KDE4 vs Gnome

[idrailgag]

Such a comparison does not seem to exist yet on the web. Anyone want to give their opinions?

[dvd32sorin]

I don't think you can compare them yet. Gnome is more stable and mature then KDE4, but it doesn't look so good. On the other side, KDE4 is still a platform that promises a lot, but is far from being usable.

[balaknair]

I'll second that
I've been trying out KDE4 over the past couple of days and it's been a bit of a struggle. It looks good, and it looks like it has a lot promise, putting forward a whole new way of doing things(and hopefully reducing system resource usage). On the other hand it is far from finished, and now I understand why Kubuntu 8.04 won't be an LTS version if they plan to introduce KDE4 with it.
Anyway, given the rapid pace at which OSS projects move, I'm sure that by the time Hardy Heron final is released most of the issues will have been ironed out. For now, I'll stick with KDE3 and Gnome

[p_quarles]

Moved to Recurring Discussions. Despite the OP's assertion that such a thread does not exist, virtually every thread on KDE4 has, at some point, compared it with GNOME.

[SunnyRabbiera]

Right now i would take Gnome anyday over kde4, as kde4 lacks a lot at this point and time.
Sure yes KDE4 might be promising in the future but right now its nothing special, I am going to wait a while on it and use kde3 on the side.

[billgoldberg]

I don't like kde (3 and 4).

Gnome is just a lot easier to use and makes more sense.

Last weekend I used a friends computer (running pclos2007) and it (kde) was a horror to use. I don't get why people would use that.

I don't like the control centers and that other center.

Installing new themes in kde is a hell.

And don't get me started on kde 4 menu.

[jrusso2]

I am still using KDE 3.5, I can wait until KDE 4.1 is out and ready for use. Right now its not complete so comparisons are not fair.

I much prefer KDE to Gnome however

[nfm]

I use GNOME with xfwm4 window manager. I never liked KDE because of few personal reasons:
- Qt, not open source friendly
- C++, I like C
- Noob 'K' names
- Gigantic taskbar, why not make it 50% of your screen instead.

With GNOME you get 2 nice taskbars by default and more normal names. But to me GNOME has a weakness, and it's bloated GNOME apps and few parts of its own, making it slow. Ubuntu is very bad with the integration of the GNOME, with processes such as gnome-panel needing 30MB to run is just ridiculous. This is why I run Arch Linux with bare GNOME :popcorn:

[Erunno]

- Qt, not open source friendly

Qt is released under the GPL. You can't get more open source friendly than that unless you have some fundamental problems with the FSF and their philosophy.

- C++, I like C

Fair enough, although an object oriented language makes more sense for me for a desktop environment.

- Noob 'K' names

I'm always amazed that people are not embarassed to bring up such arguments. Anyway, many KDE 4 applications broke away from this naming scheme.

- Gigantic taskbar, why not make it 50% of your screen instead.

Because this is like so not configurable with 5 mouse-clicks. Again, amazement sets in.

[SunnyRabbiera]

I don't like kde (3 and 4).

Gnome is just a lot easier to use and makes more sense.

Last weekend I used a friends computer (running pclos2007) and it (kde) was a horror to use. I don't get why people would use that.

I don't like the control centers and that other center.

Installing new themes in kde is a hell.

And don't get me started on kde 4 menu.

Actually KDE on Pclinux is pretty decent, too bad its community is full of smegheads.
Mepis is my KDE distro now :D

[g2g591]

i gotta say the current trunk ( what will be 4.1) is pretty nice right now. I've heard 4.0.2 isn't half bad either. Both are better than gnome for the following reasons:
widget support builtin (Plasma)
multiple styles of menu (traditional and kickoff)
Oxygen Icons
Better looking scrollbar/button styles (this is a QT vs GTK+ thing, by the way, how do support libraries for a drawing application evolve into a full desktop?????)

[gashcr]

I have the feeling that KDE in general is way more polished than Gnome, although I like the easy of use in gnome. I wish it was as customizable as KDE is... Or KDE was as easy to use as Gnome...

Perhaps something like... KDome... :)

[SunnyRabbiera]

i gotta say the current trunk ( what will be 4.1) is pretty nice right now. I've heard 4.0.2 isn't half bad either. Both are better than gnome for the following reasons:
widget support builtin (Plasma)
multiple styles of menu (traditional and kickoff)
Oxygen Icons
Better looking scrollbar/button styles (this is a QT vs GTK+ thing, by the way, how do support libraries for a drawing application evolve into a full desktop?????)

yeh but has anything been done to the panel though, I am hoping the option to resize the panel is included soon as the current plasma bar sucks right now

[AlanR8]

I'm a Kubuntu user and Love It!

