Irfan’s Corner on the Web On Mac, Linux, Grid, Virtualization and Software Technology

Hi, nice post. I also use kde + slackware, but I acctualy started with gnome on slackware, what finaly got me over was Krusader file maneger(www.krusader.org).

Also as a developer myself, I still havent found better distro than slackware. Most packages just compile out of the box, and there is no need for sepaerate devel and documentation packages (I realy hate those)

Anyway, what do you think about Slackware 11 ?

I’m not upgrading to Slackware 11 just yet, I have far too much configured in my current installation, php, apache, mysql, ruby etc.

Besides I already have major Slackware 11 packages installed, latest KDE, latest 2.6 kernel (as opposed to 2.4.33) etc.

I was hoping to see some cool reasons to adopt KDE over Gnome but these are very programer-centric. I find it intresting that my coding buddies all prefer KDE while I prefere Gnome. While I use a ton of KDE applications on my Gnome because they just work better { amaroK — which is a very inovative mp3 player & organizer, K3B — the best CD/DVD burner that i’ve see, Kaffeine — a good media player simmilar to windows media player, among others } I find the Gnome desktop just easier to navigate. I run Suse 10.1 and mine has an “open terminal” option on the right-click menus.
I think KDE has better program integration and great programs but I guess it boils down to what you find easier to navigate in.

[...] KDE, one of the leading desktop environment for linux, just turned 10 years old, the author highlighs top 3 reasons why anyone should be using KDE!read more | digg story [...]

I’d just like to mention that I started out using KDE on Linux, but about 4 months ago I ended up switching to Gnome. Why?

I could never get the font sizes in KDE, or the general graphics sizes, right. It defaults to 100dpi on fonts, but shrinking them down to 75dpi didn’t really help. Everything was really, really big on my LCD (1280×800). I’m coming from the Windows world and like having many many different apps open at the same time, taking up as little space as possible. Gnome had things “right” out of the box, where even with tweaking, I could never get KDE to feel “right.” This is my #1 complaint about KDE.

Related to the first point, but many of the built-in apps (like Konqueror) just have too much stuff on their toolbars. It feels like I’m sitting down in front of a Windows PC, using IE, that has three toolbars installed, and tons of other buttons littered all over the place. Gnome just feels cleaner.

I never liked the fact that KDE heavily intergrated its web-browser and file-browser into one (Konqueror) like Windows (IE/Windows Explorer). I prefer keeping things seperate. Specialize in what you’re good at and don’t try and do everything at once.

The password manager in KDE is a nice addition, but it’s a tad too annoying. Whenever I use KDE, I get prompted for my master password constantly, especially if I’m using an auto-start IM client. If I could set some passwords to “prompt me for my master” and others for “don’t prompt me for one ever – just use the one stored in the database if I’m logged in.”

I’m not a fan of Kopete. It’s OK, but Gaim seems to work better for me. IMHO of course.

Novell’s Evolution on Gnome allows you to connect to an Exchange server with some add-ons. KDE doesn’t offer this. It should be pointed out that my experience with Evolution and Exchange Server 5.5 was VERY buggy, so this isn’t a huge concern unless Evolution matures quite a bit.

This isn’t a “bash KDE because I’m a Gnome fanboy” post, however. I think KDE does some things nicer. While the proportions of themed graphics are far too large, it does have a better overall theme than Gnome does. Gnome feels like a hybrid of Windows 95 and Windows XP (leaning towards simplicity), where KDE feels more like Windows XP.

It’s nice having different backgrounds on each desktop. You don’t get that with Gnome.

Neither KDE nor Gnome are simple enough for a non-Linux user to sit in front of and pick up off the bat. KDE feels very Windows-ish, where it’s quirky in a Windows-like way. Gnome doesn’t suffer from this as much (I see it as a hybrid between Windows and MacOS, leaning more towards Windows), but it’s still problematic.

I won’t consider switching back to KDE until at least the default theme is fixed. Fonts, buttons, and window boarders shouldn’t take up more of my screen than they do in Windows XP.

I’d love to hear responses from KDE users who switched from Gnome, and why they did it. And if anyone knows fixes to anything I mentioned above, I’m all ears.

I use Ubuntu 6.06 + KDE (KDE just installed yesterday).

At first impression though I’d say KDE is very impressive, more than GNOME. I’m switching to KDE ETA=0h0m0s.

Most of KDE’s “alternatives” like Konqueror and Kate and Konsole are “better” than GNOME’s IMHO. But there are other things, like the package manager which is not, I way prefer Synaptic.

Next time when KDE 4 is out I’ll install Kubuntu. No gnome.

