Which Desktop Environment do you prefer [Archive]

ubuntu_fan

February 10th, 2005, 06:11 PM

ubuntu_fan

February 10th, 2005, 06:15 PM

I agree - getting people to fill in text boxes is not only guaranteed a very low response rate, but having to tally the results at the end is both difficult and time consuming.

How much affect do you think do you think posting this on a Gnome-based distro foum will have on the results? One of the main differentiating factors amongst distributions for a lot of users will be the WM and the customisation of it.

a.

I know it's poor form to quote yourself, but maybe I've also missed that not everyone visiting these forums will be an Ubuntu user, but I think my point still is valid.

:mrgreen:

a.

Ironi

February 10th, 2005, 06:44 PM

KDE, because it's the most technically advanced and customizable DE available. I also voted for Enlightenment, because it's an old favorite and I'm still clinging to a shred of hope that it might be revitalized.

I would have voted for GNOME as well due to my positive experience with 1.x, but considering what it's become... No.

machiner

February 10th, 2005, 07:28 PM

Gnome
Xfce4(.20)

NO X at all is nice as well.

eBopBob

February 10th, 2005, 08:07 PM

I used to use SuSE 9.1 Professional, and I'd use KDE under it... I used it for a while, then tried to use Gnome however the Gnome which comes with SuSE does not work 100% - which meant I was stuck with KDE.

I for some time thought that I did like KDE... however after much thought and much use of KDE, I finally realised it was not KDE that I liked, however more so the looks - Gnome, even in SuSE, looks awful (Adding onto the fact that it does not work that well).

So I'd have to say overall I prefer Gnome (with a nice theme such as d3a installed) and then XFCE (latest).

Kakalto

February 10th, 2005, 08:31 PM

I'm quite similar. I use gnome a lot on my main computer, and it looks great with a theme like d3a, especially when you mix and match with other themes aswell. www.gnome-look.org is great, it's really nice looking through the custom stuff on there.

I use XFCE on my older, slower computer, and it works really well on there. Looks really nice. And I was really impressed how small it was! The 4 graphical installers I used were about 20mb total, but it doesn't compromise anything. Even if you don't have all the required packages for those installers, that's only approx. 15mb on a default Warty fresh install.

I used to use KDE when I had gentoo installed, and I didn't particularly like it. Too much clutter, and it looked too windows-like (which is something I was trying to avoid).

Yukonjack

February 10th, 2005, 08:41 PM

Gnome, fluxbox

kassetra

February 10th, 2005, 08:48 PM

Gnome Gnome Gnome.

As a graphic designer for over ten years, using KDE is like going back to working in MS Paint. I know people who swear by it, but I still think it's a poorly developed DE.

I want simplicity, flexibility, and I don't want to spend four days trimming out all the cruft after every upgrade.

heh.

carlc

February 10th, 2005, 11:08 PM

Gnome, no doubt.

Perfect Storm

February 10th, 2005, 11:18 PM

Gnome fanboy here! It's a religion for me \\:D/ ;)

Also was a KDE fan before. I've admired the themes at Gnome because 98% of the theme and icons was more or less complete. Which couldn't be said about KDE and that's irretating me. That's only one of the reason I like Gnome so much.

Okay I admit I'm a eye-candy-***** :mrgreen: ....but with gnome it looks good and you don't have to use alot of time to setup to get a decent look :)

Ironi

February 10th, 2005, 11:32 PM

As a graphic designer for over ten years, using KDE is like going back to working in MS Paint.

Why? Because it's far more customizable? :confused:

I know people who swear by it, but I still think it's a poorly developed DE.

Well, there's no small group of dictators deciding which way it's going to go, if that's what you mean.

I want simplicity, flexibility

Err... Simplicity and flexibility are mutually exclusive. GNOME aims for simplicity at the expense of flexibility (removing "useless" features and options and making everything "simple"). KDE, OTOH, aims for flexibility at the expense of simplicity (adding plenty of features and options, thus rendering everything quite changeable). There are benefits and downsides to each approach; IMO, GNOME's path will only lead to further technical inferiority -- especially since the competition eschews such a philosophy (not only KDE, but Windows and perhaps OS X as well).

kassetra

February 11th, 2005, 01:47 AM

Ironi:
Flexibility and Simplicity are not mutually exclusive; user interface modes of comprehension are, however. What the DE has evolved into is two major separate modes of user accessibility. However you think is what you'll prefer. For example:

KDE and Windows XP do not think like I do; their ideas of flexibility and options are the equivalent of shoving features and applications down my throat until I can't breathe. They both think their DEs are "flexible and simple"

Every DE is going to have it's own user base that "thinks like it does," and will therefore seem like the most "technologically superior," "easy to use," etc. whatever buzzwords seem relevant at the time. That actually has very little to do with the actual DE itself, and almost exclusively to do with the user interface mode of comprehension.

So essentially, any kind of "rationale" for why one DE is better than another is bunk. It all comes back, 100%, to user interface mode of comprehension.

So to respond to you, no, KDE is not more flexible, simple, customizable, technologically superior or any other term you mentioned -- FOR ME, nor will it ever be, because I don't speak it's language.

I think like Gnome. :roll:

TravisNewman

February 11th, 2005, 04:43 AM

kassetra: I think you hit it right on the nose! I'd never really thought about it, but you're right.

I DO think that KDE is flexible, but Gnome is just as flexible, but in different ways and using different modes of customization.

When you get right down to it, flexibiltiy and simplicity go hand in hand. Look at the flux- black- and open- box WMs. Very very simple, and very very flexible.

lao_V yes, you are posting a lot of polls lately
and you had to know this would turn into a gnome v kde war. So keep it clean everyone!

KiwiNZ

February 11th, 2005, 07:28 AM

I tend to swap between Gnome ,KDE and Xfce depending on my mood. I just love the choice Linux gives . So long may it continue

evangelion

February 11th, 2005, 08:24 AM

I switch window managers way too much, right now I'm using Fluxbox, but by Sunday I could be using Gnome. Gnome has come leaps and bounds since its 1.x days, it's a pleasure to work with when you need a full desktop environment. The main ones I flop between are flux, ion3, fvwm and gnome, pretty much depending on my mood. Just like KiwiNZ said, you've got to love the choice. I've been using Linux for years and it never ceases to amaze me how great it is to be able to completely alter your desktop experience simply by changing a word in your .xinitrc file :)

lao_V

February 11th, 2005, 10:46 AM

lao_V yes, you are posting a lot of polls lately
and you had to know this would turn into a gnome v kde war. So keep it clean everyone!

I honestly had no idea (and never hoped for) this would be heading in the battlefield direction. I simply wished to get everyone's perspective.

I think we should not forget the foundations of Linux. It is truly for the people and by the people. It is a community. And if want the community to progress we should unite as one and not let our differences hinder our progress.

It is great that we have so much choice in this amazing world of open source. This would make everyone almost unique. Please don't look down upon others just because they are different.

I am assuming most of us here are using Ubuntu one way or the other and as such, please remember what Ubuntu really means

- "Humanity to others", Ubuntu team
- "I am what I am because of who we all are", Ubuntu team

Ironi

February 11th, 2005, 10:57 AM

So essentially, any kind of "rationale" for why one DE is better than another is bunk. It all comes back, 100%, to user interface mode of comprehension.

...

I think like Gnome. :roll:
Okay, fair enough... I've never before seen anyone, anywhere put forth that kind of argument. You might be able to easily discard conventional and logical aspects of desktop usage, but I think that they remain important to a great many people out there. People who won't be swayed by such arguments as yours.

But hey, maybe I'm wrong. http://www.ubuntuforums.org/images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif

Dylanby

February 11th, 2005, 01:49 PM

Ironi, there's an audio interview with the Gnome release manager Jeff Waugh in the last episode of LugRadio (http://www.lugradio.org/)

He basically says that the foundation for usability in Gnome has been established, and now they're going to focus on new features.

Mute

February 12th, 2005, 01:47 AM

Depends on the Distro I am using at the moment Slack = KDE, Redhat = Gnome, well and of course cause of Ubuntu Gnome right now.

ctt1wbw

February 12th, 2005, 12:00 PM

emperor

February 12th, 2005, 12:03 PM

gnome's for me!

Titeuf

February 12th, 2005, 01:49 PM

I love Gnome because it looks good and simple.
For the WM itself, I prefer Openbox: it looks really nice and is very fast.
As for now I'm experimenting with FVWM. It's awesome what you can do with this WM, but it requires a lot of your time to configure it

miho

February 12th, 2005, 03:10 PM

fluxbox is next to divinity.

IceAxe18

February 12th, 2005, 04:08 PM

gnome

jubuntus

February 12th, 2005, 04:48 PM

I started using Linux (Mandrake/Suse) initially attracted by 'eye candy' But the more I used it, the less I liked. Then I come accress Ubuntu/GNOME and although not very attractive at first, I found it very simple to use.
However, most of the graphics and themes are very 2D and boring.
Surely there must be a solution out there with the simplicity of GNOME with graphics quality of KDE?
Never fear, the Australian author of the ettiquette icon theme (highest ranked on http://www.gnome-look.org is hard at work with the Ubuntu art team in developing an svg icon based theme for hoary, although it probably won't be 100% ready in time, but he tells me to look out for the release after, "sexy as hell".

lao_V

February 12th, 2005, 08:18 PM

Never fear, the Australian author of the ettiquette icon theme (highest ranked on http://www.gnome-look.org is hard at work with the Ubuntu art team in developing an svg icon based theme for hoary, although it probably won't be 100% ready in time, but he tells me to look out for the release after, "sexy as hell".
That sounds promising..However, at the moment I've found a pretty good 3d/professional theme called Amaranth (installed through synaptic)

lao_V

February 14th, 2005, 02:01 PM

Ironi

February 14th, 2005, 08:37 PM

However, everytime I click on my home folder from the menu, it takes me back to the GNOME desktop (wallpaper and desktop icons).

That's Nautilus. It performs a hostile takeover of your desktop by default, whether you're running XFCE, KDE, E, or joebox.

You can run nautilus with the --no-desktop option to inhibit that behaviour. Delving down into gconf is also a possibility, if you have gnome-settings-daemon running.

mirtux

February 15th, 2005, 10:56 AM

I started using Linux (Mandrake/Suse) initially attracted by 'eye candy' But the more I used it, the less I liked. Then I come accress Ubuntu/GNOME and although not very attractive at first, I found it very simple to use.

However, most of the graphics and themes are very 2D and boring.

Surely there must be a solution out there with the simplicity of GNOME with graphics quality of KDE?
I definitely agree with you. I started using GNOME from RedHat 9, then i stayed with it since some weeks ago after installing Ubuntu; then i tried KDE 3.3.2 since i had problems with GNOME fonts on my laptop. Well installation was easy as well as its use.... now i switched, definitely to it.... option are everywere but you can choose not to use it. I'm waiting for version 3.4....

PS: i also have to admit that KDE (at least version i'm using 3.3.2) is really faster :) than GNOME 2.8

Regards,
MC

Buffalo Soldier

February 15th, 2005, 12:00 PM

:) the old Gnome vs KDE. Lets hope the competition remains healthy. That way both can be winners and leave MS GUI in the dust (we still have a long way to go though).

As for me, for now it's Gnome.

mirtux

February 15th, 2005, 12:20 PM

:) the old Gnome vs KDE. Lets hope the competition remains healthy. That way both can be winners and leave MS GUI in the dust (we still have a long way to go though).

