I am TOTALLY confused about KDE and Gnome

[lespaul_rentals]

well KDE is supposed to be more customizable than gnome, take up less resources than gnome, Linus is supposedly the God of linux, Gnome hearing about it is not following what he wants so he cries like a little baby, etc..

Gnome is less customizable than KDE due to it's suppose to be more for Starters, etc.. than KDE which is suppose to be for professions, etc.. Yes many apps run in gnome from kde due to the library files, etc.. I myself am using Kppp do dialup which is a KDE application, etc..

In the end tho it's more about:

KDE
Less resources
For the Pros
More customizable
Tries to Get away from the Windows GUI

Gnome
Uses more resources
For the Newbies
Less Customizable
Tries to look like the Windows GUI

............

Anyone can correct me if I myself am wrong on some things.

No offense, but in my experience comparing the two I'd have to disagree.

KDE is more resource-demanding. KDE is designed to be very attractive and customizable, all while being user-friendly. It is closer to the Windows GUI. The applications it supports by default tend to be more high-tech (K3b, Amarok, etc.) because it uses C++ as its default script language.

Gnome is light-weight and simple. It is intended for the noob in mind. It is customizable, but it never has that same "sexiness" that KDE has. It is based in C, and the applications that come default with it tend to be annoyingly simple.

[az]

C++ is not a script language and that has no bearing on whether the apps are of better quality than ones written in C.

The history of the GNU/linux desktop in a nutshell:

In the beginning, everything ran from the command-line. As the hardware evolved, the X server was created. In many cases, you needed to *buy* a proprietary X server in order to use accelerated 3D hardware. Since it was not practical to have to recompile your whole software stack in order to run a new application that used your X server, the X server became modular. The freely licenced X server became predominant and basically killed those proprietary X servers.

The first widget toolkit (libraries that make windows and dialog boxes) that was available for GNU/linux was Qt. You had to pay for it. Soon after, it became free-of-charge, but not yet free software.

Some developers got sick of being tied to non-free software and decided to write their own widget set - they created GTK.

GTK apps looked like crap. A redesign was done and some guidelines were created (The Gnome Human Interface Guidelines). For a time, Gnome apps were much better - they were more intuitive because the Gnome developers focused on usability. At the same time, KDE design was pretty awful.

Ask Jono Bacon about that.

Today, both KDE and Gnome focus equally on usability. Both the Qt and GTK+ toolkits offer the same features. So it's a matter of preference, and not a matter of one being better than the other.

So, to answer the original question, both have different histories. In the day-to-day differences, Gnome focuses on not having the user guess what they should do to get the task done, whereas KDE will endeavour to find a way to offer the user a few more options, at the risk of cluttering up the screen.

[GeneralZod]

KDE is more resource-demanding.

The difference is so small that it's hardly worth mentioning:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...postcount=1235

I don't think calling GNOME "lightweight" compared to KDE is really justified, though.

[Lord Illidan]

The difference is so small that it's hardly worth mentioning:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...postcount=1235

I don't think calling GNOME "lightweight" compared to KDE is really justified, though.

I agree. Both are quite bloated compared to other DEs like XFCE. (Although even that is bloating up somewhat).

My take on this is :

If you got the space just install both the gnome and kde desktops and their you have the best of both worlds. KDE has a lot of other helper apps associated with the window manager which I like, but I like the uncluttered look of the gnome desktop better. OK so big deal. I run the gnome desktop, and with the kde desktop installed, I can run the kde apps within gnome. No loss here.

This is the best approach, in my opinion. I too like GNOME better, because..I dunno, I just like it. KDE is not bad neither, and has some really good apps like AmaroK.

It's your choice, run them both, and don't listen to flamewars! You get burnt!