But the #1 reason why I tried KDE is because of Nautilus’ severe bug that caused me to lose my data:
http://ubuntu.gauldong.net/2006/10/11/warning-cutcopypaste-in-nautilus-may-lose-your-data/

> I’ve used GNOME’s nautilus, and I cant figure out, why they have not included a “open terminal here” options
It can be done – but you have to use a Nautilus script to do it. Get it from my site…
http://binnyva.blogspot.com/2006/02/kde-gnome-and-nautilus.html

By the way – I prefer Konquror too.

Top 3 reasons you shouldn’t use KDE:

1. Now that Suse, Red Hat, Ubuntu, etc. all focus on Gnome, no major Linux distribution encourages KDE anymore (except Freespire which heavily modifies it). As SUSE and Ubuntu gain share, KDE is losing market share all the time, which means less testing and less reliability.

2. If you program anything to work with KDE, you are forced to either not sell it or get a QT license which costs more than development tools even to make Windows progams.

3. KDE encourages and promotes forked utilities which are usually unstable and inferior to their mainstream equivalents. Kmail, Kopete and Konqueror are trash compared to Evolution, Gaim and Firefox. And they are wasting effort on Koffice and Krita which will never catch up to Openoffice and Gimp.

[...] This book was suggested by this post(about KDE)… http://irfanhabib.wordpress.com/2006/10/15/23/ [...]

IDK, i prefer gnome but to be fair my only experience with KDE was with Knoppix + Auditor

Hey, thanks for recommending the C++QT3 book. I’ve looked at QT a few times before and knew that book existed (for free!). So it’s cool to see a good rec for it.

Eric

Pssst…. BakerN? SUSE’s primary desktop is KDE.

[...] read more | digg story [...]

On the whole, I like Kde. The one thing that keeps bugging me is the way it’s set up to launch Konqueror at the most inopportune times.

I had to mess around with the Firefox menu shortcuts to stop Konqeror being launched and caching a copy of web pages for Firefox to open instead of the web pages themselves. Now, I can’t get a .wav file to play from a link – Konqueror opens for some peculiar reason and then crashes.

I was a KDE-user until i tested Gnome a year ago. I was scared i couldnt configure it to my likening as KDE offer alot in that case. I was quite suprised how fast i got Gnome to my spec and not to much lulul.. I will problably not change back to KDE… to much lulul..

Personally, while I prefer GNOME at the moment, KDE 4 is looking really cool. All the new graphics (like the oxygen icons and plasma desktop) should create a user experience that isn’t just simple, but awe-inspriring. I think if windows users are ever going to change over to linux, they need a great reason to do it – either for productivity enhancement or fantastic graphics.

XGL and compiz are now starting to deliver on the graphics front, but I think without radical changes to the Gnome and KDE Desktops this wont happen. KDE is making the right changes with KDE 4, and Gnome really does deliver on what it strives to deliver – KISS (keeping it simple stupid).

I love Gnome, and I’m looking forward to KDE 4. I did start as a KDE user, but I’m now sick of the complicated toolbars, endless tweaking to make the desktop look good, and general look and feel. Gnome, with a good theme, is just more productive, but I still can’t wait for KDE 4 to come out, so that I can try something new!! Man I love linux and choice!

1. I really don’t like kde themes, especially the fonts look horrible. The one from gnome looks much better. Especially the tango icons.

2. I don’t have qt installed, yet my system is very functional. I prefer epiphany over firefox, and nearly every website that works in firefox works in epiphany. I prefer abiword and gnumeric over openoffice.org writer and calc too. For graphics, of course gimp and inkscape.

3. I would rather develop programs which works with both gtk and qt, rather than just with one.

Should I say I have 3 reasons EVERYONE should use gnome as their desktop? It is a matter of preference whenever it comes to choice. Your choice is right and so is mine. There just isn’t one that suits everyone.

Paul – From what I’ve seen, SuSe has moved towards a more GNOME centric distro but it offers the choice during install for GNOME (default) and KDE as well.

I don’t care what you use Gnome or KDE, or something else, just standardise on ONE of them. Then O/S projects with benefit from not duplicating work. Porting apps from Gnome to KDE, or vice-versa, is a waste of time and is holding back development. That porting time could be use to make the original better. Duplicating features between Gnome and Kde, playing catch up, is playing into Micorsofts hands.
I prefer KDE, but I’m sure I’d get used to Gnome if need be. Just standardise on ONE of them, for the love of God!

hey, i cant like, it wont start up….. :”(

It makes me sad to see people migrating from KDE.
I tried GNOME for some time, but I just can’t live with the lack ability of configuration.

