Will Gnome Win The Linux Desktop?

[Mark76]

Right now of the big four distros (Debian, Open/SUSE, RHEL/Fedora and Ubuntu) only one comes with KDE as the default (yes, I know about Kubuntu :p) and none use xfce as their preferred desktop environment (yes, okay, Xubuntu). KDE and xfce are relegated to either being secondary options or to smaller, less well supported (financially and in user numbers) distros. Of course, KDE has Novell's support; but Novell's market share vis-a-vis Linux is being eroded by the Gnome favouring Red Hat and Canonical. Besides that, Linux is by no means the core of Novell's business (unlike the latter two); so who's to say how long Novell will continue to support and develop its Linux distro? Especially with the crunch ongoing and its market cap falling.

Of course, Canonical has KDE and xfce based distros, but they're not mentioned on the front page of the official site, which leads me to thinking they're not really all that bothered about promoting them to users. Really they seem like an afterthought rather than part of a family (the embarrassing cousins, if you like). Which is a shame.

With lack of vendor support comes lack of funding for development. Now, KDE is okay in this respect as it has Nokia behind it (as well as Novell). But who's behind xfce? As we can see: Practically no one. If a DE isn't being promoted and its use encouraged what's to stop it simply falling off the map? Especially in the face of indifference. Now, I don't have the figures to hand but I'm guessing there are more $/€/£/¥ going into developing Gnome and its associated apps and dependencies (GTK and mono) than is being pumped into KDE, xfce and other lesser known DEs. And where the $/€/£/¥ are the developers usually aren't far behind.

So, in conclusion, can we see any future for non GTK/Gnome based DEs beyond minority distros (a field in which competition for desktop dominance is much higher)?

Sorry for rambling.

[SunnyRabbiera]

Gnome will most likely still be around for a long time, KDE 4 is still very new and despite all its flash it has a long way to go.

[Derspankster]

It's already won it for me. Tried KDE on several occasions - always go back to Gnome.

[cocopuffz]

Same here. I never liked KDE for some reason. I've always found gnome to be easy to use and easy to customize. +1 for gnome.

[GeneralZod]

Perhaps defining what it means for a DE to "win" before discussing this would be a good idea, and especially what the concrete repercussions are for the "winner" and "loser" (the posts so far seem to be along the lines of "I personally prefer $DESKTOPENVIRONMENT!" which I suspect misses the point of this thread somewhat :)).

[hello_kitty]

Gnome will most likely still be around for a long time, KDE 4 is still very new and despite all its flash it has a long way to go.

I agree, Gnome isn't going anywhere. KDE looks amazing, but various performance issues are preventing me from switching over. Hopefully, time will remedy that...

[Tibuda]

wrong thread, sorry.

[sonicb00m]

Same here. Even with KDE 4.2 I still end up going back to Gnome. It's just not there yet for me and I am not sure with its design it ever will be.

When you look at the amount of space wasted on the a lot of the KDE windows I really wonder what the designers had in mind. Things are either crammed in with giant icons or there's tons of empty space with poor layout arrangements.

http://linux.exton.net/EXTON-CR/exton-cr-kde42-skrivbord.jpg

It just doesn't do it for me, really.

The oxygen theme is really quite naff and I also hate the way it still asks you if you want to "save your changes" in the panels because you moved something even though you didn't actually change anything! It feels quite amateurish from the old 3.5 days.

The new interface is quite jazzy and appealing on the surface but as soon I got back to gnome and start using nautilus and load up non KDE centric apps i always think it's far sweeter. There is a lot of cool stuff on the KDE desktop but most of it I don't feel that natural or progressive to use.

[scottuss]

Will Gnome Win The Linux Desktop?

Yes.

[s.fox]

I didn't realise it was a competition

[hello_kitty]

Perhaps defining what it means for a DE to "win" before discussing this would be a good idea, and especially what the concrete repercussions are for the "winner" and "loser" (the posts so far seem to be along the lines of "I personally prefer $DESKTOPENVIRONMENT!" which I suspect misses the point of this thread somewhat :)).

You are absolutely right, this thread has lost its way... ;)

[konqueror7]

+1 on GNOME...KDE will be just be popular to most migrating windows users to linux, this will keep KDE in the race, but eventually, as these users discover GNOME, they will have a second thought on still using KDE...in part of Xfce, i think it will not be around for long, since hardware today gets cheaper and more powerful specification, but i guess Xfce will still have a smal grup of followers and developers...