As for me, for now it's Gnome.
Well for me it must not be a war between the two desktop environment and their users, and one must not convince the other that the one you are using is better.... it's just a question of how you feel with a particular version.....

Regards,
MC

poofyhairguy

February 16th, 2005, 06:28 AM

I installed XFCE on my PC over the weekend. Seems to be pretty fast loading up and actually using it compared to KDE and GNOME.

However, everytime I click on my home folder from the menu, it takes me back to the GNOME desktop (wallpaper and desktop icons).

Anyone experienced the same thing?

XFCE is great. It works well on my old laptop. Has the same cleaness of Gnome but with less of a footprint. The GUI tools are nice as well. I like it more than KDE, thats for sure.

welly

February 16th, 2005, 04:19 PM

XFCE is great. It works well on my old laptop. Has the same cleaness of Gnome but with less of a footprint. The GUI tools are nice as well. I like it more than KDE, thats for sure.
I'm pretty to new Linux, well new after a 12 year break :) But being as Ubuntu is my first proper install of linux in 12 years, I'm quite taken by Gnome, I must admit. I had a look at the live Mandrake CD which I think was using KDE and I can't say I was overly taken by it. Seemed a little complicated. Gnome, I'm well impressed with simply because it works and doesn't have too many bells and whistles. What I want was a desktop that pretty much blended into the background as there's very little time when I use my PC that I'm simply using the desktop. I'm unsure what KDE offers over Gnome, and what this flexibility KDE has that gnome doesn't, but would love to know on the off chance KDE is a better option for me. But so far, Gnome looks like the one for me.

Ironi

February 16th, 2005, 07:52 PM

I'm unsure what KDE offers over Gnome, and what this flexibility KDE has that gnome doesn't, but would love to know on the off chance KDE is a better option for me.
KDE offers plenty over GNOME when it comes to features and flexibility. There's no way that I can point out every single advantage, though. IMO, KDE is far superior to GNOME, but people are attacked around here for saying such things. :-#

A few features that I can think of off hand:

A functional menu editor.

Theme color settings independent of your chosen theme.

Per-Virtual Desktop background settings (different wallpaper, color, blending for each).

A powerful IPC system called DCOP that lets you control (via scripts) pretty much any compliant KDE app. http://linuxgazette.net/issue97/oregan2.html

Loads and loads of features, embedded views, and extensive UI flexibility in Konqueror, KDE's file manager. It's like the Swiss-Army Knife of file managers.

I recommend trying KDE for yourself and determining whether or not it's right for you. It's the best option for me without question, since I consider it to be the most advanced DE available. However, I'm not the average user, and features that I find useful could be seen as unnecessary by others.

Uuranor

February 16th, 2005, 08:39 PM

I think KDE is better than Gnome ...
I'm eye-candy addicted and too lazy for KDE (too many work to configure it, too many useless apps installed), so I prefer Gnome.

poofyhairguy

February 16th, 2005, 08:47 PM

I think KDE is better than Gnome ...

It does have the best CD burining app.

TopDog

February 16th, 2005, 09:25 PM

I used to say KDE on these kind of surveys... but after using Ubuntu for a few months now, I installed KDE this weekend... fast in, fast out... man it was confusing.

No, Gnome with it's pleasant feel and easy GUI-tools got me good!

I also voted Fluxbox, use Fluxbox on a low-end laptop here, and I love it as a light-weight thingy.

mirtux

February 17th, 2005, 09:29 AM

I recommend trying KDE for yourself and determining whether or not it's right for you. It's the best option for me without question, since I consider it to be the most advanced DE available. However, I'm not the average user, and features that I find useful could be seen as unnecessary by others.
I completely agree with you! And if you have the possibility, you can build it with Konstruct in a directory of your home, without destroying any KDE or Gnome environment whatsoever....

Regards,
MC

lao_V

February 17th, 2005, 09:43 AM

I completely agree with you! And if you have the possibility, you can build it with Konstruct in a directory of your home, without destroying any KDE or Gnome environment whatsoever....

Regards,
MC

There is only one glitch I found with this method. When I logged into KDE, I could see all the GNOME apps and vice versa!!

I would have like to see KDE apps in KDE and GNOME apps in GNOME.

defkewl

February 17th, 2005, 12:31 PM

Hmm wouldn't be surprised to see a "100%" votes going to Gnome...;)
Is it because there are more software supported in GNOME?

mirtux

February 17th, 2005, 01:20 PM

There is only one glitch I found with this method. When I logged into KDE, I could see all the GNOME apps and vice versa!!

I would have like to see KDE apps in KDE and GNOME apps in GNOME.
Hi,
well.... for me is the same however it doesn't create problems for me. I know that is not a "clean" solution but you can use the menu editor to cancel those GNOME programs you don't want under KDE.

Regards,
MC

lao_V

February 17th, 2005, 01:24 PM

But it is not an ideal solution!!!

The system has to be more sophisticated then this.

Its like saying when you save a file you can't really give it a name., you will have to go to the file manager and then re-name it.

mirtux

February 17th, 2005, 01:41 PM

But it is not an ideal solution!!!.
Sorry but this is what i said.....

ZeFroG

February 17th, 2005, 08:02 PM

I prefer Gnome because he's practical, easy to use and light...

Joeb

February 17th, 2005, 09:19 PM

There is only one glitch I found with this method. When I logged into KDE, I could see all the GNOME apps and vice versa!!

I would have like to see KDE apps in KDE and GNOME apps in GNOME.

Why wouldn't you want to see all the apps you had installed and available for use? It wasn't too long ago when the common complaint was that with Gnome and KDE, you only got to see the KDE specific or Gnome specific apps.

If I would happen to use KMail, for instance and logged into Gnome, I would still like to have KMail available. Same thing going the other way for Evolution or even K3B.

Personally, I like the idea of having my apps showing up, regardless of the WM or DE I might be using at the moment.

eldrich_rebello

February 18th, 2005, 09:09 AM

i had a problem similar to eBopBob.gnome with suse 9.1 isn't fully functional.now i've switched to ubuntu.upgraded the packages with a sare dvd that i had and it's fantastic.i have to say that gnome seems to be a much more slick and responsive environment than kde.

rdking

March 3rd, 2005, 07:34 AM

A big fan of gnome and the implimentation in Ubuntu. It is polished, user friendly and complete for the end user. What I like about it is how clean it is and how much space you have to work with, no clutter, or icons here and there. Having been linux only user for about a year now, and still learning more than ever...I am trying fluxbox. Love it's simplicity and total configuability. If your not afraid of manually editing the menu and config files...and the odd use of the terminal to accomplish little used tasks, it is easy to set up a minimalist WM with only the programs you use in menu. Everything can be changed to your liking, and no bloat that you don't use wasteing your space or menu. So far loving it. right now I'm split between the two, though flux is now my choice about 70 percent of longins. I voted for both. gotta love the choice, with it comes inspiration and the want to learn and explore!

factotum218

March 4th, 2005, 12:41 AM

fluxbox until i die. tabs work wonders with GIMP

regeya

March 4th, 2005, 02:21 AM

The whole KDE vs. GNOME vs. whatever seems sort of like winning the Special Olympics...eh, you know. :p

Having said that, my experience with the KDE vs. GNOME business has been that peoples' preferences tend to depend on what operating system/distribution they're using. At one point, you'd find that desktop Debian users preferred GNOME. Later, it became (IMHO) KDE, and in both cases it was (again, IMHO) due to the quality of packages rather than the usability or useless eyecandy.

What would the Ubuntu Linux community overwhelmingly prefer? Zounds, that's a toughie! With GNOME being the supported desktop, and KDE being in Universe, I wonder what most Ubuntu users would prefer? Hm...real tough.

To set the record straight on my preference: I prefer KDE, but a number of long-standing bugs in Konqueror make it downright unusable at the moment. I miss my IOSlaves, my ability to open two folders in one split-pane window, etc. But GNOME is usable, reasonably fast (though not as snappy as KDE) and Ubuntu has managed to take a number of hairy issues and make them seem as simple as pie. It's a great distribution and they've done a lot for the GNOME community.

Given how much attention GNOME gets these days, I hope the rumors are true: I hope to see more features, and I hope that a few GNOME developers get off their high horses and decide that the opinions of users matter, not just an artificial, made-up impression of what an average user is. Yeah, I've had IRC run-ins with developers who basically told me that by talking on IRC, I disqualify myself from "average user" status and that that basically meant the conversation was over! Wow, my opinion doesn't count! Why should I talk friends and family into using GNOME again? OTOH there are things that GNOME gets right that nobody, not even Apple, get right. Amazing that a Free Software package could show promise of teaching the big proprietary vendors a thing or two. :-D

kagou

March 18th, 2005, 02:24 PM

Gnome of course 8)

Dragonfly_X

March 18th, 2005, 03:32 PM

I don't even know half of the enviroments mentioned here, maby cause i'm new to linux. Can someone post a couple of links where a person like me can find more info on these enviroments?!?

lao_V

March 18th, 2005, 03:45 PM

I don't even know half of the enviroments mentioned here, maby cause i'm new to linux. Can someone post a couple of links where a person like me can find more info on these enviroments?!?

FreeDesktop (http://www.freedesktop.org/) is a pretty good site I think

telmo

April 14th, 2005, 01:13 AM

Hey... KDE and XFCE are even! How about a XFCE-Ubuntu distro? ;-)

skoal

April 14th, 2005, 01:41 AM

Where's wmi (http://wmi.modprobe.de/) at in the poll? Oh, I see. Its 'other'. I like being an 'other'. In most polls, 'other' typically implies < 5%. That seems to sound just about right for me too. Scientists say you only use less than 5 percent of your brain. I do so love you WMI...come give me some vi syntax like sugar...

Ubunted

April 14th, 2005, 01:49 AM

While I am enjoying Ubuntu's GNOME implementation, I still sorta miss my KDE Control Panel.

What I DON'T miss, however, is the clutter and huge icons that form the taskbar in most KDE and GNOME distros.

Stormy Eyes

April 14th, 2005, 02:25 AM

Doesn't anyone here use KDE at all?

Only when somebody's pointing a .45 at my head.

Whiffle

April 14th, 2005, 02:41 AM

yummmm xfce.

ubuntu_demon

April 14th, 2005, 09:13 AM

gnome for desktop (because of HAL,project utopia)
xfce4 for server or lightweight desktop (it's very lightweight, gnome applications look great)

kal_zakath

April 14th, 2005, 09:46 AM

KDE. I used gnome for a long time. I didn't even try KDE all this time because was way too "heav y" the last time I tried it (something like 2 years ago maybe...). I recently went back to KDE with Kubuntu and I am really impressed how it has improved since the last time. I think that, at this time, KDE is more "mature" than gnome.

LeoXV

April 14th, 2005, 12:23 PM

fluxbox

plb

April 14th, 2005, 01:28 PM

I'm more of a minimal person and prefer something like fluxbox or fvwm but between gnome and kde imho I think gnome has a more professional and clean look to it. KDE looks like some sorta japanimation desktop \\:D/

dataw0lf

April 14th, 2005, 02:02 PM

CLI, or xfce4.

poofyhairguy

April 14th, 2005, 08:12 PM

I tried fluxbox the other day. Installed it then logged it to it. It took me to this blank desktop and I thought "man, its taking a while to load." Then I realized that I WAS IN FLUXBOX!!
So I tried clicking and right-clicking and mouse-wheel clicking all over the damn thing looking for something like an applications menu. Or something. I tried putting in my pen drive but nothing happened. I had a clock....and a clock. When I couldn't figure out how to get a menu for my applications I tried to find the menu to logout. Could find nothing. No taskbar, no gui configuration apps, nothing. So I hit backspace-ctrl-alt and promised myself to never try fluxbox again....

