Why did Canonical choose GNOME for ubuntu?

[kenweill]

History of Kubuntu

When Ubuntu was first being discussed there were rumors that it would be only based on GNOME, and KDE would be left out. Jonathan Riddell, a KDE developer, posted an article on his Web log (blog) that soon became the No. 1 hit on Google for Ubuntu Linux. The article states:

“The signs are there that this could be something big, more so than the likes of Linspire, Xandros, or Lycrosis. Unlike those companies, they [Canonical Ltd. Software] understand Free Software and open development. It is likely to be a GNOME-based job, but maybe there is a KDE developer out there who is working for them without letting on. If not I’m always available.”


It was because of Jonathan Riddell that Kubuntu(KDE) was made.
But what exactly is the main reason why Ubuntu chooses GNOME, and not KDE by default?

[plb]

Because Mark says so :D

[kenweill]

Because Mark says so :D

Other than that. I think its not jsut Mark's decision. But from the Ubuntu team. There must be a reason why they chooose GNOME.

[ComplexNumber]

It was because of Jonathan Riddell that Kubuntu(KDE) was made.
But what exactly is the main reason why Ubuntu chooses GNOME, and not KDE by default?
because mr shuttleworth is a gnome advocate and developer. besides, gnome fits in better with the ethos of ubuntu - to keep things simple and intuitive. its probably another reason why it was originally only shipped on 1 cd.

[punkinside]

yup, as benevolent dictator for life of ubuntu, mark gets dibs on those picks

[dca]

Because Mark went to space....

[aysiu]

Why does anyone choose anything?

It's not a message sent from the gods. It's a preference based on certain considerations. You don't have to agree, but that's what they went with.

[henriquemaia]

I don't know why the chose it, but I'm very glad they (whoever) did it.

[Omnios]

Its more than just the developers as I have found in posts that many of the users prefear Gnome overall.

[grte]

Its more than just the developers as I have found in posts that many of the users prefear Gnome overall.

I imagine that's a case of a gnome-based distro attracting gnome fans, though.

[maniacmusician]

I imagine that's a case of a gnome-based distro attracting gnome fans, though.
yeah, i agree.

I use kde, so of course I wish they'd chosen it as their main DE instead, but i'm not frettin'. it's just my personal decision. I think KDE gets a decent amount of attention. At least it's not neglected. I still enjoy using it. But i did try Xubuntu first, and loved that too (and thats kind of gnome-ish so i suppose i would like gnome too. but i guess i'm a kde guy)

[blastus]

At least three reasons:
- GNOME is the official desktop of the GNU project and Ubuntu's philosophy is GNU-friendly.
- GNOME is the default desktop on Debian and Ubuntu is based on Debian.
- GNOME is the default desktop on some very popular distributions such as FedoraCore for which Ubuntu may compete with.

[Mathias-K]

Mark Shuttleworth has stated it nummerous times, in particular at this years LinuxTag in Germany:

Before he became a multi millionaire, he was an active debian developer and maintainer of some important packages. When he got his millions, he hired the debian guys he knew he'd like to work with (Matt Zimmerman, mdz, for example - debian co-maintainer of apt). Mark's initial team were GNOME-people, so Ubuntu became a GNOME-centric distro.

[hk_2999]

Why?

KDE looks so much better. ( with text-to-speech, Qt, a fast-loading Konqueror, fully-loaded releases, etc. )

Enlightenment should have been more functional. ( Animating screensavers, better theme management, etc. )

XFCE would have been faster.

Why settle with something as mediocre as GNOME?

[ATAQ]

Well I dunno if you are aware, Ubuntu Is Gnome, But there are other Ubuntu Projects such as Kubuntu which uses KDE, Xubuntu which uses XFCE,
I use Xubuntu on my Desktop.
You should check out the other projects!
Regards,
Ant

[fuscia]

konqueror does open fast, but that's pretty much the end of its speed.

[My Name]

Personally i like gnome. I like the simplisity and cleanes of it. I find KDE to be kind of ugly and clumsy.
I'm not much of a fan of the OSX look either...

My favourite car is an E-Type Jag... simple lines but sexy as hell.

I don't like sports cars that look like roller-skates...

[Rotarychainsaw]

maybe because gnome is meant to be simple to understand, just like ubuntu. Also, isn't gnome the gnu projects official desktop? Maybe thats something too.

[bonzodog]

Gnome was also chosen because there was already way too many distro's shipping with KDE as default - Gnome had virtually none, so Mark went with gnome, as he personally believed it to be a better project and in keeping with the Debian GNU philosophy.

[ATAQ]

Well kde is slow and painfull, gnome is good looking and everthing is fast and it just works. but XFCE, is like a cut down version of Gnome on steroids!

[aysiu]

I've merged this with the similar, previous thread.

[ixus_123]

Back when Ubuntu was released you couldn't get a Gnome-centric distro. Everything came either on 2 CDs with KDE as defualt.

Lots of people, myself included, liked Gnome. At the time I used slackware & to get Gnome you had to install CD2 (if I remember correctly). This was a pain for downloading as broadband connections weren't so fast.

Slackware had a great gnome spin-off community that would package all the best apps - the branch was called "Dropline Gnome".

Then Ubuntu came out - a gnome centric distribution released on one CD - no more KDE! Amazing! Just what the Dr ordered. There was huge demand for something like this so it wasn't surprising that it quickly climbed the distrowatch ladder - & when you're at teh top of that it's kind of like a perpetual motion machine

[JaceMan]

Why?