Well, Novell Enterprise Desktop, and Fedora’s version of GNOME looks quite good, but the standard GNOME really do sucks!

BTW. Linux that’s using KDE as main DE:

Underground Desktop
Knoppix
SuSE
Kubuntu
Mepis
PCLinuxOS
Sabayon
Mandriva (I think they still use KDE as main desktop?)
Slackware
PC-BSD
SLAX
Linspire
Freespire
aLinux
DARKSTAR
FoX Desktop
Berry Linux
Kurumin
BIG LINUX

+ lots of more distros.

KDE is still the biggest and the BEST DE.
And I prefer programming in QT, not GTK.

[...] read more | digg story [...]

MATT DAMON

> I don’t care what you use Gnome or KDE, or something else, just standardise on ONE of them.

But istn’t that defeating one of the main points of Linux-based OSes…choice? Obviously, people on both sides of the argument have valid points. So standardizing on ONE means alienating all the others. And that doesn’t even bring into to the argument all the other desktops out there. XFCE is pretty impressive. If you are a touch typist (and probably use VIM), you should give WMII a try. It COMPLETELY changes what a desktop is. And, IMHO, these are facets that I would hate to see go away.

And anyway, the real solution to the problem is Portland.

After six months of dual-booting, I finally threw out my WinXP partition and let my PCLinuxOS distro occupy the primary hard drive. It uses KDE by default, and though I’ve experimented with fluxbox and GNOME, I keep coming back to KDE. I find it easy to use and configure (especially using the MiniME distro, but that’s beside the point), and everything just works!

Oh, and let it be said, I’m not heavy into the programming side of things – I need to pull up HOWTO pages every time I install a new package! Just a plain and simple user who enjoys the interface she’s got.

Am looking forward to whatever improvements are in store for KDE.

^__^

Novell has already explained that both GNOME and KDE are well supported. From the beginning Suse is KDE centric distribution, major reason people choose Suse is Suse’s superior KDE support. Now Novell already bought Suse and Ximian, and you know Ximian is GNOME-centric. So if as you said Suse focuses on GNOME, then it’s really fool of Novell as why people choose Suse is Suse’s great KDE (I mean loyal Suse user before it bought by Novell), fortunately, this is not true.

Also, it is really stupid if people say that the developers are wasting effort on KOffice and Krita. WHY? First its their dream to build the applications, and its free world, everybody can do what their want. Second, have you ever looked at OpenOffice.org source code and KOffice source code? OpenOffice.org source base is already very huge and complicated, very hard for a new developer to learn and start hacking. Third. OpenOffice.org has been developed since early 90’s (frm the StarOffice before bought by Sun) and KOffice started at 98, so can you conclude from this? Fourth. KOffice embedded in Konqueror is really nice, have you ever imagined to embed openoffice in firefox (double memory hog??). Don’t ge me wrong, I also use OpenOffice.org and Firefox regularly and those are really great. (despite the issues between Firefox and Debian recently). KOffice is also receiving better and better attention from people, esp since KOffice 1.4.x release.

Also, Konqueror has a good future. Why do you think Apple and Nokia use KHTML for their browser? Are Apple and Nokia dumb enough to develop a browser based on a crap browser?

So for those trolls, please stop trolling because the open source world doesn’t need trolls, we need to work together not bashing each other! Even those KDE and GNOME developers never attack each others (if critics yes, of course)

And IMHO the article only says why KDE is a good desktop environment and good development environment, not bashing GNOME at all.

Every week I read holy war between GNOME and KDE … errr ….

[...] read more | digg story [...]

I use both Gnome and KDE. I like KDE for a few reasons.

1. I use a dual-monitor setup and KDE worked fantastic with setting up the dual monitors. I still can’t get it right in Gnome.

2. Disk mounting is so easy with Kwikdisk(hope i got that name right!) in KDE. It’s such a pain in Gnome.

3. Stupid reason: I can get the taskbar clock to display as analog in KDE. Not so in Gnome. I prefer analog clocks as my brain recognizes the time really fast.

I also like Gnome. I think it is less cluttered and more organized.

[quote]KDE’s own webbrowser, although for a very long time couldn’t even open Gmail, has come a long way, and often I prefer Konqueror over Firefox, because it is lightweight.[/quote]

Well – Konqueror _can_ open the full-featured GMail, just the chat features won’t work. You just have to fake the UA as Firefox (which is easy, just pick it from the menus). At least this works for me. Sometimes it hangs at the red “Loading” icon after login and you have to close and reopen the browser. But then it works.