One good thing- its minimalism made me appriciate Gnome a lot more. When I got back to my regular Gnome desktop, I almost hugged my computer when I put my pendrive in a USB port and it popped onto the desktop!

XDevHald

April 14th, 2005, 08:14 PM

Enlightenment, FVWM, and XFCE4 are VERY useful and config's are clean to use :)

escuchamezz

April 14th, 2005, 10:13 PM

nautilus

April 15th, 2005, 05:29 PM

Wow, yeah I used Gnome exclusively for years, swore by it even.

Then, I had to build it. Well, the newest version came out, and I didn't want to wait for packages... Oh, the terrible memories.

Besides that, I've been using KDE exclusively since 3.2. The funny part is I used to make jokes about it, but now I fire up Konqueror and wonder if Nautilus will ever render HTML... without crashing?

Or, at least try to render it... Alright, well at least you have Firefox.

And the Gimp, that's a plus, not that it needs Gnome, but it's nice to have a common look on your desktop. I think I'll take a screenshot, I'm having a hard time finding KDE clutter in all this simplicity...

By the way, grouping KDE in with WinXP (page 3)? Excuse me?

Yeah, a clean discussion is always best. At the end of the day, we're all running Ubuntu/Linux, and getting our panties in a bunch over what taskbar we use in X. Come on.

gnutux

April 15th, 2005, 06:46 PM

GO KDE! :p

I love KDE and Kubuntu. I hate GNOME :p

gnutux

geekgod

April 15th, 2005, 07:40 PM

GUI? i need no stinking GUI!
there once was this thing called a shell... wait there still is

BOYCOTt INIT 5 :smile:

escuchamezz

April 16th, 2005, 01:57 AM

Gnome rocks, KDE sucks :-P

muzza

April 16th, 2005, 11:23 AM

I prefer Gnome - probably 'cause of my Mac roots. The brown warty desktop does grow on you! KDE can seem a little 'busy'.

I'd use Gnome exlusively if certain KDE apps worked glitch free in Gnome. (K3b for example) Does anyone know if it works inGnome in Hoary Ubuntu?

I DO like the customisability? (is that a real word?) of KDE. I'd like to know how to make the whole task bar transparent in Gnome like jimmt's (http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=26114) and maddox's, (http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=26114&page=2&pp=10) the whole taskbar, not just the middle bit.

Anyone know if that's possible in Gnome? (hope this isn't construed as hijacking)

joneberger

April 16th, 2005, 05:15 PM

so, i've been a kde fan since day one. there's something about gnome that just seems...odd to me. but i started playing around with lighter desktops on a slower laptop and fell in love with fluxbox. i'm running gnome on ubuntu right now cuz i installed it last night. but i'm probably going to try to fix that soon.

primeirocrime

May 3rd, 2005, 09:50 PM

Gnome here. First a KDE user. SuSE[KDE]Fedora Core 2 and 3 [KDE and then Gnome, XFCE] Ubuntu [Gnome, XFCE]
Gnome prvents me from messing with to much eyecandy, it's well organized and layed out. XFCE is very good with gimp when I use up to much layers, I only have 256mb ram.

rpm

May 4th, 2005, 03:23 PM

I like very much gnome and really dislike Kde

I don't know why but I do

xfce is a great and lighter alternative too !

rpm

TopDog

May 5th, 2005, 10:49 AM

I change from Gnome to KDE to Fluxbox depending on the mood of the day. These days, I'm all about Fluxbox and KDE apps like amaroK.

Spoofhound

May 5th, 2005, 11:04 AM

Tried KDE and GNOME in different distros - just like the "feel" of gnome better. Can't explain it any better than that

rpgcyco

May 5th, 2005, 11:06 AM

My first experience was with KDE, but now I use GNOME. GNOME seems so much snappier in Ubuntu then it does in Fedora Core 3. Perhaps I'm just imagining things, though. :P

- Rpg Cyco

mrbass

May 5th, 2005, 04:17 PM

Hey... KDE and XFCE are even! How about a XFCE-Ubuntu distro? ;-)

If someone doesn't start this up soon...we'll have to come up with a way to make it happen. I'm sure though many gnome libraries will have to be installed because some apps require it. I like XFCE 4.2.1 for it's speed and general CLEAN feeling on my P4 2.4GHz.

kvidell

May 5th, 2005, 04:18 PM

I use Gnome on personal machines and Fluxbox on public terminals :)
- Kev

mrbass

May 11th, 2005, 09:16 PM

wow XFCE is beating KDE in the poll. If that doesn't say something...

Stormy Eyes

May 11th, 2005, 09:39 PM

I use Gnome mainly. I also use XFCE.
I would like to try replacing Metacity with Openbox or something else to see how that would change my Gnome experience.

It's not that difficult. Just a matter of doing "apt-get install openbox obconf" and then hitting ALT+F2 and doing "openbox --replace" at the prompt. That's just to try it out; if you want to permanently replace Metacity, you have the save your current setup when you logout. I've been doing it myself, and might write a howto.

TravisNewman

May 11th, 2005, 09:51 PM

wow XFCE is beating KDE in the poll. If that doesn't say something...
it means that this is a gnome-centric distribution, or was until kubuntu, so the numbers are skewed. I don't care for kde, but that's the most likely reason for its falling behind.

poofyhairguy

May 11th, 2005, 10:44 PM

GO XFCE!!!

I'll use you more the day I find a deb or your new volume manager like thing. ( I found I yoper RPM I plan to alienize tonight)!!

mrbass

May 12th, 2005, 06:49 AM

GO XFCE!!!

I'll use you more the day I find a deb or your new volume manager like thing. ( I found I yoper RPM I plan to alienize tonight)!!

I have XFCE 4.2.1 deb's with all dependecies in my ubuntu addon zip it's 112MB download and easily installable by just pressing ENTER.
http://mrbass.org/linux/ubuntu

poofyhairguy

May 12th, 2005, 07:31 AM

I have XFCE 4.2.1 deb's with all dependecies in my ubuntu addon zip it's 112MB download and easily installable by just pressing ENTER.
http://mrbass.org/linux/ubuntu

Thanks. I actually make a mount-manager deb for XFCE that works, but that program can't TOUCH gnome-volume-manager.

If someone has some web space to spare I can post the deb I made....

xmastree

May 12th, 2005, 10:24 AM

I like Gnome, but I hate Nautilus.

Konqueror is a much better file manager IMO.

TravisNewman

May 12th, 2005, 10:33 AM

konqueror just somehow doesn't feel intuitive. I have more trouble doing common things that I can do easily in Nautilus, XFCE's File Manager XFMM4, ROX, or Windows.

Knome_fan

May 12th, 2005, 10:35 AM

konqueror just somehow doesn't feel intuitive. I have more trouble doing common things that I can do easily in Nautilus, XFCE's File Manager XFMM4, ROX, or Windows.

Out of curiosity, what trouble do you have exactly?

TravisNewman

May 12th, 2005, 10:39 AM

Nothing in particular-- like I said, it just doesn't FEEL intuitive. It's just a matter of people thinking different ways and file managers working different ways-- I don't think like konqueror ;)

xristos

May 12th, 2005, 02:53 PM

Surely there must be a solution out there with the simplicity of GNOME with graphics quality of KDE?

That is exactly what I'm looking for...

xmastree

May 13th, 2005, 05:23 AM

konqueror just somehow doesn't feel intuitive
I like it because it's very similar to... erm... Windows Explorer. There, I said it!

To be specific. Konqueror has a split view, left side shows the tree, right side shows the current directory. I can't find a way to make nautilus do that.

Nautilus opens each directory in a new window, I can't find a way to stop it doing that.

bored2k

May 13th, 2005, 05:35 AM

To stop nautilus from acting spatial, go to its preferences and checkmark on always open browser window.

I voted GNOME long time ago, but now I'm a full time KDE User. It's more robust than gnome in every single way. And IMO Konqueror owns Nautilus. WHy? more powerful. Like xmastree said, it has split view, if you're lazy its a browser. KPDF and gwenview integrates beautifully with it. If your dealing with files. You split views and load a virtual terminal window, and it's like a graphical Midnight COmmander done the right way ;). It can preview my videos in any size I want [Kaffeine integration]. And a lot more stuff I know and a WAY lot more I don't know about.

Plus, KDE has Kompose, wich is one of the best applications I have seen for linux. For ones that don't know, kompose is more or less -not as good- clone of Mac's Expose. And yes I know some GNOME apps do this like Skippy, but they are slow and devour your ram like the penguin (http://www.casualvillain.com/oekakibin/penguin.jpg) on Neverland ranch :-o. Here's my screenshot:
http://img52.echo.cx/img52/6136/snapshot93sz.th.png (http://img52.echo.cx/my.php?image=snapshot93sz.png)

xmastree

May 13th, 2005, 07:12 AM

There's a mention ot 'tree' in the preferences, IIRC something about only showing directories, but I can't find a way to view any tree...

mrbass

May 13th, 2005, 07:04 PM

Thanks. I actually make a mount-manager deb for XFCE that works, but that program can't TOUCH gnome-volume-manager.

If someone has some web space to spare I can post the deb I made....

I'd like to test it out can you PM me or email it to me mrbass gmail

So far gnome-volume-manager is working fine for me while using XFCE4.

crap KDE is now winning by one vote over XFCE4...oh well at least it's pretty popular.

oshi

May 14th, 2005, 12:15 AM

Gnome for me. I've tried KDE severaltiems but it always seems to have problems on my machine. However Gnome works flawlessly on my box. :)

SpEcIeS

May 16th, 2005, 04:50 PM

Ubuntu's Gnome is the best. I really enjoy using a large and fast GUI. :)

Rodrigo

May 17th, 2005, 10:51 PM

I feel like konqueror windows are going to crack if I move them too fast :razz:
and Nautilus spacial view rocks!

kvidell

May 17th, 2005, 10:52 PM

I can't.. unvote and recast my vote can I?
I just switched from Gnome to Openbox :)
- Kev

momo66

May 18th, 2005, 01:49 AM

Ive tried Gnome, KDE, WindowMaker, and XFCE.

Im a very new linux user so I just used these all just a little bit. I liked the simplicity of Gnome install.

KDE using Kubuntu just came with way too many apps. It now has cluttered up my Gnome menus.

I like the themes I could use with Windowmaker and XFCE looks similar to OSX.

momo66

May 18th, 2005, 01:53 AM

I can't.. unvote and recast my vote can I?
I just switched from Gnome to Openbox :)
- Kev

All I want to know is, have you ever left your computer or this site since you've installed Ubuntu. How many posts per day are you averaging. :)

TravisNewman

May 18th, 2005, 01:59 AM

he's only averaging 12 posts a day, that's not bad ;) Someone should look at bored2k's profile and see how much HE'S averaging. That's a big number ;)

bored2k

May 18th, 2005, 02:06 AM

he's only averaging 12 posts a day, that's not bad ;) Someone should look at bored2k's profile and see how much HE'S averaging. That's a big number ;)
:roll:

That's what happens when you lack social life.

lao_V

May 18th, 2005, 11:04 AM

:roll:

That's what happens when you lack social life.

