DE. So I don't think it is quite so simple to claim that Gnome is more popular.

[dl.zerocool]

I don't care about the fight, I just want something stable that I can use as I want.

Gnome 3 -> Requires Pulseaudio, end of the story. A dependency like this one is just non sense for a desktop environment period.

Gnome 2 is cool, kde 3.5 was for me just a big mess. I like the current, xfce was always really cool (but I prefer qt to gtk) and I've tried many desktops and they have all good points and bad points.

Enjoy your desktop

[fanATic]

Wait, what? You are saying KDE looks bad if you use old, ugly-looking legacy themes? Obviously, that is the whole point of those themes.

Nope. KDE is also fugly with default Oxygen theme, legacy themes is just reminder how KDE was fugly in past and it is in the future.
GNOME looks OK even with their legacy theme, such as Clearlooks.
KDE is most powerful desktop environment IMHO in terms of feautures built in, but I can't stand visual appearance of KDE.

Source please. Yes Gnome is the default with some distributions. On the other hand KDE is the default in the entire Brazil public school system. If I recall correctly last year's Linux users poll had KDE and Gnome tied for the best DE. So I don't think it is quite so simple to claim that Gnome is more popular.

I don't have source, I made that claim looking by default DE choice of more popular distros. Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora, Debian as one of the most popular distros use GNOME, so their large user base is also large GNOME user base.

[TheBlackCat]

Nope. KDE is also fugly with default Oxygen theme, legacy themes is just reminder how KDE was fugly in past and it is in the future.
GNOME looks OK even with their legacy theme, such as Clearlooks.
KDE is most powerful desktop environment IMHO in terms of feautures built in, but I can't stand visual appearance of KDE.

Personal opinion. I think the current GNOME appearance is awful, I could never stand it. I think Oxygen looks a lot better, although I need to try Bespin and QtCurve again since they are more flexible.

I don't have source, I made that claim looking by default DE choice of more popular distros. Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora, Debian as one of the most popular distros use GNOME, so their large user base is also large GNOME user base.

Uh, you do realize that default != only choice, right? The only remotely decent numbers I am aware of is the poll I mentioned, which indicates they are fairly evenly matched.

[ciplogic]

I can consider Gnome3 as two parts:
- user interaction: Gnome Shell
Gnome Shell for me was the reason I jumped to Fedora (even the distro instability regarding package management, make it to be not always so much fun). I also installed to untrained computer people and they did master it after fairly short time. If you use one or two applications Gnome Shell makes sense. If you use 10, I think the workflow have to be improved. If you use a combination of a lot of tray icons, Gnome Shell worked fairly nice for beginner and intermediate.
What Gnome Shell does it enough well are: making panels linked to window (like Open/Save File dialogs, preference panels) which in my opinion can be invaluable for a not so good user, managing full screen applications and starting applications. A workflow like: I want to start SuperTux, I exit, I want to start Firefox and LibreOffice, most users will know how to handle it.
- technology wise:
+ It removes deprecated APIs and made using "SEAL", in short to make all APIs accessed through properties, so the code will not be fragile in future. This in my opinion will guarantee that many applications will work after an internal rewrite of Gtk3 logic. This is a big bonus for binary compatibility, which for me is huge
+ GObjectIntropsection is something that puts GNOME as platform on par with Qt/Win32 COM regarding exposing APIs and services. This make a bliss to write python integration modules and made it smooth to migrate many applications to this new API. Again, for me this is huge
+ Theming is made via CSS, it integrates (again via GOI) a JavaScript machine (sadly is interpreted one), but make technology wise to be like Windows 8, so yes, you can write your JavaScript application in Gnome3. Gnome Shell is just one of them
+ Make use of a standard animation API (Clutter). Is not used enough, probably Gnome-Shell is the biggest "demo", but as things will go, it means that people can make things to shine without animating PNGs or other "dirty tricks"

I can say that I started to like Gnome gradually, but certainly the biggest issues I had it so far are theming issues (because is based on Mutter) in LibreOffice or Firefox, I thought for myself it should be a preference to set the title bar height, and too few preferences in some places (is annoying a little to logoff before shutdown, at least for a beginner).

[BlackStar]

After using the betas, I didn't expect to like Gnome Shell - but I do! It has some great stuff going for it:

+ Extremely fast. For the very first time, I can actually autoscroll a browser window as smoothly as on windows on my AMD E-350 with the open-source drivers! Where Compiz and KWin scrolling stutters and jumps, Gnome Shell is smooth as butter. Don't underestimate the importance of a fast compositor.
+ Very simple to learn and use. It offers a specific workflow with a very shallow learning curve: you hit winkey or the top left screen corner and you already know 80% of Gnome Shell! Indeed, much fewer features than KDE and much less attitude than Unity. Less is more.
+ Desktop effects are subdued, smooth and fast, just like they should be.
+ Built-in color management tools, for the very first time!
+ Shell extensions are ridiculously easy to develop.

It's not without its issues, though:

- System settings use fixed-size windows, which are enormously annoying. I've always loved Gnome for its resizable windows and I'm sad to see this advantage starting to erode.
- Default fonts (Cantarell) and font sizes are not very good and you need an external application to change them (gnome-tweak-tool). Even then, Gnome Shell is themed through CSS and doesn't follow my global font settings. You have to edit the CSS manually - sloppy!
- Gnome Shell does have a couple of typical "gnomish" design problems. Dark-gray-on-black text in the calendar? This is unreadable in older monitors with deteriorated gamma curves.
- No way to hide the top panel. I really don't need it visible all the time, I'd very much prefer it to appear only in dash mode.
- Alternatively, show the panel all the time, but implement a global menu system for maximized applications. We already have an application menu with a single "Quit" item, this is the perfect place to add the rest of the menu items and reclaim screen estate.
- Fglrx is horribly broken in Mutter.