Installed KDE4 the other day and am not happy with it. At the moment it's not a configurable as KDE 3.*** but I can see it will be good. Personally I HATE big clunky desktop icons and I can't seem to adjust the icon size in 4. I don't mind the new menu structure, after a few hours playing I can see how it works.

It's the usual story, the RC factor (Resistance to Change).

I used Gnome for about an hour before I changed to the dark side so can't speak for all you Gnome users!!!! :)

[mips]

yeh but has anything been done to the panel though, I am hoping the option to resize the panel is included soon as the current plasma bar sucks right now

I 'think' that has been sorted in 4.0.2 but I could be wrong. Someone please correct me if I am wrong.

[AlanR8]

By KDE4 install is 4.0.2 and I can resize the panel. Still don't like the clunky desktop icons though

[mips]

By KDE4 install is 4.0.2 and I can resize the panel. Still don't like the clunky desktop icons though

What do you mean by 'clunky'?

[samwyse]

My biggest problems with it are the random and slow thumbnail generating in Dolphin and that it doesn't follow the icon and preview settings properly. Also you can't move anything on the panel and the clock doesn't scale according to panel size.

[SunnyRabbiera]

I 'think' that has been sorted in 4.0.2 but I could be wrong. Someone please correct me if I am wrong.

yeh its there, I just installed KDE4 to see.
But its still rough around the edges for sure, like the clock, the desktop icons and such.
I dont like the dark border around the desktop icons and i hope this will change, I also hope there will be a way to configure the color of the panel as right now its lame

[samwyse]

Most of the graphics are/seem temporary. They will be changeable. The Oxygen icons seem finished.

[AlanR8]

What do you mean by 'clunky'?

I hate BIG icons on my desktop.

The new KDE 4 desktop icons are even worse than too big IMHO, as when you float the cursor over them they get even BIGGER with the new adjustments you can make.

Ideally, I'd use a Dock type program and get rid of all desktop acne but I've just not bothered. My desktop is sufficiently similar to a Doze desktop, but in Kubuntu I put the icons horizontally, JUST BECAUSE I CAN!!!!! :) :) :)

[SomeGuyDude]

Moved to Recurring Discussions. Despite the OP's assertion that such a thread does not exist, virtually every thread on KDE4 has, at some point, compared it with GNOME.

$20 says OP was being facetious.

For the record, GNOME all the way. I've yet to use any manager/environment that beats it. KDE3.5 was close, and I really like XCFE generally, but GNOME combines most everything I like about each.

The only KDE advantage is like the "Windows advantage": software. KDE has EXCELLENT applications, GNOME's are more what I'd call "adequate" with a few exceptions. I can get everything done, but there's no software that's bang-pow amazing.

[glombo]

Personally, I love both Gnome and KDE4, can't stand KDE3 though!

I have been a strictly Gnome user for years but a few weeks ago I installed KDE4 on my Ubuntu system and love it.

I now have Gnome (with Netbook Remix's Window Picker Applet) on my laptop and KDE (looking quite like the default Gnome setup to be honest) on my desktop.

It is really a personal choice though. Your best bet is to try both. Install 'kubuntu-desktop' from Synaptic on an Ubuntu install or 'ubuntu-desktop' from a Kubuntu install. You can then boot into either from the 'Sessions' menu on the login screen.

[Starlight]

I like both KDE4 and Gnome. Both are really good, and I can't decide which one I like more, so I just randomly switch between them... when I get bored with one, I switch to the other one. There are good and bad things about both of them, and I think it would be nice if someone made The Ultimate Desktop Environment that puts together all the good things about KDE and all the good things about Gnome :D

I'm curious about one thing, though... one very common argument I've seen in people comparing KDE with Gnome is that KDE looks much better. It's weird, because that's very far from my personal experience... There are so many totally amazing and creative GTK and Metacity themes that make Gnome apps really beautiful. When it comes to Qt themes and window decorations for KDE, they are nice and usable, but it seems that they just often lack some creativity... they are all rather simple and not very varied. Everything looks rather... flat. The best themes I've used were Oxygen and Skulpture and they are very nice, but even they aren't really that different from each other when compared to the diversity among Gnome themes...

[Half-Left]

Well GTK theming is good like that but it's stuck where it is, can't really push theming anymore because it's got to it's limitations. Thankfully Qt4 lets you do a whole load of great stuff for theming, nice curved rounded widgets, rounded menus, fading, animation.

GTK themes look old now to Qt4/oxygen theme to me, they look something out of the 90's and not been updated.