[...] http://irfanhabib.wordpress.com/2006/10/15/23/ [...]

Thanks for all the comments!

I’ve used SUSE and I really think that its one of the best distributions around, however Suse is clearly a KDE-oriented distribution. YaST is what really makes SUSE, not the window manager in my opinion, with YaST its just so simple to configure your installation and add new software.

fred said:
“And IMHO the article only says why KDE is a good desktop environment and good development environment, not bashing GNOME at all.”

Thats true, I dont know this article laumched a sort of flame war both here and in Digg, I tried my best to prevent one with the comments: “The K Desktop Environment, is “one of” the best (the “one of” was put in order to stop a flame war in my blog) desktop environments”

Personally, I find both KDE and Gnome way too bloated and confusing for me. I love the KDE app suite, but the desktop enviroment is to busy. Ditto for GNOME. I run Kubuntu Edgy but my main WM is ratpoison with a side of FluxBox when I need really complex window layouts. I do sometimes start Kicker within FluxBox or ratpoison for access to the Kmenu and menu editor. I encourage those who can’t touch-type to use FluxBox and those who can too use ratpoison.

As to browsers and file managers, I use Konqueror when I can and Iceweasel when Gecko is absolutely necessary.

[...] Happy birthday KDE! « Irfan’s /root on the Web (tags: kde Linux) [...]

[...] Top 3 reasons to use KDE 因为是在wordpress.com，俺没有看到具体内容，不过看了很多评 论 ，喜欢啥就用啥乐 [...]

Sorry, although I use Konqueror myself from time to time it’s just not lightweight. If you take it outside of KDE, which uses it magnificently, it takes up just as many resources as the major competition. Also, as a file browser it’s severely overweight (but has really nice features).

This all gets complicated by the fact that it isn’t nearly as usable as the competition is; Opera and Firefox are much easier to use in most use-cases I have ever played with. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still fantastic compared to *most* browsers, but it’s definitely not the best at most browsing tasks.

Then again I hesitate to say any particular browser is the best, because they all have particular uses that they excel in.

[...] KDE, one of the leading desktop environment for linux, just turned 10 years old, the author highlighs top 3 reasons why anyone should be using KDE!read more | digg story [...]

[...] This month, I came across some interesting posts: Sal Cangeloso’s Three Reasons to Use GNOME, Hans Bezemer’s Three reasons NOT to use GNOME, Irfan Habib’s Happy birthday KDE! (he gives three nice reasons for using KDE), RuddO’s Three reasons to use KDE and Three reasons not to use KDE. [...]

ne desemki

[...] Within a month of the launch of this blog, I got my first digging, for the “Happy Birthday KDE” post, which resulted in 10,000+ views and 600+ new feed subscribers! [...]

Hy
At first, I didn’t enjoy linux, and I realy hesitated to erase my windows partition. The week after I discovered KDE instead of gnome, I had changed my mind, and bye bye XP ! I loved KDE, because it was faster, more integrated, and I managed to have it do what I wanted to.
Then I switched from mandriva to kubuntu, and there was no GTK at all…
I decided to try that whithout adding other software for the first days, including firefox and thunderbird.

So I discovered Kontact, and I was realy impressed, that was such a good suit !

The hard thing was to do whithout firefox… but after a week or so, I was uterly in love whith konqueror as a file browser, and I am today sad to be forced to use firefox for a few web sites not displying correctly in konqueror.
I recently tryed firefox 2, and it was pleasant to see that this app finaly implemented so much new things that was in konqueror from the begining ( last year I mean ) but still miss SPEED ( remember I use KDE as desktop ). So even firefox 2 was not able to change my feeling back to theyr first love.

Finaly, I had tryed Koffice 1.4 whith mandriva 2006, and I thought it was nice but realy too unstable.
Whith the 1.6 version, it’s just perfect for me: clean, fast, easy to use. Krita has replaced the gimp for my imaging things, and the only need of OOo is for loading microsoft office closed formats.

At first under linux, I was used to many apps from the windows open sourced world (firefox … ), but nearly any time I discovered a competing KDE app, it was realy good and replaced it.

I’m now looking forward KDE 4, and whish any DE environment the best luck for the future: One day, I will be able to read in Koffice the file you write in Abiword whithout needing to convert ti whith OOo -> 200 Mo gaigned on my hard disk

[...] During the first 100 days, the blog amassed 30,000+ page views. Recieved 169 genuine comments and 141 Spam comments. There have been 38 posts. The largest number of views in a single day was for the “Happy birthday KDE!” post, which got close to 10,000 views, because it was digged! [...]

ITA!

i love those windows!