Hey, you're soon gonna have to change your nick to bored3k!!!

Shin Natsume

May 18th, 2005, 01:33 PM

from the experinces i have had thus far, i loathe SuSE and its GNOME, i tried to open up c:\ (i know i know, hda1 or somethin in linux ^^) and it gave me this error "know doesnt know wat program to open this file with" i was staring at the screen in disbalief

but Ubuntu's GNOME seems to be quite snappy ^^

ciao

andlinux21

May 25th, 2005, 06:16 PM

I like XFCE4 but openbox is also nice. Since I am a Ubuntu n00b I have to wait to get use to changing the configurations.

DagaZ

May 25th, 2005, 06:50 PM

I started out using Linux a long time ago.. the first two years or so I didn't bother to use X. At first I used KDE, but nowadays I use Gnome. The only thing that I don't like about Gnome is, that when you use it in an environment at a school or work. setting profiles and stuff for groups of users are a lot harder. At work we run Suse 9.2 and we use Kiosktool to shut off certain apps. We will transfer the entire system to Ubuntu Hoary this summer.

Kyral

May 25th, 2005, 09:20 PM

GNOME, although I would use XFCE4 if I could find out how to migrate my GNOME Theme into it (its in the Art Gallery if you are interested) and if I could find some good Desklets

cutOff

May 26th, 2005, 09:46 AM

GNOME, although I would use XFCE4 if I could find out how to migrate my GNOME Theme into it (its in the Art Gallery if you are interested) and if I could find some good Desklets
i think it's not possible to use Gnome themes on XFCE. It comes with own themes although.

jonrkc

May 27th, 2005, 11:56 PM

I'm hoping these polls could be used by the developers so that they can get an objective feedback on user experience which should hopefully help them improve the software even more.

A lot of time, if you ask people to provide a feedback in free text form, they would think twice but if was put in an interesting way in a poll then they would provide it without any hesitation.

Am I wrong?
You are quite right. The downside to polls, though, is that many of them are either loaded to elicit a desired answer, or provide not enough alternatives, making them useless for persons who don't quite fit any of the categories. Imaginary example of the latter: I think filibustering in Congress should be (1) encouraged; (2) outlawed. People who think filibustering should be used with great restraint and as a last resort are left out in the cold! Newspapers are GREAT at offering this kind of lame poll.

But your poll here is a good one, because it mentions all the most popular environments and window managers, AND allows multiple selections--which is crucial. And the "other" category is something that ought to be included in virtually all polls.

I do hope this helps developers.

jonrkc

May 28th, 2005, 12:05 AM

I started using Linux in January 2003, when I swore as I do to this day that I will toss out my computer before I will use a Microsoft product again.

I almost always use IceWM, which I discovered early on and, for me, strikes a nice balance between the minimalism of Blackbox and Fluxbox (both of which I occasionally still enjoy using) and the turbo-charged, razzamatazz atmosphere of KDE. I was appalled at the slowness of KDE when I first tried it, but the most recent version whizzes along for me (and I only have a 355Mz Pentium III). I think the version right before this one had a nicer look to its menus, but I am enjoying KDE very much now, only for actually USING my computer I still find IceWM gets in my way less. And Ice has hundreds of themes, some of them actually pretty! ;)

I am more impressed with the latest XFCE than I was with the earlier version I tried. I could use XFCE comfortably, only it's a little too Gnome-like for my taste. Gnome environment just doesn't appeal to me and never has. I find it awkward and not good-looking.

I really liked Sawfish and am sorry it's almost defunct.

I tried Enlightenment probably a dozen times and couldn't stand it at all. My machine isn't fast enough, for one thing.

I found Afterstep hopelessly confusing and prone to crashing, at least the way I had it installed. A pity, because it's very customizable, as is, of course, FVWM, which I've tried bravely four or five times and given up on because it would take a lifetime to master how to configure it. I admire anybody who can do magic with FVWM. All I could do was get it to crash real predictably.

Sometimes just for fun I invoke TWM. It's really kind of fun.

And that about sums up my experience and preferences.

Oh, yeah...I almost forgot to mention my adventures with MWM. If you haven't tried that one, do so and see if your experience is like mine: I felt that my computer had become some kind of runaway alien device I had no control over. Really strange window handling, quite an unsettling experience.

Ashtray

May 28th, 2005, 12:09 AM

Gnome, but i like the superkaramba(python) things on kde. I kinda miss that in gnome !!!

Ironi

May 28th, 2005, 12:36 AM

apt-get install gdesklets (http://gdesklets.gnomedesktop.org/)

The latest (0.35) isn't yet available from the repos, though.

Optimal Aurora

May 28th, 2005, 01:56 AM

My instructor that introduced me to Fedora Linux had me learn to use KDE, but in all honesty, I rather use GNOME. Although, I do like to experiment with others like Enlightment.

SpEcIeS

May 28th, 2005, 05:18 AM

Enlightenment is a very nice gui. :)

rdsmith1

May 29th, 2005, 09:28 PM

Used KDE until a few months ago the latest version of gnome is far superior. I still prefer kontact though

ecadre

July 8th, 2005, 01:34 PM

I prefer Gnome. Simple, yet elegant and very customizable. I simply don't get why KDE is so popular when there are so many better alternatives.

XFCE and Fluxbox looks nice, but I have used them.

Well, you'll have to get used to us KDE users on these forums now that Kubuntu has come out.

Your comment is a bit silly (and rather disrespectful) since we all know that the choice of desktop environments in the end is personal. I like KDE for all sorts of reasons and it is the what I use, full stop. I'm not going to force you to use it and in the world of free vs proprietary software we are on the same side.

WirelessMike

July 8th, 2005, 02:44 PM

I really love how KDE looks, and I like one of the KDE apps, particularly, known as KATE... BUT I started on gnome and feel so comfortable in gnome I'd be hard-pressed to switch at this point. I find gnome to be HIGHLY configurable, pretty intuitive and extremely attractive-- Everything you should expect from a GUI.

Definitely a "Gnome" man... for now

gabbman

July 8th, 2005, 02:51 PM

My vote went for KDE this time.

I've spent my entire Linux life since the mid 90's in kde so that's what I'm familiar with.

I like the simplicity of ubuntu, and I'm getting better at tweaking out the gnome look.
I just think stock gnome is butt ugly and out of date

Maybe breezy will have me change my mind, but for now my comfort level is stll in kde.

Lord Illidan

July 8th, 2005, 03:15 PM

I hate using normal Ubuntu because of Gnome...I feel extremely comfortable with KDE...It feels more modern...Gnome looks very outdated...but less cluttered, true.

SpEcIeS

July 8th, 2005, 03:19 PM

I'm not going to force you to use it and in the world of free vs proprietary software we are on the same side.
Now that was well put. ;-)

CoriolisSTORM

July 8th, 2005, 03:46 PM

I prefer KDE because I just like the (I believe it was referred to as) "plastic" look. Plus, the Baghira theme can't be beat. I just made the switch, and like KDE a whole lot better than Gnome even though I have it installed.

SpEcIeS

July 8th, 2005, 04:11 PM

Currently I am using Gnome, and love it. When using SuSE 9.2 I could not use the latest Gnome, and the 2.6, which they offered, was so very buggy. Compiling Gnome, via garnome, simply was not working with SuSE 9.2, firefox issues.

Gnome 2.10.1 is a really nice GUI, and I am looking forwared to using 2.11.

When it comes right down to it, all of the GUI's are nice, and people have put some quality time in to get them up and running. In the past, I was a KDE user, for a number of years, but I wanted the smooth nature of Gnome at my finger tips. This not to say that KDE is not smooth, but the GTK engines are great with graphics.

Naturally if the the two large GUI's did not cross desktops I would have both on my system. :-P

Upon saying all of this, I believe that it is a good idea to have a secondary GUI, one less demanding, just in case the main drops. I use fluxbox and simple adore it. (Perhaps I do not get out enough) Also, my system does not boot into a display manager; this saves me some memory and if a large problem happens, then terminal is the best to deal with such issues. Nothing beats the terminal. :)

t2kburl

July 15th, 2005, 07:09 AM

I was surprised when I cast my vote to see that XFCE has more votes than KDE !!!

What is it that I don't know about KDE that makes it so unpopular?

aysiu

July 15th, 2005, 07:17 AM

psychicdragon

July 15th, 2005, 07:30 AM

Xfce represent.

I do like the Gnome desktop but most of the helper apps and stuff for me are pretty much useless. Xfce looks good like Gnome but is way lighter.

I've tried KDE a couple of times but could never get it to look nice, most of the UI is too cluttered for my taste.

super

July 15th, 2005, 07:24 PM

KDE and XFCE neck and neck! Who'd of thunked!

i thew mine in with FVWM.

A think i use GNOME the most but my favorite was between Enlightenment and FVWM. Since a just finished designing my brand spanking new FVWM desktop complete with thumbnails in engage (!!!) then it got my vote.

t2kburl

July 16th, 2005, 02:24 AM

It's slow. Gnome's a bit more lightweight, and XFCE even lighter.
I tried IceWM on a pentium 133 with 64M RAM and it couldn't handle it.
If I had a day to kill, maybe I'd give it a shot with XFCE, but I don't think it could handle that either. That box is going back to the "batcave" (our name for our PC/Electronics recycling storage/staging area)

I have p2 333 box to play with ... maybe I'll give it a go in there

My personal system (2.6 G p4 - 1G RAM) handles KDE with no difficulty at all. It uses less of my resources than XP.
KDE also runs fin on a 733Mhz p3 box I built

I like the idea of having a lightweight alternative that is equally functional. It is something M$ will never offer. It would be more useful if gaming were more usable in Linux :(

wellery

July 16th, 2005, 02:59 AM

gnome. I also use the default theme for ubuntu. At first I didn't like it and changed it. But something recently went wrong with ubuntu and I didn't know how to fix it properly or was too impatient so I reinstalled the os. Now after using the default theme for a while I really like it.

ecadre

July 16th, 2005, 11:29 AM

I was surprised when I cast my vote to see that XFCE has more votes than KDE !!!

What is it that I don't know about KDE that makes it so unpopular?

It's slow. Gnome's a bit more lightweight, and XFCE even lighter.

KDE and XFCE neck and neck! Who'd of thunked!

i thew mine in with FVWM.

A think i use GNOME the most but my favorite was between Enlightenment and FVWM. Since a just finished designing my brand spanking new FVWM desktop complete with thumbnails in engage (!!!) then it got my vote.

Here's an idea, try going to a Mandrake or Suse forum and ask the same question. Golly, you'll get LOADS of KDE users, and hardly any (virtually none) Gnome. What a surprise.

You're on the Ubuntu forum, widely known as a Gnome based distro. Sure, Kubuntu is now on the scene, but it's very new and not very well known. You can get sent Unbuntu disks, but not Kubuntu.

Trying to use this poll to make some point about the relative popularity of different desktops in the Linux world is, well, just plain daft.

As I mentioned in a previous post, we're not in competition with each other. Gnome, KDE, xfce etc etc, are all valid choices and people have their own reasons for choosing a particular free desktop. The developers even cooperate (see http://freedesktop.org), so why this uninformed and uninformative sniping?

darkmatter

July 16th, 2005, 01:34 PM

I started of as a Troll (KDE=QT='Troll'tech), then, by some imperceivable force, was transformed into a gnome.:roll:

Now, following deep meanderings through the many realms of digital consciousness, I find myself touched by the hand of Enlightenment. ;-)

JPatrick

July 16th, 2005, 01:56 PM

I've only used KDE...