[lowtolerance]

I've just started using KDE 4.2 beta, and I have to say that it feels less beta than 4.1. It looks great, many of the features that were lacking before are here now, and all of the bugs I noticed before are gone. I would highly recommend giving KDE another go once 4.2 leaves beta.

[stanlavisbad]

I seriously hope kde 4.2 is a lot better than 4.1. There are so many serious bugs in 4.1 that i've given up trying to fix them, among them:

kopete doesn't save settings like fonts, now listening plugin, notifications
amarok freezes when i plug in a device, except if i plug in the device first
several programs (firefox, gimp) freeze when opening file dialogs
print screen doesn't work
multimedia mouse and keyboard interfaces not supported properly (have used them previously on gnome)
taskbar gets unstable after a while (blue boxes appear instead of apps etc.)

i have tried to fix some of these, but to be honest the support is a bit lacking, most of my posts don't get a reply.

i do like the look and interface of kde 4 though, so i hope it does become more usable.

has anyone questioned the wisdom of 6-monthly releases? it seems to me that 9 or 12 monthly releases would make more sense. it's all well and good to try to stay ahead of the curve, but every release is accompanied by 6 months of sorting out the bugs. i think if kde 4.2 is relatively stable then i'm going to deliberately stay one step behind with upgrading, i.e. install 9.04 next october rather than april

[cb951303]

When comparing KDE 4.x vs Gnome people tend to believe its more like eye candy vs stability. I don't agree. I believe KDE 4.x has some really important technological developments like QT4, phonon and plasma. It's like everything a developer dreams of.

Right now, I'm using GNOME and I hated KDE all my life but when 4.2 comes out I'm thinking to make a permanent switch.

[Rokurosv]

I tried making the switch but KDE4 was such a resource hog for me. Plus I'm used to a lot of GTK apps so I had problems with those a lot.

[MisterFlibble84]

I moved over to Kubuntu for 8.10, because GNOME is worse than stagnant, they're devolving.

Even things that used to work fine are now giving problems (like my USB headset that Phonon works fine with after a little setup, but GNOME wouldn't)

There's also the fact that GNOME's official applications are usually only partially implemented or so horrendously awful by design that Ubuntu doesn't even include them by default (Epiphany, Empathy, etc.).

Also, the new-ish GNOME philosophy of "Thou Shalt Remove Every Preference Option" is just making everything infantile, Epiphany is so close to being a good browser, but I can't make it get rid of those few annoying ticks that it has because some GNOME developer dude thought he knew how it should behave and he'll be damned if I can make it behave the way I want.

Torvalds said his goodbyes to GNOME in a very flamey manner about 2 years ago, but GNOME hadn't gotten rotten enough at that point to convince me to leave, but if finally has.

KDE 4.x is where all the action is, and although 4.0 was unusable, 4.1.3 has gotten most of the really bad gotchas ironed out.

[Starlight]

Well GTK theming is good like that but it's stuck where it is, can't really push theming anymore because it's got to it's limitations. Thankfully Qt4 lets you do a whole load of great stuff for theming, nice curved rounded widgets, rounded menus, fading, animation.

GTK themes look old now to Qt4/oxygen theme to me, they look something out of the 90's and not been updated.

Hmm, maybe Qt 4 has potentially more theming possibilities, but Oxygen doesn't really look more advanced than some of the better GTK themes I've seen. Oxygen doesn't really have any animations, and is rather flat. As for curved widgets, that's also possible on GTK, there's actually a GTK port of Oxygen available on gnome-look that looks almost identical to the Qt one. If Qt 4 has so many possibilities, then I wish someone eventually makes a theme that uses them all... one that's shiny and animated :) I'd love it! Currently I think I prefer GTK themes, because some of them are actually shiny and have a 3D look, while Qt themes tend to look flat and plain...

[SuperSonic4]

I've just started using KDE 4.2 beta, and I have to say that it feels less beta than 4.1. It looks great, many of the features that were lacking before are here now, and all of the bugs I noticed before are gone. I would highly recommend giving KDE another go once 4.2 leaves beta.

I have to agree, KDE 4.2 beta seems more stable than KDE 4.1, I've been using it since late November with few problems, occasionally krunner crashes but it is in beta when all is said and done.

I'm not going to make an actual comment on KDE4 vs Gnome since I've not used the latter in about 12 months but I have to say that I love KDE

[Half-Left]

Hmm, maybe Qt 4 has potentially more theming possibilities, but Oxygen doesn't really look more advanced than some of the better GTK themes I've seen. Oxygen doesn't really have any animations, and is rather flat. As for curved widgets, that's also possible on GTK, there's actually a GTK port of Oxygen available on gnome-look that looks almost identical to the Qt one. If Qt 4 has so many possibilities, then I wish someone eventually makes a theme that uses them all... one that's shiny and animated :) I'd love it! Currently I think I prefer GTK themes, because some of them are actually shiny and have a 3D look, while Qt themes tend to look flat and plain...