[elliotn]

Do I even know whats the use of em

[Zero Prime]

I like Gnome personally. I can think of one distro that comes with XFCE as standard, Dreamlinux.

[dspari1]

Right now of the big four distros (Debian, Open/SUSE, RHEL/Fedora and Ubuntu) only one comes with KDE as the default (yes, I know about Kubuntu :p) and none use xfce as their preferred desktop environment (yes, okay, Xubuntu). KDE and xfce are relegated to either being secondary options or to smaller, less well supported (financially and in user numbers) distros. Of course, KDE has Novell's support; but Novell's market share vis-a-vis Linux is being eroded by the Gnome favouring Red Hat and Canonical. Besides that, Linux is by no means the core of Novell's business (unlike the latter two); so who's to say how long Novell will continue to support and develop its Linux distro? Especially with the crunch ongoing and its market cap falling.

Of course, Canonical has KDE and xfce based distros, but they're not mentioned on the front page of the official site, which leads me to thinking they're not really all that bothered about promoting them to users. Really they seem like an afterthought rather than part of a family (the embarrassing cousins, if you like). Which is a shame.

With lack of vendor support comes lack of funding for development. Now, KDE is okay in this respect as it has Nokia behind it (as well as Novell). But who's behind xfce? As we can see: Practically no one. If a DE isn't being promoted and its use encouraged what's to stop it simply falling off the map? Especially in the face of indifference. Now, I don't have the figures to hand but I'm guessing there are more $/€/£/¥ going into developing Gnome and its associated apps and dependencies (GTK and mono) than is being pumped into KDE, xfce and other lesser known DEs. And where the $/€/£/¥ are the developers usually aren't far behind.

So, in conclusion, can we see any future for non GTK/Gnome based DEs beyond minority distros (a field in which competition for desktop dominance is much higher)?

Sorry for rambling.

Well Redhat has a default KDE cd as well. When you go to their download page, you won't miss it. Also, even if Linux as a whole shuns KDE, all BSD desktop destro(PC-BSD and Desktop BSD) still has KDE as their default.

[etnlIcarus]

I don't really see it as a case of one DE winning and 2-3 others losing.


I think from recent trends we can make two predictions:

- The visions of the major DEs drifting further apart will help to provide meaningful diversity and spur more creative innovations within the *nix DE landscape, once and for all ending the perception of *nix playing catch-up in trying to reach feature parity with Windows and, to a lesser degree, OSX.

- It's becoming less important what DE you use: shared technologies and a conscious effort to improve interoperability are making it less awkward and painful to mix-and-match your favourite applications - though many apps still have way too many DE-specific dependencies.

Frankly, I look forward to the Gnome vs. KDE rivalry (which mostly only exists between users, rather than contributors) broadly dying in the coming years.

[Skripka]

It's already won it for me. Tried KDE on several occasions - always go back to Gnome.

Try KDE on something other than Ubuntu.


As to the OP-it is a silly question So I'll give a silly answer. Gnome will Win The Linux Desktop when it has a default theme that is NOT poo colored.

[Simian Man]

Right now of the big four distros (Debian, Open/SUSE, RHEL/Fedora and Ubuntu) only one comes with KDE as the default.

I think more people use Mandriva/PCLinuxOS for desktop systems than Debian, and those are both KDE-centric distros.

However I think that KDE needs a unifying design to remain useful. Right now KDE 4 looks like they crammed every interface idea from Gnome, Windows and Mac into one package. The result, to me, is a complete disaster.

[Simian Man]

As to the OP-it is a silly question So I'll give a silly answer. Gnome will Win The Linux Desktop when it has a default theme that is NOT poo colored.

That's Ubuntu's ugly *** Gnome theme. Gnome's own default theme (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/02/Gnome-2.24.png) is quite lovely.

[Skripka]

That's Ubuntu's ugly *** Gnome theme. Gnome's own default theme (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/02/Gnome-2.24.png) is quite lovely.

Didn't I warn you I was being silly?

[dspari1]

http://img527.imageshack.us/img527/9785/desktopwzx.jpg

I know that KDE 4 has been pretty bad, but KDE 4.2 is just plain awesome. People should really give it another shot. It's clean, stable, and professional looking.

To me KDE 4.2 is Linux's answer to Mac OS X and Windows 7.


Gnome is a good DE, but even with Compiz, it still looks a bit dated.

[Orlsend]

I Like Gnome better than anything else out there, but prov XFCE its my second, BTW Vector Linux uses XFCE as default. but I think they offer KDE too.