All in all, I like it much more than I ever believed I would. I was using KDE 4, but it became to cumbersome for regular use (its taskbar is a Win95 relic; frequent regressions on upgrades; many great features marred by pretty bad all-around performance). Ubuntu Unity is meaning well but leaves a lot to be desired - plus it has lots of annoying attitude that interferes with my workflow (Invisible menus? Invisible window controls? Badly designed launcher? UI that breaks Fitt's law in all possible ways? Terrible inconsistencies? Bad developer/designer attitudes, compared to KDE and Gnome?)

Gnome Shell it is, then! It gets out of my way, is stable, performs well and its downsides are much smaller than the downsides of the alternatives.

System: HP dm1-3100 (E-350 dual-core @1.6GHz, integrated Ati 6320m, 8GB memory, 80GB SSD).

[bwat47]

I can consider Gnome3 as two parts:
- user interaction: Gnome Shell
Gnome Shell for me was the reason I jumped to Fedora (even the distro instability regarding package management, make it to be not always so much fun). I also installed to untrained computer people and they did master it after fairly short time. If you use one or two applications Gnome Shell makes sense. If you use 10, I think the workflow have to be improved. If you use a combination of a lot of tray icons, Gnome Shell worked fairly nice for beginner and intermediate.
What Gnome Shell does it enough well are: making panels linked to window (like Open/Save File dialogs, preference panels) which in my opinion can be invaluable for a not so good user, managing full screen applications and starting applications. A workflow like: I want to start SuperTux, I exit, I want to start Firefox and LibreOffice, most users will know how to handle it.
- technology wise:
+ It removes deprecated APIs and made using "SEAL", in short to make all APIs accessed through properties, so the code will not be fragile in future. This in my opinion will guarantee that many applications will work after an internal rewrite of Gtk3 logic. This is a big bonus for binary compatibility, which for me is huge
+ GObjectIntropsection is something that puts GNOME as platform on par with Qt/Win32 COM regarding exposing APIs and services. This make a bliss to write python integration modules and made it smooth to migrate many applications to this new API. Again, for me this is huge
+ Theming is made via CSS, it integrates (again via GOI) a JavaScript machine (sadly is interpreted one), but make technology wise to be like Windows 8, so yes, you can write your JavaScript application in Gnome3. Gnome Shell is just one of them
+ Make use of a standard animation API (Clutter). Is not used enough, probably Gnome-Shell is the biggest "demo", but as things will go, it means that people can make things to shine without animating PNGs or other "dirty tricks"

I can say that I started to like Gnome gradually, but certainly the biggest issues I had it so far are theming issues (because is based on Mutter) in LibreOffice or Firefox, I thought for myself it should be a preference to set the title bar height, and too few preferences in some places (is annoying a little to logoff before shutdown, at least for a beginner).

I agree with much of this post. I think the gnome-devs were really forward thinking regarding the technology they built gnome 3 and gnome-shell on. Big improvements over gnome 2/gtk2 under the hood. I think the tech gnome-shell is built on puts it in a much more favorable position for the future over unity (unity's foundations just seem poorly thought out to me).

Gnome-shell is great, but it is of course not perfect. Complaints about it not having enough options by default are spot on, font settings are a necessity for example (luckily a lot of these missing options can be found in gnome-tweak-tool).

I can't say I've had much theming issues with gnome 3 though, care to elaborate? There are already some wonderful GTK3 and Shell themes available. The only problems I have are icon themes not designed to work properly with gnome 3's symbolic icons, but luckily the faenza/faeince themes have stepped up to the plate and offer proper gnome-shell compatability.

[ciplogic]

I can't say I've had much theming issues with gnome 3 though, care to elaborate?

Yes, LibreOffice and Firefox initially flickering menus, LO have flickering toolbar. It may be a driver issue or a compositor issue (I did not encounter them when I explicitly disable the compositor) but moving mouse over make things to appear. Is annoying but is not a showstopper as is for me.
Firefox and LibreOffice do not use either Qt or Gtk but their controls for most parts, so this is likely the cause.

[bwat47]

Yes, LibreOffice and Firefox initially flickering menus, LO have flickering toolbar. It may be a driver issue or a compositor issue (I did not encounter them when I explicitly disable the compositor) but moving mouse over make things to appear. Is annoying but is not a showstopper as is for me.
Firefox and LibreOffice do not use either Qt or Gtk but their controls for most parts, so this is likely the cause.

I don't see that on my machine (intel graphics, Well... I actually do see flickering menus on firefox if I force layers to be enabled, but it doesn't just happen under mutter.) I don't see the flickering in LO at all. I can see how it would be annoying lol.

[s91066]

Yes, LibreOffice and Firefox initially flickering menus, LO have flickering toolbar. It may be a driver issue or a compositor issue (I did not encounter them when I explicitly disable the compositor) but moving mouse over make things to appear. Is annoying but is not a showstopper as is for me.
Firefox and LibreOffice do not use either Qt or Gtk but their controls for most parts, so this is likely the cause.

I have the exact same problem with FF 4,5,6,7 in openSUSE 11.1 (yes, .1) and KDE 3.5, so it can't be Gnome. Do you have an ATI VGA?