Go check out Bespin style, it has animations inside windows, fading, ect...

Yes that GTK Oxygen theme looks good I'll admit but as I said GTK strong point in theming.

[Starlight]

Go check out Bespin style, it has animations inside windows, fading, ect...

Yes that GTK Oxygen theme looks good I'll admit but as I said GTK strong point in theming.

I'll check it out :) I remember trying it some time ago, but it had some glitches... maybe they have been already fixed, though. :)

[macabro22]

Also, the new-ish GNOME philosophy of "Thou Shalt Remove Every Preference Option" is just making everything infantile, Epiphany is so close to being a good browser, but I can't make it get rid of those few annoying ticks that it has because some GNOME developer dude thought he knew how it should behave and he'll be damned if I can make it behave the way I want.

Torvalds said his goodbyes to GNOME in a very flamey manner about 2 years ago, but GNOME hadn't gotten rotten enough at that point to convince me to leave, but if finally has.

KDE 4.x is where all the action is, and although 4.0 was unusable, 4.1.3 has gotten most of the really bad gotchas ironed out.


Agreed. I am moving to KDE4.

[SanjoEel]

I used Gnome for a long time, because it really was easy to use. Every now and then I would try KDE but I never really liked it. Somewhere along the line some things about Gnome really started to annoy me. It just seemed like I couldn't do what I wanted with it, so I decided to start using KDE, which I love now. Gnome is good, but I don't see myself using it again any time soon.

[Half-Left]

I moved to KDE4.x and started contributing because I seen the potential of it, GNOME was just not even able to use my graphics because it was so under developed. KDE4 is alot easier to do graphics for and put together, pretty much one of the reasons why I was able to have the kdegames themes done way before beta's.

KDE are very helpful in the IRC channels and you can talk to devs about bugs and even have them fixed while your there, to me it's alot more efficient and better environment to develop for. qsvg has it's issues and dont support feature I want but it's fast and you can add a huge amount of graphics to themes.

[Changturkey]

Personally, I think Konqueror and Kopete need a lot of work. I still prefer Pidgin/FF.

[lzfy]

Personally, I think Konqueror and Kopete need a lot of work. I still prefer Pidgin/FF.

Have a look at Kmess. Version 2 will be ported to QT4. I think it's one of the best IM clients for Linux.

[halovivek]

I was using KDE in past system in suse and redhat.
But once i got introduced to Gnome by ubuntu i could easy navigate and manage it. Gnome steps ahead then KDE.:P

[tomsteemson]

My experience of Linux has been very limited. I tried out a few different flavours a couple of years ago (SUSE and Debian previously) but I didn't get beyond installing either of them at the time. As an IT Manager my experience has always revolved around the DOS and now Windows environments, but while I don't have a problem with command line interfaces, I was expecting something a bit more sophisticated.

My recent foray into Linux included Ubuntu and I've been using it for a few weeks now on a VMWare 6.5 workstation platform. Love it! :D What a fantastic system. I can already see applications for it in my work environment that will completely knock Windows out of the running from now on. And its free! Just amazing!

Anyway, back on topic..... For the past couple of days I've been experimenting with Kubuntu, but I have to say that I'm glad I didn't try this distro first. It took two attempts to install in an environment that was identical to that used to host Ubuntu, which loaded fast and seamlessly first time. Having installed Ubuntu I then processed the inevitable run of updates, which all worked out quickly and efficiently. I had the whole thing up and running, updated and with a few applications installed in a couple of hours.

Having got Kubuntu installed (second attempt, the first bombed out completely) running the post-install updates took an absolute age to work through (over 200Meg worth of updates!) and crashed half way through. I then tried installing the same features on Kubuntu that I had on Ubuntu: Picasa3, HardInfo, BOINC, SharkWire and found all of them quite painful to install.

The difference, in theory, may simply be the difference between KDE or Gnome. Where I found the Ubuntu Gnome interface in the i386 and 64Bit versions to work flawlessly from the off and with great usability however, the Kubuntu KDE version felt like hard work and buggy.

I'm installing Kubuntu with a different hardware environment in VM as I type and I'll try it one more time. So far though, the arguably prettier KDE GUI is being plagued with problems and I'll be using Gnome going forward. Pretty is no use if it isn't human compatible and KDE on Ubunto doesn't seem to work anything like as well as Gnome, which has been simply outstanding so far.