Stormy Eyes

July 16th, 2005, 03:25 PM

I use Pandora's window manager: Openbox.

viza

July 18th, 2005, 10:48 PM

you gnome users should give fluxbox a try. It's not intrusive so you can switch back if you like... It's pretty swank.

l8,
viza

DarthBagel

July 18th, 2005, 11:10 PM

Definately Gnome, though I have used KDE and fluxbox in the past.

Copter

July 29th, 2005, 09:38 PM

its quite simple with me. Gnome for me was the rason to hate linux in the past. KDE was the reason to quit WXp :)

copter :]

Jason-X

July 29th, 2005, 11:19 PM

I've just switched from Gnome to Openbox.

I'm quite liking the minimalist look to it and the speed :)

bearbigears

July 30th, 2005, 05:40 AM

gnome all the way \\:D/

dmsynck

August 8th, 2005, 03:53 AM

Started off with KDE, then went to Gnome, and now using XFCE4.2.1
Tastes great, less filling.

npaladin2000

August 8th, 2005, 05:48 AM

You know, it's amazing. XFCE is about as popular as KDE. :)

Sushi

August 8th, 2005, 03:16 PM

I prefer Gnome. Simple, yet elegant and very customizable. I simply don't get why KDE is so popular when there are so many better alternatives.

Many people wonder why Gnome is so popular, when there are so many better alternatives ;)?

Seriously, KDE does have many things going for it. Historically, it was the project that started the desktop-revolution on Linux/unix. And it does have many things that are simply not there in Gnome:

- Kparts. Embed just about anything in to anything. For example, the file-dialog in KDE can embed kmplayer and play videos right in the dialog

- KIO-slaves. I really, REALLY love "fish://" in KDE.

One shouldn't really diss KDE. WE all have personal preferences, and while Gnome has some strong point when compared to KDE, KDE has strong points as well. Some people prefer different things. Gnome is not objectively speaking "better" than KDE. It's different. And KDE is not "better" than Gnome.

Sushi

August 8th, 2005, 03:26 PM

It's slow. Gnome's a bit more lightweight, and XFCE even lighter.

I beg to differ. On my machine both Gnome and KDE are about as fast. Gnome might load second or two faster, but that's about it, once running they are about as fast. KDE ran snappy on my old 800Mhz Duron with 256MB of RAM.

drizek

August 8th, 2005, 09:26 PM

I beg to differ. On my machine both Gnome and KDE are about as fast. Gnome might load second or two faster, but that's about it, once running they are about as fast. KDE ran snappy on my old 800Mhz Duron with 256MB of RAM.
kde 3.3 was kinda slow, but i find kde 3.4 to be as fast if not faster than gnome. the performance improvements will only continute in kde 3.5.

KDE has gnome beat in customization, usability and features. amarok alone is enough to keep me using kde over gnome. the integration between konqueror and a lot of the kde apps is great as well. for example, amarok has a konq sidebar module that lets you control amarok from within konqueror. and kpdf/koffice all come with konqueror plugins. image viewers can embed into konqueror so that you dont need to open up a seperate app for them.

i find kcontrol to be much more usefull and easy to use than the different config windows in gnome. kde just feels more robust and powerfull.

For style and performance, id say its a tie. both gnome and kde can be made to look really nice, and they both perform at about the same speed. i have kde running on a 1ghz p3 with less than 192mb ram(it has integrated video, but im not sure exactly how much ram i gave it) and it runs great. Faster than both windows ME and XP, and a million times more stable and usable.

Reb

August 9th, 2005, 04:41 AM

You know, it's amazing. XFCE is about as popular as KDE. :)That's surprising on a forum for a GNOME-oriented distribution!

dmsynck

January 1st, 2006, 10:13 PM

I have been using Gnome for quite a while now because the times in the past that I had tried KDE (mainly Suse and Redhat/Fedora), it seemed very slow. Now I am using Ubuntu 5.10 with the Kubuntu desktop and I am surprised at how speedy it is compared to past versions of KDE. I think I may just drop Gnome for good this time.

erikpiper

January 1st, 2006, 10:35 PM

Gnome, with a composite window manager, and a grey/silver theme, with a light, good looking, and unobtrusive backround. :P

Enlightened XFCE is pretty cool...

And I use windowmaker on my laptop.

mstlyevil

January 1st, 2006, 10:55 PM

KDE because it is not over simplfied like some parts of Gnome. Also, I like eye candy and KDE is much better in that department than Gnome. I have no problem customizing my desktop because I hate the default look of both KDE and Gnome anyhoo. I cannot comment on other DE's but I think I will try XFCE in the near future.

bonzodog

January 2nd, 2006, 12:39 AM

Call me sadistic, but ever since i started on linux, I have used WindowMaker,and I started my linux curve in slackware. WindowMaker really has something about it. I've had slackware on my computers from '99 until october 2005. I switched to ubuntu for 64 bit.

fuscia

January 2nd, 2006, 01:16 AM

i used gnome for a while and still do sometimes, but i have an old machine and it's just too sluggish for me to use for very long. i like xfce and i've tried a whole bunch of other window managers. right now, i'm really liking openbox (by itself) a whole lot. KDE reminds me of fake breasts. at first, you're thinking "WOO-HOO! look at this!" and then twenty minutes later - meh.

sapo

January 2nd, 2006, 01:21 AM

wow.. xfce is almost catching up with KDE O_O

vayu

January 2nd, 2006, 07:42 AM

I started with Gnome from XP and have lately been using Xfce. I've just recently been experimenting with KDE. I don't know how people are finding Gnome faster. For me Gnome is slower and the windowing is clunky. I like it though. Because I can set the fonts to 120 dpi in Gnome I've been using that the most on my laptop.

I've been really liking Xfce and using it the most. The compositor works really well for me without any crashing and only one infrequent and minor bug which I can't say for either Gnome or KDE. I need to dial in the file manager, I've been bouncing between xffm, xfe and rox filer and haven't been happy with any of them. Nautilus is only ok usabilty-wise and it's slow. I have to get the file associations set up, I really have to get the menus in control. I like it because GIMP, Synaptic and other apps I seem to use a lot look right in it. I really don't like mixing GTK and qt apps at all.

I have been liking KDE, it seems much more polished, very fast and offers a flexible and complete interface. I really like Konquerer and Kontact, I just wish the separation between file managing and web browsing was a little more distinct. I can't seem to open a web page when starting Konquerer. The compositing has the best features! I love the transparent unfocused windows. Unfortunately like xcompmgr I leave it off most of the time although it is less buggy than xcompmgr for me. It's almost there. The biggest drawback to me is that it doesn't use the same libraries as Gnome and Xfce.

I keep bouncing back and forth between all three on two computers. I just can't decide. I really do wish they all used the same library, so I could feel comfortable using all the apps in all the DEs.

Buffalo Soldier

January 10th, 2006, 02:58 AM

I would love to try KDE if there's a brown/Human theme for it ;)

mstlyevil

January 10th, 2006, 03:44 AM

I would love to try KDE if there's a brown/Human theme for it ;)

You could always make one. ;)

gravediggers

January 10th, 2006, 03:59 AM

Hey! I was going to go Kubuntu on my next install. Now all you prophets of doom are scaring me away from KDE!!

Dr. Nick

January 10th, 2006, 05:17 AM

weird I have never seen a pole that allowed you to see who voted for what.

mstlyevil

January 10th, 2006, 05:25 AM

Hey! I was going to go Kubuntu on my next install. Now all you prophets of doom are scaring me away from KDE!!

Kubuntu is great don't let em scare you. (A lot of the bloat was removed by the developers in Kubuntu.)

drizek

January 10th, 2006, 05:30 AM

Hey! I was going to go Kubuntu on my next install. Now all you prophets of doom are scaring me away from KDE!!

no nevermind them. ubuntu was originally a gnome distro so youll have a bunch of gnomies over here. kde still kicks ass and will continue to do so, especially once dapper and KDE 4 are released.

and another thing, i think we should reset the poll every month or so to see changes. having such a dynamic poll here for several months isnt a very good idea.

neoflight

January 10th, 2006, 05:39 AM

I am a http://www.ubuntuforums.org/images/smilies/eusa_dance.gif GNOME

i use GNOME....i felt KDE as as chicflick....;) too much color...
no pink though....

ThomasAdam

February 22nd, 2006, 11:22 PM

Ah, another "me too" thread. I use FVWM.

Thomas Adam.

direwolf

February 22nd, 2006, 11:43 PM

I prefer Gnome but use XFCE ~75% of the time to save on resources. I like the cleaner, sparser look of Gnome out of the box as compared to KDE out of the box. Yeah, the file save dialogs suck but ....

Though, I hear Gnome in general has gone far in reducing resource usage and that Dapper has a much smaller memory footprint in general. Perhaps I'll be able to use Gnome a larger percentage of time after the release of Dapper.

mnasimh

March 2nd, 2006, 12:23 PM

I'm just die hard fan of Enlightenment. But waiting too long for E17. I wish I could see the release before I die ;) though I'm using E16 & unstable E17. I also like the Gnome & KDE war, this competetion brings more usability & eye-candy to the desktop. Long live OSS.

roachk71

March 4th, 2006, 08:04 PM

For now, GNOME.

I like XFCE's speed and KDE's eyecandy, but GNOME gives the Ubuntu user less hassle:

KDE, as far as I can tell, just isn't rock-solid in its Ubuntu integration. Once I've installed the Kubuntu-desktop and associated files and customized for GTK+ themes, I can use neither GNOME nor XFCE any more (the GNOME panel keeps crashing and reloading, menus are unavailable, and XFCE simply won't start), and
XFCE's options practically have to be reinvented by the user after installation. Many apps don't show up in the menus at all, and if you download new icon themes, most of them require file manager re-association. This alone is very tedious.
I really do like Enlightenment, but its widget engines (at least on these computers) are too CPU-intensive, and I'm on a fixed income, which means I can't afford new graphics processors every six months.And as for my notebook, I'm pretty much stuck with its IGP340M.

So, at least for now, GNOME's more than good enough.

fuscia

March 4th, 2006, 08:20 PM

just installed fluxbox 0.9.14, with the --disable-xmb option (no waiting), and i'm liking it a lot.

screenshot: http://ubuntuforums.org/gallery/files/2/4/7/6/3/hueyflux.jpg

Lovechild

March 4th, 2006, 08:25 PM

I'm a big GNOME fanboy, it's the most elegant desktop we have - not that it's perfect

K.Mandla

March 4th, 2006, 08:34 PM

I'm a reluctant Gnome user, although I have been known to follow poofy's Knome guide for a better look. I like the doo-dads the KDE users get, but I had such a rotten experience with KDE years ago when I tried to work with Red Hat, and it's left a bitter taste. I can't even stand that dragon logo. Sorry.

I also like XFCE, but for some reason the Breezy version gets on my nerves. The Dapper version is much more appealing, but I have some stability issues with Dapper that keep me from jumping in with both feet.

I've tried Enlightenment, but didn't really find it all that whiz-bang wonderful. Fluxbox has its place, but I've never really gotten into the guts of it. I couldn't customize the way I wanted, and as I have seen elsewhere in the forums, the first 45 minutes with a new desktop (and OS) are make-or-break for a new user.