[Stan_1936]

To me, KDS looks too gaudy and customizing it, to change that, is harder than in Gnome.

I didn't realise it was a competition

It is.........and Gnome will win.:D

[Skripka]

To me, KDS looks too gaudy and customizing it, to change that, is harder than in Gnome.



It is.........and Gnome will win.:D

If by "win" and "hard" you mean some existential sense of both words-sure.

[directhex]

I didn't realise it was a competition

Exactly

Choice is imperative, and people should feel free to use 9and contribute towards) whatever DE they like.

[ArtF10]

...Gnome .... looks a bit dated.

The default font looks as disgustingly old as it possible could. That ruins a major part of the Gnome experience. It's too thin and too small. I feel like I'm using a 20 year old system. A larger font would be easier to read and liven up the entire desktop.

[maximegb]

The Acer Aspire One netbook comes with XFCE.

[Mark76]

To be fair neither PCLinuxOS nor Vector-Linux have anything like the corporate clout behind them that Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, Fedora and Mandriva enjoy. If we ever see a day when you can go into PCWorld and pick out a machine running GNUnux I suspect they're more likely to have one of those four than any of the more community based distros.

[HavocXphere]

During the last few month KDE has completely written a huge part of its interface & its improving at a break-neck pace. I can't really judge innovation on the gnome side...but the look of the notification window seems to feature prominently in discussions.:twisted:

KDE ftw....but I think it would be bad if one DE "wins". Choice is good, especially when it comes to looks & bling.

@sonicb00m: At least be fair and post a non-broken screenshot of KDE...:rolleyes:

I'm sure I can find a broken gnome screenshot somewhere too to criticise.

[Simian Man]

During the last few month KDE has completely written a huge part of its interface & its improving at a break-neck pace. I can't really judge innovation on the gnome side...but the look of the notification window seems to feature prominently in discussions.:twisted:


The current KDE 4.2 was released in January of this year and doesn't have as many features as KDE 3.5 which was released in November 2005. That is no progress in terms of functionality in over three years. They rewrote the infrastructure in that time, so the benefit may pay off eventually, but it's still not what I would call a "break-neck pace". I'm not sure what Gnome 3.0 will look like, but I guarantee it won't be a failure like KDE 4.

[Skripka]

The current KDE 4.2 was released in January of this year and doesn't have as many features as KDE 3.5 which was released in November 2005. That is no progress in terms of functionality in over three years. They rewrote the infrastructure in that time, so the benefit may pay off eventually, but it's still not what I would call a "break-neck pace". I'm not sure what Gnome 3.0 will look like, but I guarantee it won't be a failure like KDE 4.


Gnome 3.0 is actually not going to be any different than Gnome 2.30. I mean it. The Gnome devs have chose to move up version numbers in the name of an illusion of radical and or massive development.

You don't need to worry about Gnome b0rking things by trying to move forward quickly...because they aren't going to.

http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2008/07/gnome-3-0-officially-announced-and-explained.ars

http://origin.arstechnica.com/news.media/gnome3.jpg

[Vince4Amy]

Depends on peoples preferences. I don't mind any of the following DEs:

KDE
Gnome
XFCE

I have used KDE the most over the years but when I'm using the others I get on fine with them, doesn't bother me as long as it works. KDE 4 is by no means a failure, the distros implemented it too early when it was clearly not ready. Look at OpenSuSE 11.1 it's probably the most solid KDE implementation I've ever used. Fedora 10 upgrades to a more Vanilla KDE 4.2 which is also good.

[swoll1980]

Same here. Even with KDE 4.2 I still end up going back to Gnome. It's just not there yet for me and I am not sure with its design it ever will be.

When you look at the amount of space wasted on the a lot of the KDE windows I really wonder what the designers had in mind. Things are either crammed in with giant icons or there's tons of empty space with poor layout arrangements.

http://linux.exton.net/EXTON-CR/exton-cr-kde42-skrivbord.jpg

It just doesn't do it for me, really.

The oxygen theme is really quite naff and I also hate the way it still asks you if you want to "save your changes" in the panels because you moved something even though you didn't actually change anything! It feels quite amateurish from the old 3.5 days.

The new interface is quite jazzy and appealing on the surface but as soon I got back to gnome and start using nautilus and load up non KDE centric apps i always think it's far sweeter. There is a lot of cool stuff on the KDE desktop but most of it I don't feel that natural or progressive to use.