[Half-Left]

My experience of Linux has been very limited. I tried out a few different flavours a couple of years ago (SUSE and Debian previously) but I didn't get beyond installing either of them at the time. As an IT Manager my experience has always revolved around the DOS and now Windows environments, but while I don't have a problem with command line interfaces, I was expecting something a bit more sophisticated.

My recent foray into Linux included Ubuntu and I've been using it for a few weeks now on a VMWare 6.5 workstation platform. Love it! :D What a fantastic system. I can already see applications for it in my work environment that will completely knock Windows out of the running from now on. And its free! Just amazing!

Anyway, back on topic..... For the past couple of days I've been experimenting with Kubuntu, but I have to say that I'm glad I didn't try this distro first. It took two attempts to install in an environment that was identical to that used to host Ubuntu, which loaded fast and seamlessly first time. Having installed Ubuntu I then processed the inevitable run of updates, which all worked out quickly and efficiently. I had the whole thing up and running, updated and with a few applications installed in a couple of hours.

Having got Kubuntu installed (second attempt, the first bombed out completely) running the post-install updates took an absolute age to work through (over 200Meg worth of updates!) and crashed half way through. I then tried installing the same features on Kubuntu that I had on Ubuntu: Picasa3, HardInfo, BOINC, SharkWire and found all of them quite painful to install.

The difference, in theory, may simply be the difference between KDE or Gnome. Where I found the Ubuntu Gnome interface in the i386 and 64Bit versions to work flawlessly from the off and with great usability however, the Kubuntu KDE version felt like hard work and buggy.

I'm installing Kubuntu with a different hardware environment in VM as I type and I'll try it one more time. So far though, the arguably prettier KDE GUI is being plagued with problems and I'll be using Gnome going forward. Pretty is no use if it isn't human compatible and KDE on Ubunto doesn't seem to work anything like as well as Gnome, which has been simply outstanding so far.

Indeed, it's a sad state of affairs when they dont develop Kubuntu with the same polish and consistency, it makes KDE look bad. Thankfully you get a better and consistent KDE experience with mandriva and OpenSUSE, though I think this time around Fedora 10 did the best job with KDE4.x and nearer to a KDE4.1.x default.

Distros that dont backport and patch KDE you may have better luck with as well. Personally I wouldn't recommend Kubuntu.

[tomsteemson]

Well, third time in trying things appear to be going well, so here's hoping. I would prefer to give both distro's a good test before jumping to any conclusions and 'it's pants' simply based on a lack of installability is hardly a good test.

Thanks for the heads-up on the other alternatives. I'll give OpenSUSE a go for sure. One of the things that attracted me to Ubuntu in the first place was the seemingly ubundant 'ready made' packages for it. SUSE seems to be fairly global too. I've not heard of Fedora though; I told you I had very limited experience. ;o) I'll give it a try though.

[tomsteemson]

Having tried out Fedora and OpenSUSE using KDE, I'm still unashamedly an Ubuntu fan.

Both the Fedora and OpenSUSE KDE distro's installed more easily then Kubuntu, but I still had problems with the interface. The way that the GUI hangs together isn't, IMHO, quite as user friendly as Gnome. I managed to kill off the main panel in KTE, a problem that many people have had judging by the number of posts on Google with people having done the same thing. I managed to get it back again by killing off the KDE directory, which the O/S rebuilt on reboot. That worked but it seems like overkill. On all of the KDE distro's I've tried, installing applications can be a bit more work too as I've had to dig about to install other applications ('make' and associated libraries for example) before I can get them to work properly. Ubuntu had all of these features pre-installed.

The look of KDE initially looks somewhat sexier, but having managed to break the screen display using a resolution that the GUI didn't like, the last of a number of problems I had, I have given up on it. Screens often appeared to have font sizes distorted too, with different sizes being displayed in different applications. I'm sure that if I played around with the interface I could get these minor niggles sorted, but Ubuntu has none of these problems and worked for me smoothly and effortlessly straight out of the box with all of the application libraries I needed to install my test software alreday in place.

Just my personal preference then but with respect to the KDE4 vs Gnome discussion, Ubuntu using Gnome is the clear winner. It has more of the basic applications installed from the off, appears to be less buggy and the interface is more consistent in it's look and feel and is not as easy to break as the KDE distro. As a user with more experience of Linux then I have, maybe the KDE interface offers advantages, but as someone who simply wants to install and use pre-built application software, I believe Ubuntu Gnome is the better package for me.