So there it is. :)

chimera

March 4th, 2006, 09:00 PM

Currently, I have Gnome, KDE, fluxbox and XFCE installed. I mostly use gnome, I'm kinda used to it since I've been using it thewhole time before I found out about the others :P

ComplexNumber

March 4th, 2006, 09:01 PM

i voted for gnome. in the past, i have had kde installed for a longer time than i've had gnome installed, but that was mostly due to ignorance on my part. i always found my experience with kde to be somewhat 'hollow'. i don't know if this is the right word to use, but what i'm trying to say is that there was always something disconcerting about kde in its appearence and the overall feel of it. i did eventually identify just what it was about kde's appearence and feel that i found unsettling - its the clutter(buttons here, bevels there, everything is a mess and too overcrowded), the brightness/colourfulness of everything is just too much and is VERY distracting, and the awful marshmellow appearence of the default crystal icons. gnome gives me that warm feeling when i use it that inidicates that i feel more at home using it. its more configurable than gnome when viewed from a superficial level, but i slowly came to realise that the only reason why i saw the high level of configuration with kde as being a good thing is because the options to tweak everything was there. it wasn't that i needed to tweak everything, so it seems like 99% of the configuration options is just useless bloat that any DE could do without. i didn't need to configure everything...i was just doing so because the option was there. when i used gnome, i didn't/don't miss it. i also feel that the default kde is a total mess and the sheer level of configuration possible with kde is simply provided to undo the mess because its badly designed to begin with. the reasons why i voted for gnome are:
-i prefer the whole appearence. it looks professional and easy on the eye.
-most of the applications that i use are gtk based. i think that the gnome names of applications have some character about them. i'm so glad that the gnome developers haven't taken the silly route of starting all the applications with the letter 'g'. i find kde's incessant use of k to be very offputting.
-i like the simplicity to gnome (ie it has simplicity where its needed and not where its unnecessary)
-gnome is well designed, snappy, and responsive
-i prefer the granular approach to gnome (having lots of small specialist
applications rather than 1 big application that crashes all the time, does everything but not as well as it could do, and isn't as easy to use (eg amorak, k3b, vi, emacs, etc))
-i don't like being stuck with only C++ to program in. gnome gives me a range of languages to program in. also, it gives me a warm feeling to develop an attractive looking application that only gtk can provide.
-gnome allows me to install only those applications that i want to install, and doesn't force me to have 300 text editors (etc) that i dont want.

jpkotta

March 4th, 2006, 09:06 PM

FVWM. In the past, I've used Enlightenment (very pretty), IceWM (very functional), KDE (slow, at least it was about 2 years ago). I've never cared for GNOME, other than the fact that it's a bit easier to use GNOME apps when not running GNOME.

FVWM is so configurable. Probably the most configurable WM around. About a year ago, I decided to develop a GUI environment that was as efficient as possible (ignoring the fact that the time spent creating it would negate any gains many times over...). I looked around, found that FVWM was a way to do this, and I've been hooked ever since. I wish other WMs heeded Fitts's Law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitts'_Law) and used a keyboard to it's full potential.

e2k

March 4th, 2006, 09:33 PM

My alltime favourites would probably be enlightenment and fluxbox.. At the moment I'm on KDE, which is also quite nice. :) I try to avoid GNOME, just hasn't done the trick for me yet, don't know why.. :-k

eriqk

March 4th, 2006, 09:43 PM

I'm getting more and more into the boxes right now. I've installed Fluxbox on my laptop, and I liked it so much I installed BBLean on my Windows box.

Groet, Erik

fuscia

March 4th, 2006, 10:07 PM

I try to avoid GNOME, just hasn't done the trick for me yet, don't know why.. :-k

i can't stand that stupid foot.

byen

March 4th, 2006, 10:20 PM

i can't stand that stupid foot.
Never have I seen anyone refer to Gnome that way! LOL. As for myself... I guess I have to say Im all Gnome at the moment! Simple enough yet very functional to my needs!

ComplexNumber

March 4th, 2006, 10:26 PM

i can't stand that stupid foot.
lol does it really matter? ;)

chemaja

March 20th, 2006, 02:50 PM

kde 3.3 was kinda slow, but i find kde 3.4 to be as fast if not faster than gnome. the performance improvements will only continute in kde 3.5.

Agreed. I recently installed Dapper for the newly-released Gnome 2.14, but switched to KDE after a day or two (kdebase, kdm and x-window-system-core packages, +amarok, +konversation, +kaffeine for now).

I switched because I wanted a more responsive desktop, and I got one -- KDE 3.5.1 is substantially faster than Gnome 2.14 on my rig (P3 600MHz, 256MB PC133 RAM).

In addition to a more responsive desktop, I also got a more consistent, flexible and usable one. I'm well pleased. It's not perfect, but KDE (>= 3.4) is the best GUI I've used.

KDE because it is not over simplfied like some parts of Gnome.

Yes, this is also a major problem for me, too. I feel somewhat restricted in Gnome; things that I expect to be there, aren't. IME, this happens rarely in KDE, but reasonably often in Gnome.

Despite my preference for KDE, I do love the "atmosphere" of Gnome (GNOME Platform and non-official Gnome apps more so than GNOME Desktop itself), and will continue to give it a decent test run on each major release (ie. 2.12, 2.14).

Zom

March 22nd, 2006, 10:45 AM

I used to be stuck with fluxbox, but since I upgraded to Dapper, fluxbox crashes X for some reason. So, I was forced to move to another WM. At first i tried XFCE. It's really nice, and I like it a lot more than Gnome. Then I tried FVWM, and that's a really great WM. It's fast and, well, maybe not simple to configure, but it's not really hard.

Ptero-4

March 23rd, 2006, 05:08 AM

I chose XFCE and the "Other" option.
I use Xfce in my Xubuntu partition. But my primary desktop is Aqua. Wonder why it isn't listed in the poll.

Lanrond

April 21st, 2006, 02:48 PM

Gnome for me.
I tried fvwm in the distant past (but not with Ubuntu) and kinda liked it, but now I think it's waaay outdated.
I also tried xfce, it's fast, but it doesn't intrigues me.
Can't stand kde look&feel. :)
Maybe I'll try something else in the future...

BLH

April 23rd, 2006, 11:59 PM

Running Gnome on both Ubuntu and Gentoo.. Not a big fan of KDE, but I have found a few KDE programs that I like. Would like to try other WM at some point. But as of now Gnome is getting the job done!

Golden Warrior

April 24th, 2006, 12:57 AM

I used to be a KDE fan through and through, but as of late KDE's direction seems to be taking too much of a route to making it too "Windows Like while out doing Windows in every way possible" kind of feel if you will.

Meanwhile GNOME's interface is much more intuitive and a lot less cluttered.

I also like to use Windowmaker and Enlightenment when I'm going for the absolute robustness at the expense of user friendliness.

basketcase

April 24th, 2006, 01:19 AM

When I was using Mandrake back in the day, had always used KDE, and never liked Gnome. After having used Ubuntu I like Gnome better than KDE and rarely use it.

I downloaded the most recent version of Xubuntu Live CD with all the hype about XFCE...Can't say it doesn't anything for me, there were actually a few things that I DID NOT like about it at all and have no desire to boot Xubuntu back up (specifically network configuration utilities -- is there such a thing?)

aysiu

April 24th, 2006, 01:25 AM

Xubuntu's mainly for older computers that cannot handle Gnome or KDE as well.

basketcase

April 24th, 2006, 01:28 AM

Xubuntu's mainly for older computers that cannot handle Gnome or KDE as well.

So I guess with My Pentium M 1.6ghz or AMD 3500+ it is pointless?

aysiu

April 24th, 2006, 01:41 AM

So I guess with My Pentium M 1.6ghz or AMD 3500+ it is pointless? Yeah, pretty much, except just for fun. The other day I was playing around IceWM, and pretty soon afterwards I realized that some of the frills of a desktop environment are things I actually want (automounting... uh, having a file manager, a trash can...).

I think even if you have over 1.0 GHz processor and 256 MB or higher of RAM you should be using Gnome or KDE.

basketcase

April 24th, 2006, 01:45 AM

Yeah, pretty much, except just for fun. The other day I was playing around IceWM, and pretty soon afterwards I realized that some of the frills of a desktop environment are things I actually want (automounting... uh, having a file manager, a trash can...).

I think even if you have over 1.0 GHz processor and 256 MB or higher of RAM you should be using Gnome or KDE.
Yeah...I have to agree with the just having fun part. I like to download all the live CD's and see who has done what.

My most favorite right now has to be Vector Linux.

NetInsanity

April 24th, 2006, 06:50 AM

TWM

If KDE isn't installed i'd rather use TWM than Gnome.

Fluxbox is ridiculously bloated in comparison and twice as hard to use but at least it makes people feel like they are cool.

rustybutt

May 3rd, 2006, 06:58 AM

I'm a windowmaker guy. it's not only fast, but has the most useful virtual window facility of any desktop I've ever seen. You can drag your application windows from one virtual desktop to another, which is more than cool.

If you haven't tried it, you owe to yourself to give it a spin for a week or two. As with everything else Ubuntu, you just select it out of the Synaptic installer and hit <apply>.

Back in the Bad Old Days when I ran Fedora, installing windowmaker was a real challenge, but was worth it. Ubuntu almost makes it too easy!

briancurtin

May 3rd, 2006, 07:25 AM

I'm a windowmaker guy. it's not only fast, but has the most useful virtual window facility of any desktop I've ever seen. You can drag your application windows from one virtual desktop to another, which is more than cool.

If you haven't tried it, you owe to yourself to give it a spin for a week or two. As with everything else Ubuntu, you just select it out of the Synaptic installer and hit <apply>.
yeah i like windowmaker here and there but havent made it my #1, i still like gnome these days. i used OpenStep back a long while ago, which is where the whole thing came from so i like being able to say that :)

also, the dragging of windows from one desktop to another is very cool in XGL. you can do it by clicking, or through keyboard shortcuts. i love it.

TheCaptain

May 3rd, 2006, 07:29 AM

dmacdonald111

May 3rd, 2006, 10:40 AM

Anyone will think I've been living in some sort of four-sided, symmetrical, hollow container, but apart from gnome, kde & xfce, I haven't even heard of the others! Do all of the others have websites? Might take a look.

asimon

May 3rd, 2006, 12:12 PM

Do all of the others have websites?
Sure (http://xwinman.org/).

darkwarrior0404

May 3rd, 2006, 12:21 PM

I like GNOME, and KDE, as far as speed, GNOME I'm all for, but for looks and just general surfin web n stuff I use KDE, little buggy sometimes though, but hey, nothing is perfect ;)

fuscia

May 3rd, 2006, 02:21 PM

Yeah, pretty much, except just for fun. The other day I was playing around IceWM, and pretty soon afterwards I realized that some of the frills of a desktop environment are things I actually want (automounting... uh, having a file manager, a trash can...).

I think even if you have over 1.0 GHz processor and 256 MB or higher of RAM you should be using Gnome or KDE.

it depends on what you're doing and how you like things. when using gnome, or kde, i miss the right-click menu and scrollable workspaces of openbox. i can use nautilus in in openbox if i want a file manager, or to automount my camera. i also find obmenu the easiest menu editor of all the ones i've used.

dmacdonald111

May 3rd, 2006, 02:25 PM

Sure (http://xwinman.org/).