I like how in your pic the file manager takes up half the screen, but only the smallest slither is dedicated to the files themselves, it also seems to be bugging out. I think that sums up kde pretty well.

[dragos240]

Well, i really like gnome, it simply works. The only problem is nautilus, that thing annoys me, too slow. But everything else is very nicely done.

[Skripka]

I like how in your pic the file manager takes up half the screen, but only the smallest slither is dedicated to the files themselves, it also seems to be bugging out. I think that sums up kde pretty well.

PS-that pic is not of KDE4.2.

[dspari1]

I like how in your pic the file manager takes up half the screen, but only the smallest slither is dedicated to the files themselves, it also seems to be bugging out. I think that sums up kde pretty well.

His picture is an old version of KDE and was meant to be used as propaganda.


Here's a picture that's current and fair:

http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/4420/desktopzdo.jpg

[jomiolto]

Thanks for reminding me that I've yet to try KDE 4.2 -- downloading it at the moment. The betas worked quite well for me and if there are no bad bugs left, it will most likely win over my desktop for some time... ;)

... at least until I get bored with my setup and start using TinyWM :p

[Name change]

KDE will "win" if that even "possible".
Gnome is not only ugly but also old and outdated.
If you want to make it look half decent you need 1000 other apps (Compiz, Beryl, Gnome-Do,..)
Anyway for me Gnome is an obvious looser, there are other DEs that are as powerful as Gnome, but much more lightweight. Like XFCE or even more LXDE.
I really don't understand "Gnomeies" do they really enjoy the look of Gnome.
Anyway I'll stop "trolling" and "flaming" now.
I like to see changes in my DE look. Not that it looks exactly the same for 10 years.
I mean I tried RH9.0 from 2001 and it looked exactly the same as Ubuntu7.10 (Last Gnome distro I tried).
I guess Gnome is only popular because Ubuntu use it as default. Don't know why.
KDE looked always better at least for me.
But in open source there is no winner nor looser.
Even if Gnome would be used only by Gnome-devs it would still be developed.
Same for any other DE.
But come on even the biggest gnome users can't deny that KDE is at least (de)evolving (or should I say moving) while Gnome just sits there looking and feeling exactly the same as it did in 90' and that's not a good thing (for me).

And last and not least (not really important, but I'm on a roll) if KDE wouldn't exist Gnome probably wouldn't exist either. Or it would take even more time to get it done...
Never mind...

And to balance this post:
I'm using KDE4.2.1 (on Arch KDEmod) and it feels not as stable as KDE4.2 was.
Why are you doing this to me KDE, WHY!!!! :D

[LegendofTom]

Hey if Linus says he likes Gnome, that's what I like.

[cardinals_fan]

KDE will "win" if that even "possible".
Gnome is not only ugly but also old and outdated.
If you want to make it look half decent you need 1000 other apps (Compiz, Beryl, Gnome-Do,..)

/unbased opinions on appearance which will vary for every individual

Anyway, Xfce has been developed by a small group of developers for years. I see no reason why it cannot continue. How can there be a "winner" when there is no game?

[wsonar]

Obviously an opinion I've used KDE,

I prefer gnome easier for me to customize

[etnlIcarus]

I look forward to the Gnome vs. KDE rivalry (which mostly only exists between users, rather than contributors) broadly dying in the coming years.

Apparently it's not dead yet. Suggest move to recurring.

[Starlight]

Both Gnome and KDE are good, and I use them both...I just switch randomly when I get bored with one of them. But I think it would be a good idea if one of them "won". That way, all the apps for Linux would be made to integrate well with the desktop environment. :) And if one of them eventually wins, I think I'd prefer Gnome to win. It's based on GTK+ which is much more themeable then Qt, and when they eventually add animation support to GTK+, it will have a lot of cool effects. :)

[HavocXphere]

The current KDE 4.2 was released in January of this year and doesn't have as many features as KDE 3.5 which was released in November 2005.
:confused: Of course not. KDE 3.x has been in development since 2002. The KDE4 developers are good, but they can't rewrite 6 years worth of features overnight. And its not a case of copy & paste...much of it has to be rewritten from the ground up due to plasma.

Same with stability. A DE that has been debugged for 6 years is likely to be more stable than a DE with 1 year of debugging.

If you want to compare features then use KDE 3.1.1 vs KDE 4. They've both got ~ 1 year of development behind them. And even that wouldn't be fair since KDE2->KDE3 wasn't nearly as big of a rewrite as KDE3->KDE4.

[pol666]

no, KDE4 is the future, of course. (h)