Thanks for your feedback Half-Left :p

[mips]

On all of the KDE distro's I've tried, installing applications can be a bit more work too as I've had to dig about to install other applications ('make' and associated libraries for example) before I can get them to work properly. Ubuntu had all of these features pre-installed.


Are you not comapring apples to oranges as this has nothing to do with the DE?

[tomsteemson]

Are you not comapring apples to oranges as this has nothing to do with the DE?

Good point. I quite agree that this particular facet of the OS...

all of the KDE distro's I've tried, installing applications can be a bit more work too as I've had to dig about to install other applications ('make' and associated libraries for example) before I can get them to work properly. Ubuntu had all of these features pre-installed.

does not bear on the GUI being used. To clarify then: comparing the Ubuntu/Kubunto distro's, which baring the choice of GUI I would have expected to be the same, the Ubuntu distro' has more of the Linux feature set pre-installed.

Hope that makes it clearer.

[mips]

I'm even more confused now :)

[Half-Left]

Good point. I quite agree that this particular facet of the OS...



does not bear on the GUI being used. To clarify then: comparing the Ubuntu/Kubunto distro's, which baring the choice of GUI I would have expected to be the same, the Ubuntu distro' has more of the Linux feature set pre-installed.

Hope that makes it clearer.

This is the problem, most distros may allow you to pick or install KDE at install time(opensuse to their credit give the user choices) and dont tell me choices confuse people because thats just the way it is(life if full of choices)

Ubuntu doesn't, Fedora for example clearly state they have a KDE edition and "KDE fans go here" on their site, Canonical from what I can see have nothing of the sort on their main website to say this.

[tomsteemson]

This is the problem, most distros may allow you to pick or install KDE at install time(opensuse to their credit give the user choices) and dont tell me choices confuse people because thats just the way it is(life if full of choices)

Ubuntu doesn't, Fedora for example clearly state they have a KDE edition and "KDE fans go here" on their site, Canonical from what I can see have nothing of the sort on their main website to say this.

I've read on other threads that the KDE interface can be installed as a GUI over the top of any flavour of Linux. Given that Ubuntu appears to be the more mature distro', is it then possible to install KDE over the top of the Gnome interface? If you can, how would you then let the O/S know that you wanted to use KDE as opposed Gnome on boot, and can you change your choice of interface on the fly once the O/S has booted up?

[tomsteemson]

I'm even more confused now :)

Ha ha! Well, I'm good at that. ;)

[Simian Man]

I've read on other threads that the KDE interface can be installed as a GUI over the top of any flavour of Linux. Given that Ubuntu appears to be the more mature distro', is it then possible to install KDE over the top of the Gnome interface? If you can, how would you then let the O/S know that you wanted to use KDE as opposed Gnome on boot, and can you change your choice of interface on the fly once the O/S has booted up?

sudo apt-get install kde


Then you can logout of Gnome and have the choice to login to Gnome or KDE.

[tomsteemson]

sudo apt-get install kde


Then you can logout of Gnome and have the choice to login to Gnome or KDE.

Ha! That easy, huh? Thanks Simian. :D

[SeanHodges]

Ha! That easy, huh? Thanks Simian. :D

Yeah, look for the "Session" button at the bottom of the login screen, you can select it there after installing KDE.

I'm using both KDE and Gnome on different machines right now, and I like them both a lot. If you are used to one of them, you'll find there is a learning curve to mastering the other one. Some people look at this as a worthwhile challenge, others look at it as a failing of the other DE.

[Half-Left]

I've read on other threads that the KDE interface can be installed as a GUI over the top of any flavour of Linux. Given that Ubuntu appears to be the more mature distro', is it then possible to install KDE over the top of the Gnome interface? If you can, how would you then let the O/S know that you wanted to use KDE as opposed Gnome on boot, and can you change your choice of interface on the fly once the O/S has booted up?

Dont see what's mature about Ubuntu, it just uses GNOME as it's DE, yes you can install KDE from Ubuntu but thats besides the point, it's not visible to the user very well.

[SeanHodges]

sudo apt-get install kde


In addition, if you want the whole Kubuntu-style KDE desktop (including the applications and utilities that are included), then you want to install kubuntu-desktop (apt://kubuntu-desktop).

You can do this even if you have already installed the base "kde" package. Bear in mind it changes the default boot splash, login manager and Firefox homepage, but you can change those back easily.

Returning back to a pure Gnome desktop environment is slightly less simple, but definitely not difficult, read here (http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/puregnome.php).

yes you can install KDE from Ubuntu but thats besides the point, it's not visible to the user very well.