Cool. Thanks! Didn't know there were so many. :D Too many choices! ](*,)

ComplexNumber

May 3rd, 2006, 02:29 PM

KDE, i can run Gnome or whatever if i need to but i do miss the options i have in KDE, i think that if most people running Gnome were actually aware of all the options they are missing they would be pissed at the Gnome devs, i used to use Gnome, but was shown what i was missing, so KDE for now, it may change as both develop though, i'm no WM ***** per se. no, i'm thankful to the gnome devs. i used to use kde all the time for years. eventually, i came to realise that all those options are no advantage and are unecessary. in fact, they eventually became a disadvantage just getting in the way. its like having had one's main meal then walking into a room full of angel delight, chocolate gateau, and other delicious food. the only reason why i was loving all those extra options in kde was because they were there. similarly, the only reason why i would be eating all that chocolate gateau etc is because it was there on offer. in both cases, the extras are unecessary.
the point of this is not to slate KDE, but to show that the extra options available are not necessary for everyone, nor are they even remotely central in terms of importance.

Sushi

May 3rd, 2006, 02:43 PM

The UI is cleaner, it's less cluttered, less menu options that can throw you, and it just looks more Mac like

Panel on top of the screen does not make UI "Mac like".

I used KDE before, but I decided to use GNOME for a while. I haven't voted, since I like them both. Each have their strong and weak points.

Sushi

May 3rd, 2006, 02:47 PM

Why wouldn't you want to see all the apps you had installed and available for use? It wasn't too long ago when the common complaint was that with Gnome and KDE, you only got to see the KDE specific or Gnome specific apps.

I actually had the same problem. I had both GNOME and KDE installed. And I wanted to use KDE-apps in KDE and GNOME-apps in GNOME. So I had installed both KDE and GNOME-apps that did the same thing. End result? App-menu that was cluttered with apps. I didn't want to see those KDE-apps in GNOME and vice versa. Yet they were there.

Sushi

May 3rd, 2006, 02:51 PM

I like it because it's very similar to... erm... Windows Explorer. There, I said it!

To be specific. Konqueror has a split view, left side shows the tree, right side shows the current directory. I can't find a way to make nautilus do that.

Huh? Nautilus on my machine has similar setup by default! Well, the default thingy in the panel on the left was "Places", but "Tree" was available right below it.

fuscia

May 3rd, 2006, 03:20 PM

I actually had the same problem. I had both GNOME and KDE installed. And I wanted to use KDE-apps in KDE and GNOME-apps in GNOME. So I had installed both KDE and GNOME-apps that did the same thing. End result? App-menu that was cluttered with apps. I didn't want to see those KDE-apps in GNOME and vice versa. Yet they were there.

another reason i like obmenu: lots of info, no clutter...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v342/unknownentity/appmenu.jpg

christhemonkey

May 3rd, 2006, 03:31 PM

I have varying mood swings, spend most of my life on GNOME
But then wanted uber-minimal looks, so went with aewm++ for a while (other section lol)
But needed a little more than that, so went with Xfce, which i have to say i didnt like at all. I really wanted to, but didnt.
So im back with GNOME for now.

aysiu

May 3rd, 2006, 04:40 PM

Panel on top of the screen does not make UI "Mac like". Especially because there's also a panel on the bottom (does that panel on the bottom then make Gnome more "Windows-like"?) and KDE can have a true Mac-like top bar that has the program's menu inside of it--Gnome cannot.

That said, KDE's Baghira isn't well-integrated, but some of the Gnome Aqua themes look pretty smooth.

asimon

May 3rd, 2006, 05:51 PM

the point of this is not to slate KDE, but to show that the extra options available are not necessary for everyone, nor are they even remotely central in terms of importance.
The option to print in 'draft' mode is for example is central in terms of importance if you have to or want to print something in draft mode. Yet, it's just not available in Gnome's print dialogs. I can go on with this very long list of missing functionality in Gnome. What is central in terms of importance varies very much from person to person and from task to task.

So I had installed both KDE and GNOME-apps that did the same thing. End result? App-menu that was cluttered with apps. I didn't want to see those KDE-apps in GNOME and vice versa. Yet they were there.
OTOH appart from some things like printing queue viewer or control center, etc. for which every desktop has it's own version I want to see apps always in the menu, no matter from what environment they are. Even when under GNOME I use kontact instead of thunderbird or evolution. And why shouldn't I be able to easily start my fovourite gnome apps via KDE's application menu? Generally speaking if I install 50 apps doing the same thing I want all those 50 apps to appear in the menu.

But what I would like is having a unified menu with the same structure under every desktop environment.

ComplexNumber

May 3rd, 2006, 05:58 PM

The option to print in 'draft' mode is for example is central in terms of importance if you have to or want to print something in draft mode. Yet, it's just not available in Gnome's print dialogs. I can go on with this very long list of missing functionality in Gnome. What is central in terms of importance varies very much from person to person and from task to task. if there is any missing necessary functionality for my needs, i have yet to come across it. its not the case that kde provides everything that gnome provides and more. take konqueror, for example. no spatial browsing. when i go to a directory (eg /usr/share/themes) that have many directories in them and i open up any particular directory(eg Clearlooks), view/edit the contents, then exit out again, i want to be able to return to the same place in the long list of directories. konqueror annoyingly takes me back to the start of the directory (ie the start of /usr/share/themes) so that i have to go and locate the directory(ie Clearlooks) again. i don't want that. i want to go back to where i last was (ie a view where i can still see Clearlooks) so that i can (eg) view/modify the next directory. so like i said, its different strokes for different folks.

helpme

May 3rd, 2006, 06:05 PM

commodore

May 3rd, 2006, 08:30 PM

Wmii

Sushi

May 4th, 2006, 01:28 PM

And why shouldn't I be able to easily start my fovourite gnome apps via KDE's application menu?

Did I say that it shouldn't be easy? Where exactly did I say that "It should be next to impossible to start KDE-apps in GNOME and vice versa". What I DID say (well, not directly, but....) is that it should be easy to simply drop certain apps from the menu in some specific desktops. Maybe it's possible today (I don't know), but back when I asked that question here (6 months ago IIRC) I got no real solution to the problem.

Generally speaking if I install 50 apps doing the same thing I want all those 50 apps to appear in the menu.

And some other people might not.

Mr_J_

May 4th, 2006, 05:46 PM

XGL/Compiz/Gnome

I believe it deserves another category all together.

asimon

May 4th, 2006, 05:56 PM

I (and even the Gnome/GTK devs) agree that the gnome print dialog needs improvements, but apart from that, I'd really like to see your long list of missing functionality.

Don't get me wrong, that's not because I want to start a flamewar, but simply because I see this brought up so often and never really get an answer to my question about what exactly is missing. And as I really like the posts I read from you and think your answer will be very reasonable and informed, I'd really be interested.

Okay, here are some things which spring into my mind.

no working session managment. My definition of working: restart apps even if they are not gnome apps, place everything again on the right virtual desktop (Evolution for example always appears at the wrong desktop when started by session management, or gnome-terminal doesn't remember my tabs and directories, evince has no memory at all, etc.). First thing I have to do after logging into Gnome is always setting up correctly my session again. Accumulated over a year this costs some time.
I dearly miss keyboard shortcut customization across Gnome. Some apps have it but usually insufficient. This coupled with the situation that many actions in Gnome apps don't have a default shortcut assigned is annoying. For example Evince. No shortcut for "goto page xyz", which I use very often in PDF viewers. You have to focus the text field in the toolbar and enter the page number. There are too many keyboard/mouse switches necessarry.
Also there is no toolbar customization framework. Some apps offer it but not many. But it's a very good feature to move the buttons you need often there and remove the ones you rarely need. Most KDE apps I use frequently have modified toolbars.
I very like Konquerors profiles and have different ones for some remote stuff I do. Very convenient.
The run dialog ALT+F2 has a history but it's not chronological like in bash. That annoyed my very often because somehow I often use that dialog to restart one of the last two or three started apps.
Gnome's file dialog is unbearable slow, just try to move with it to some big directories, it will hang for many seconds before becoming responsive again. And I don't understand why they don't include nice thumbnail previews like in nautilus (in contrast to a single preview of the currently selected item). They are very convenient in file dialogs if you want to find/open/save a picture.
Metacity, there are already long threads about it.

There are a lot of rather minor issues like for example the possibility to set the font size in Kmails folder list smaller then the rest. That way all of my folders fit into the view, no scrolling like with Evolution. Together with my filtering I see with one look if something needs a fast response. And I absolutely dig the quick switching (one keypress) between fix-spaced font and proportional font. This is very convenient if they mail you tables in pure text format, which I receive not that seldom. (And a real killer is that Evolution is unbearable slow on IMAP)

There are more things but that's what came into my mind without logging into Gnome.

In the end it's the sum of a lot of mostly small things which contribute to a overall better desktop expierience.

Did I say that it shouldn't be easy? Where exactly did I say that "It should be next to impossible to start KDE-apps in GNOME and vice versa". What I DID say (well, not directly, but....) is that it should be easy to simply drop certain apps from the menu in some specific desktops. Maybe it's possible today (I don't know), but back when I asked that question here (6 months ago IIRC) I got no real solution to the problem.

Okay, I misunderstood you. Sorry. Yes, customizing the menu should be easy, including removing entries. The .desktop files even offer things like NotShowIn=KDE or ShowOnlyIn=KDE. KDE has a menu editor for a long time. AFAIK Gnome in Dapper comes with a menu editor too, but I haven't used it yet. With these it should be possible to remove entries, at least on a per user basis.

And some other people might not.
Yes, but I just can't see it as a sensible default to not have menu entries for all your installed desktop apps.

wrtrdood

May 4th, 2006, 08:40 PM

Gotta say that E17 is the best I've used. Quick and efficient. I use a lot of KDE apps so it's my second best. I like much of what Gnome has to offer but some things about it infuriate me as much as the M$ Windows crap so I don't use it much anymore. WindowMaker lines up as the third in my list of choices.

helpme

May 5th, 2006, 11:04 AM

Okay, here are some things which spring into my mind.

no working session managment. My definition of working: restart apps even if they are not gnome apps, place everything again on the right virtual desktop (Evolution for example always appears at the wrong desktop when started by session management, or gnome-terminal doesn't remember my tabs and directories, evince has no memory at all, etc.). First thing I have to do after logging into Gnome is always setting up correctly my session again. Accumulated over a year this costs some time.
I dearly miss keyboard shortcut customization across Gnome. Some apps have it but usually insufficient. This coupled with the situation that many actions in Gnome apps don't have a default shortcut assigned is annoying. For example Evince. No shortcut for "goto page xyz", which I use very often in PDF viewers. You have to focus the text field in the toolbar and enter the page number. There are too many keyboard/mouse switches necessarry.
Also there is no toolbar customization framework. Some apps offer it but not many. But it's a very good feature to move the buttons you need often there and remove the ones you rarely need. Most KDE apps I use frequently have modified toolbars.
I very like Konquerors profiles and have different ones for some remote stuff I do. Very convenient.
The run dialog ALT+F2 has a history but it's not chronological like in bash. That annoyed my very often because somehow I often use that dialog to restart one of the last two or three started apps.
Gnome's file dialog is unbearable slow, just try to move with it to some big directories, it will hang for many seconds before becoming responsive again. And I don't understand why they don't include nice thumbnail previews like in nautilus (in contrast to a single preview of the currently selected item). They are very convenient in file dialogs if you want to find/open/save a picture.
Metacity, there are already long threads about it.