KDE looks so much better. ( with text-to-speech, Qt, a fast-loading Konqueror, fully-loaded releases, etc. )

Enlightenment should have been more functional. ( Animating screensavers, better theme management, etc. )

XFCE would have been faster.

Why settle with something as mediocre as GNOME?

Your opinions are no better or worse than anyone elses, nor are they any more or less valid that anyone elses. The fact of the matter is not that KDE looks better than Gnome, but that KDE looks better than Gnome to you. As far as performance goes (I find myself camping in XFCE more and more since I recently discovered it), many users don't notice huge performance gains going from Gnome to XFCE... those of us who do are often times using "lackluster" hardware. That being said, it's not as simple as" "XFCE is faster so Gnome was a stupid choice." One must stop and look at the features too.

To paraphrase a very wise person near the top of this thread: "Why does anyone choose anything? Because it appeals to THEM, and they, afterall, are the one/s making the choice."

I personally don't find the issue of KDE vs. Gnome vs. XFCE vs. Enlightenment vs. Whatever to be a case of "Which is superior?" but more of a "Which one do YOU prefer?"

You'll often times find (for those who don't experiment much) that the main reason a user has a preference for anything comes down to which product they were weened on, not which is "better." We have a tendency to resist change. As such, if your first foray into Linux is on a KDE based distro, and you use it for any substantial amount of time, you have a better than average chance of winding up as a KDE lobbyist. Likewise you'd probably vigorously defend Gnome if you're a long time Gnome user (as Mark is/was).

Put simply, often times it's neither a case of simplicity or superiority but a case of familiarity. Which DE or WM feels most at home to you? The same can be asked of the operating system. I maintain that there is no definitive RIGHT answer in regards to which desktop environment is the best nor is their a definitive answer in regards to which operating system in the best. In the end it comes down to...

WHAT'S BEST FOR YOU???

-jace

[bruce89]

Gnome was also chosen because there was already way too many distro's shipping with KDE as default - Gnome had virtually none, so Mark went with gnome, as he personally believed it to be a better project and in keeping with the Debian GNU philosophy.

Not quite true - http://www.gnome.org/~davyd/footware.shtml

Anyway, if Mark preferred GNOME, why did he become the first patron of KDE? (http://dot.kde.org/1160932072/)


KDE looks so much better.
Subjective.


with text-to-speech
Orca (http://www.gnome.org/projects/orca/) :

Orca is a flexible, extensible, and powerful assistive technology for people with visual impairments. Using various combinations of speech synthesis, braille, and magnification, Orca helps provide access to applications and toolkits that support the AT-SPI (e.g., the GNOME desktop).

In fact, Qt doesn't fully support AT-SPI.


Qt
I fail to see what advantages it has to the user over GTK+.


a fast-loading Konqueror

Epiphany (which is the GNOME browser) is fast loading too. GNOME loads Konqueror slower than KDE does because it has to load all the KDE libraries with it, whereas KDE has them loaded already.


fully-loaded releases, etc. )
What does that mean?

[weasel fierce]

Well, its not like you cant use both. I boot up KDE sometimes, Gnome other times. Generally, I find Gnome to be a bit easier for me to navigate through, and I like the clean, basic look it has

[ComplexNumber]

Anyway, if Mark preferred GNOME, why did he become the first patron of KDE? (http://dot.kde.org/1160932072/)answer: to market kubuntu to the kde crowd on other distros.
Mark is a long time gnome supporter and developer, and thats the most likely reason why gnome was chosen.

[hk_2999]

Ok, after experimenting with other WMs from GNOME to omg, ratpoison, I found out GNOME really is better than the rest for me.

Why? The simplicity... it's zen concept applied! KDE became slower and slower even after I changed the settings to low, and the eye candy gave me eye diabetes, I'm so sick of it and addicted to it - I can't focus on my work anymore. I made it more quiet though, and then it made me think of how quiet GNOME is already.

As for the fast WMs (Xfce, etc.), I found out my processor can actually process GNOME nearly as fast, and the advantages I gain from speed are little compared to the productivity gained, and lastly, I love art.gnome.org too much, and applying gnome metacity themes to Xfce slowed it down to almost GNOME level on my PC anyway.

Im just not happy that GNOME's releases all seems to be so minor, so maybe that's why I started the post. :) ( After reading about the next GNOME release )

[Sirin]

Also, CDE. :p

[hk_2999]

I havent tried that though, the screenshots shooed me not to even try and think about it.

[plb]

I fail to see what advantages it has to the user over GTK+.


Technically speaking, QT is superior to GTK+. Also with QT 4.2 there is a clearlooks engine which looks exactly the GTK+ version in every aspect. Either way I prefer Gnome myself at this point...KDE 4 may change that though.

[bruce89]

Technically speaking, QT is superior to GTK+. Also with QT 4.2 there is a clearlooks engine which looks exactly the GTK+ version in every aspect. Either way I prefer Gnome myself at this point...KDE 4 may change that though.

That's why I said "for users". Is it somehow better for a user (not a developer).

I have a rather bizarre setup here actually, GNOME+Beryl.

[plb]

You can also check out this benchmark of QT vs Cairo rendering..

http://zrusin.blogspot.com/2006/10/benchmarks.html

QT wins hands down...the gap between the two almost saddens me....almost ;)

[bruce89]

You can also check out this benchmark of QT vs Cairo rendering..

http://zrusin.blogspot.com/2006/10/benchmarks.html

QT wins hands down...the gap between the two almost saddens me....almost ;)

The cairo optimisation work hasn't been finished (or mabye even begun) yet.