Sorry, I don't understand this. If you install KDE from Ubuntu (as opposed to getting it pre-installed with Kubuntu) you simply have 2 equal desktop environments installed on your system. This is the same as installing Kubuntu from a CD, then installing the Gnome desktop on top. You can change your session to start KDE by default, how is KDE less visible?

[carolinason]

KDE 4 is a beautiful comprehensive vision of the Linux DE. Gnome is simply a DE.

[tomsteemson]

If you install KDE from Ubuntu (as opposed to getting it pre-installed with Kubuntu) you simply have 2 equal desktop environments installed on your system. This is the same as installing Kubuntu from a CD, then installing the Gnome desktop on top.

Nope, it's not. I agree that's what I would expect to happen but where I found Kubuntu to be buggy and the GUI all over the place in terms of font sizes and general usability, I've found that the Ubuntu distro with KDE installed over the top of it is far more 'together'. There are more apps installed by default, no bugs causing errors so far and the KDE screen now looks very cool with all of the applications having the same font sizes. Result.

I'm back in a quandary now though. Having installed the KDE interface on Ubuntu and found that it works very well, I'm now undecided about the KDE vs Gnome question. I like both of them :lolflag:

[SeanHodges]

Nope, it's not. I agree that's what I would expect to happen but where I found Kubuntu to be buggy and the GUI all over the place in terms of font sizes and general usability, I've found that the Ubuntu distro with KDE installed over the top of it is far more 'together'.

Strange, though you're definitely in the minority on this one. I know plenty of people (including myself) who have installed Kubuntu from CD and have found it very stable and usable. I can only imagine you have some special hardware problem that is messing up the DPI settings or something, though you would expect to see the same problem in Gnome if that was the case.

Nevertheless, Kubuntu and Ubuntu CD's are based off the same repository, and share most underlying components (NetworkManager, Xorg, fontconfig, etc). Except in exceptional circumstances, both CD's will provide a very similar experience beyond the desktop environment and default applications they provide.

There are more apps installed by default

Not exactly true... You had the Gnome defaults when you installed, and you added all the KDE ones. This can be done by installing gnome-desktop on top of Kubuntu as well.

[forcecore]

Massive development speed and features has increased dramatically within year and now KDE 4.2 has so great usability and so advanced compared to 4.0

I think Gnome wont go anywhere because it is just simple desktop but KDE 4 is advanced future desktop and it very heavy cuztomiseable, imagine that KDE can be used on control panels, touxh tables, holographic screens like in Minority Report, etc... and it beats shi_.t out of MAC os and Win7.

Currently i used gnome with beginning of Ubuntu 8.04 and 8.10 (never used other type of linux distro) now with 9.04 KDE 4.2 rises and replaces Gnome.

[ikisham]

I've installed kde over ubuntu and now have aalll the applications but can't succeed to run the kde desktop. I 'logout', select sessions, then 'kde' (there are some options like 'return to the old session', 'GNOME' etc.), change sessions, but then I must enter the user and the password. But there's only the default user (that's me) and it's default desktop is Gnome.
Should I create another account with Kde by default? How would I do it?
(Btw, when kde was installed it asked if I wanted to have a default DE, that is, Gnome, Kde or none, and I chose Gnome).
Thanks.

PS-I want to run kde since some apps like kdenlive 0.6 just don't work under gnome (yes, I'm just proving apps and ambients).

[deepclutch]

Ubuntu doesn't, Fedora for example clearly state they have a KDE edition and "KDE fans go here" on their site, Canonical from what I can see have nothing of the sort on their main website to say this.
Gnome users and Kde fans.that is the difference ,I felt from the day 1 . ;) {NO,OFFENSE!} .
--
I havent touched kde for a long time now.Last experiment with suse linux for a week or two bombed.
I liked KdeMod (kde modular) available to archlinux users.and kde4 - Let me install sidux soon on my system.
--
then qt4 is actively developed and got a biggy(no ,I meant nokia?) behind the development.that means more funds.while Gnome GTK+ is not really developing forward.no plans for Gnome-3 or GTK 3+ AFAIK.that is really sad.

[Zlatan]

Gnome users and Kde fans.that is the difference ,I felt from the day 1 . ;) {NO,OFFENSE!} .
--
I havent touched kde for a long time now.Last experiment with suse linux for a week or two bombed.
I liked KdeMod (kde modular) available to archlinux users.and kde4 - Let me install sidux soon on my system.
--
then qt4 is actively developed and got a biggy(no ,I meant nokia?) behind the development.that means more funds.while Gnome GTK+ is not really developing forward.no plans for Gnome-3 or GTK 3+ AFAIK.that is really sad.

Gnome has got Google and Motorola in their advisory board.