There are a lot of rather minor issues like for example the possibility to set the font size in Kmails folder list smaller then the rest. That way all of my folders fit into the view, no scrolling like with Evolution. Together with my filtering I see with one look if something needs a fast response. And I absolutely dig the quick switching (one keypress) between fix-spaced font and proportional font. This is very convenient if they mail you tables in pure text format, which I receive not that seldom. (And a real killer is that Evolution is unbearable slow on IMAP)

There are more things but that's what came into my mind without logging into Gnome.

In the end it's the sum of a lot of mostly small things which contribute to a overall better desktop expierience.

Interesting list.
Thanks for posting it.

pulver

May 6th, 2006, 12:34 PM

Window Maker

The way I want my desktop to work, look and feel, nothing really comes close to it. Sure boxes may be faster, FVWM may be more configurable, E may have more eye candy. But Window Maker combines speed, functions, looks in a way I haven't seen in another de/wm. It's the most intuitive window manager for me.

Wolki

May 6th, 2006, 06:24 PM

no working session managment. My definition of working: restart apps even if they are not gnome apps, place everything again on the right virtual desktop (Evolution for example always appears at the wrong desktop when started by session management, or gnome-terminal doesn't remember my tabs and directories, evince has no memory at all, etc.). First thing I have to do after logging into Gnome is always setting up correctly my session again. Accumulated over a year this costs some time.

Yes, this is quite annoying. You can setup some window matching with Devil's Pie with reduces some of the problems for me at least; and there may be some workarounds for other issues but this still needs work.

I dearly miss keyboard shortcut customization across Gnome. Some apps have it but usually insufficient. This coupled with the situation that many actions in Gnome apps don't have a default shortcut assigned is annoying.

System -> Preferences -> Menus and Toolbars -> editable shortcuts will allow you to change shortcuts as you want them. Select a menu entry, then press the combination you want. I'd disable it again afterwards so you don't change them by mistake, and it has some problems with things in context menus, but it generally works.

For example Evince. No shortcut for "goto page xyz", which I use very often in PDF viewers. You have to focus the text field in the toolbar and enter the page number. There are too many keyboard/mouse switches necessarry.

You mean, like ctrl-l? (Rule #1 in gnome keyxyboard shortcuts: when in doubt, try ctrl-l first :) ) Will put the focus in the page number text field and highlight it for easy overwriting.

Anyway, Gnome strives to be completely usable with the keyboard, not only for efficiency reasons, but also for accessibility. If you find something not accessible via the keyboard, please let the developers know, so the problem can be fixed.

Also there is no toolbar customization framework. Some apps offer it but not many. But it's a very good feature to move the buttons you need often there and remove the ones you rarely need. Most KDE apps I use frequently have modified toolbars.

I'd generally agree with this... likely should be put into gtk directly.

I very like Konquerors profiles and have different ones for some remote stuff I do. Very convenient.

I find konqueror to be generally unusable for my purposes, but that may have to do with the way i use file managers. I guess some details would be interesting to see If i can understand what you use them for.

The run dialog ALT+F2 has a history but it's not chronological like in bash. That annoyed my very often because somehow I often use that dialog to restart one of the last two or three started apps.

Hm, it isn't? I haven't tested it a lot, if I use a lot of history stuff I tend to open a terminal, so i don't know where the history fails. I have my own beef with the run dialog though, everytime i type something and see app i want to start in the list below, i try to press down to get there, going back in my history and leaving me to retype everything :-/

Gnome's file dialog is unbearable slow, just try to move with it to some big directories, it will hang for many seconds before becoming responsive again. And I don't understand why they don't include nice thumbnail previews like in nautilus (in contrast to a single preview of the currently selected item). They are very convenient in file dialogs if you want to find/open/save a picture.

Agree, though the file slector got a lot faster in 2.14. Thumbnail previews would probably take a lot longer to load though, and are not really useful unless you could switch the file selector from list to icon view.

All in all, I'm not a particular friend of open dialogs anyway... They are in effect a worse nautilus, so I use the real one when I can.

Metacity, there are already long threads about it.

I never understood the metacity hate... IMHO it's a quite rocking window manager for use in a DE.

Thanks for this list, it was a very interesting read.

asimon

May 8th, 2006, 02:37 PM

Yes, this is quite annoying. You can setup some window matching with Devil's Pie with reduces some of the problems for me at least; and there may be some workarounds for other issues but this still needs work.

Yes, besides it's highly against the "it should just work" mantra of Gnome.

System -> Preferences -> Menus and Toolbars -> editable shortcuts will allow you to change shortcuts as you want them. Select a menu entry, then press the combination you want. I'd disable it again afterwards so you don't change them by mistake, and it has some problems with things in context menus, but it generally works.
Excellent, thank you! I knew this feature from the old Gnome 1.x days but thought they removed it for whatever reasons. I think it was on by default back then?

You mean, like ctrl-l? (Rule #1 in gnome keyxyboard shortcuts: when in doubt, try ctrl-l first :) ) Will put the focus in the page number text field and highlight it for easy overwriting.
Good, makes using evince much nicer.

Anyway, Gnome strives to be completely usable with the keyboard, not only for efficiency reasons, but also for accessibility. If you find something not accessible via the keyboard, please let the developers know, so the problem can be fixed.
Calling all menu entries via keyboard is always possible via ALT and navigating with cursor keys. But it's not very fast. Therefore my need to customzie shortcuts. And to configure shortcuts I always looked in the respective app, but never though about looking unter system->preferences and that I first have to switch shortcuts to editable.

I'd generally agree with this... likely should be put into gtk directly.

I remember a interview were Owen Taylor sayed that gtk 2.4 will not contain editable toolbars because they "didn't feel there was enough consensus and existing practice to standardize that at this point." I guess the situation is unchanged. ;-)

I find konqueror to be generally unusable for my purposes, but that may have to do with the way i use file managers. I guess some details would be interesting to see If i can understand what you use them for.

Actually I do most file management tasks via command line. Mostly I use Konqueror for managing media files because of the convenient icon previews and for remote file managment. And the splitted views of Konqueror are for me more convenient than say multiple nautilus windows. For example if I do have two remote sessions open in two konqueror windows (with splitted views, one for remote files, one for local files, sometime another third remote one) I can very easily switch between the windows or bring a specific window in front. If I have instead every view in a seperate windows, I always have to bring multiple windows in front. Well, if Metacity would have a very quick way to define a set of windows as a windows group and always move them together in front or back (maybe this is possible via devilspie) ...

Agree, though the file slector got a lot faster in 2.14.
Still by far the slowest file selector on Linux.

Thumbnail previews would probably take a lot longer to load though, and are not really useful unless you could switch the file selector from list to icon view.
Yes, the missing switch I miss too. And thumbnails can be loaded lazily and in the background. There is no need having to wait until all thumbnails are loaded (and maybe generated).

All in all, I'm not a particular friend of open dialogs anyway... They are in effect a worse nautilus, so I use the real one when I can.

The problem is probably to make those dialogs really cool they would need to move nautilus into gtk, or have different dialogs for pure gtk and gnome.

I never understood the metacity hate... IMHO it's a quite rocking window manager for use in a DE.
Well Metacity's author described metacity once as "Boring window manager for the adult in you. Many window managers are like Marshmallow Froot Loops; Metacity is like Cheerios."
It looks like some just prefer Mashmallow Froot Loops. ;-)

Thanks for this list, it was a very interesting read.
Thank you for the hint with editable shortcuts under Gnome.

detyabozhye

May 10th, 2006, 10:18 PM

From the full environments I like GNOME the best, but all of the big DEs can't keep up with me, so I use Enlightenment DR17.

Geoneil

May 13th, 2006, 08:13 AM

Me = KDE man, with a little bit o' likin' for XFCE, that's a canny desktop Environment.

Heard a few good things about Enlightenment but I might stick to what I know for the moment maybe try other stuff when I get more confident (especially after the nightmare I had with the STEP based WMs - WindowMaker and AfterSTEP, weren't keen on them and I remember Motif being as ugly as sin when I used to play on the University of Sunderland's Sun workstations, perhaps it's not too much of a loss that I couldn't get the deb on the Kubuntu repositories to work :D )

Carrots171

May 13th, 2006, 08:48 AM

I like GNOME, and that's part of the reason I chose to use Ubuntu. It's far easier to install a theme in GNOME than it is to install a theme in KDE. Also, almost all of the apps I use are GTK apps, so GNOME creates a more consistent desktop experience for me.

Wolki

May 13th, 2006, 10:06 AM

Yes, besides it's highly against the "it should just work" mantra of Gnome.

Yes it is, and in a similar way applications should stay on the workspace I started them, and not on the one I am when the application shows up.I guess part of the problem is that, while workspaces are one of the key features of the free software/unix desktop, we lack a common concept of how they work, and likely some interface tools to communicate this to the user.

Excellent, thank you! I knew this feature from the old Gnome 1.x days but thought they removed it for whatever reasons. I think it was on by default back then?

It at least was on by default in some applications... I still have access to some old machines running woody, I'll take a look the next time I go there.

Calling all menu entries via keyboard is always possible via ALT and navigating with cursor keys. But it's not very fast. Therefore my need to customzie shortcuts. And to configure shortcuts I always looked in the respective app, but never though about looking unter system->preferences and that I first have to switch shortcuts to editable.

I found most shortcuts I need are already defined (in applications, I did define a ton of metacity shortcuts though...). I quite like the "just press the shortcut" interface for changing them in applications, since it seems simple and uncomplicated, but I don't particularly like the modality of changeable/unchangeable mode.... :-/ It has to be there though, as I guess the chance of errors is quite high if it's on all the time, especially with users who have not grokked yet how this works. Just imagine someone binding select all to backspace by mistake <shudder>

Actually I do most file management tasks via command line. Mostly I use Konqueror for managing media files because of the convenient icon previews and for remote file managment. And the splitted views of Konqueror are for me more convenient than say multiple nautilus windows.

Command line is of course a very nice tool for file management, though i don't use it that often (mostly for scripting repetitive tasks, and for "rename" and other niceties) since I like the 'tangibilitiy' of objects in a graphical file manager.

Also, I like having multiple windows, but that's probably not a surprise since I swear by spatial nautilus. :) I can also see the allure of multiple views... I guess that's why it's good that there is choice.

Well, if Metacity would have a very quick way to define a set of windows as a windows group and always move them together in front or back (maybe this is possible via devilspie) ...

Devilspie (at least currently) only does window matching on window creation (and when dp itself is started), so that wouldn't work; Nice idea for functionality though, I can definitely see this being useful, though I can imagine that creating a usable interface for it can be hard.

The problem is probably to make those dialogs really cool they would need to move nautilus into gtk, or have different dialogs for pure gtk and gnome.

Hm, IIRC the open/save dialogs are pluggable, so people could write one with different usage. It seems like noone does it, though.

Well Metacity's author described metacity once as "Boring window manager for the adult in you. Many window managers are like Marshmallow Froot Loops; Metacity is like Cheerios."
It looks like some just prefer Mashmallow Froot Loops. ;-)

I guess that famous quote was more about contrasting metacity and sawfish, and maybe Havoc creating more heated discussions about simplification vs. features; metacity certainly has quite a number of marshmellows included, too.

I see no problem with having some things outside the window manager, though this method certainly has it's problems.