[Burigufutsushide]

There will be a Gnome 3.0, its under planning and is what would have become Gnome 2.30 so it should hit the Ubuntu 10.4 release (or Koala +1)

For more information, read here: Gnome 3.0 Explained (http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2008/07/gnome-3-0-officially-announced-and-explained.ars)

[LexLuthor08]

After seeing some fancy plasma screenshots and videos I recently decided to install kubuntu-desktop on my ubuntu.

The biggest problem that I had both with 4.2 and 4.3 was that almost everything I tried didn't work.
I tried to open a .tar.gz file and the kde archiver gave me an error, I tried to drag files from a .rar archive onto the desktop or into other folders and it didn't work.
I tried to add some of those cool google appletts but when I pressed ADD they wouldn't show up in my applet list.
I tried to change the ugly window decoration with something else and figured out that you have to compile the files from kde-looks in order to use it. I couldn't find a comprehensible instruction anywhere how to do that.
And what annoyed me the most, my favourite applications behaved very strange or looked ugly. for example gnome-do had some strange black bars around it, in gnome it would be some problem with compiz, but in kde???

Worst of all, even the people in the kde help channel didn't really have much of a clue, for example when I asked how to change window decorations.
And with the fast development tempo most tutorials in the internet are totally outdated. People are just pointing out that even between 4.1 4.2 4.3 things could be completely different.


I would really like to switch to KDE but I just don't have the time and the nerves to deal with all these stupid problems when I just can log in to gnome and everything works great.
now call me a noob.

[GCFreak]

I'm going to be brutally honest, I loathe KDE. I hate it with a passion. It's "start menu" is TOTALLY unintuitive, GTK apps look ugly in it, I have no idea how to change themes in it, changing default apps in it is a hassle, Compiz is a hassle in it, it's ALOT less stable than GNOME, I always keep deleting the panels in it due to the silly right-click menu design in it, and then I have to add ALL the panel items back manually, it takes a lot longer to start up than GNOME, it's slow when it is loaded, and the default theme (oxygen) to me looks bad, worse than any of GNOME's default themes on many distributions. And I HATE how by default, it shows all the windows open on ALL the desktops open, so if you have Firefox open on desktop 1, it's also in the taskbar on desktop 2, 3 and so on.

Well, that's about all I have to say about it so far...

[juancarlospaco]

I like KDE 5 and Gnome 4
:)

[Tipped OuT]

I like KDE 5 and Gnome 4
:)
](*,)

[Arup]

Stability and ease of use plus less bloat is the only reason for my preference for Gnome, my first Linux distro was SuSE 8 and I chose KDE as it looked familiar to Windows interface, slowly I got used to the Gnome and now its a permanent feature for me.

[Bigtime_Scrub]

I love KDE apps. Most of them are great. What I dont like is that I find KDE hard to navigate around in. Getting to my apps is a pain in the behind. With Gnome I set the "Windows" key to open and drop down the Apllications menu and I use the arrow keys to get to my apps quickly. I can keep my functional Gnome and just use KDE apps which is what I do. I uninstall all the Gnome ones I dont like. For example, i get rid of Brasero and I put in K3B. I also use ktorrent and Kaffeine. The only real time doing that is a headache is if you dont have a package manager and you have to deal with that dependency nightmare. Good thing I have apt-get. In the end though I have found gnome to be a bit slow and kde to be even slower. Thats why I use xfce. I love xfce, because fo rme it is what I like about gnome without all the fuss and it is fast.

[juancarlospaco]

](*,)

I mean, ...i dont like last versions of KDE and Gnome.

KDE forgot that Linux desktop need to be lightweight.
Gnome needs refresh and features.
:)

[RiceMonster]

KDE forgot that Linux desktop need to be lightweight.

So did GNOME, apparently. Also, I was unaware that it was required for Linux distros to be lightweight.

[juancarlospaco]

I see very nice proyects to Gnome Desktop, but the problem is that are not part of gnome currently.

Like Gloobus CoverFlow integrated in Nautilus for example.

[Tipped OuT]

So did GNOME, apparently. Also, I was unaware that it was required for Linux distros to be lightweight.

That's not the point, when I'm using KDE 4, it almost feels like I'm on a Vista desktop. Not because of how it looks, because how it performs, it's very slow.

Where as GNOME, I feel like I'm on a Windows XP desktop, just with a few Compiz Fusion effects slowing me down, which is completely understandable.

My laptop is made for Windows XP (3.2 Ghz P4 chip and 784 MB's of RAM) and I can honestly say, I can't tell the difference between the performance of GNOME (without compiz effects) and a Windows XP desktop. That's saying a lot.