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plb
May 27th, 2007, 01:51 PM
Of course this is all a matter of opinion, so generally speaking, which desktop or toolkit for that matter has the better applications, KDE(QT) or GNOME(Gtk+)? Let the fun commence. :popcorn: Anyway, personally, from a technical standpoint I'd have to give the edge to KDE apps although I do tend to like the look and feel of GTK apps more.

Sluipvoet
May 27th, 2007, 02:08 PM
Personal opinion:
K3b>GnomeBaker
Kontact>Evolution
KOffice>GnomeOffice
Konqueror>Epiphany
Digikam>F-Spot

Amarok=Rhythmbox
Totem=Kaffeine

The GIMP>Krita
GnomeGames>KDE-Games.

So I have a slght preference for KDE-apps.

earobinson
May 27th, 2007, 02:18 PM
I would say gnome has more apps. a few of kde's apps are better than gnomes, the biggest one I would mention is that kate > gedit

plb
May 27th, 2007, 02:27 PM
Personal opinion:

Amarok=Rhythmbox

GnomeGames>KDE-Games.

So I have a slght preference for KDE-apps.

I wonder about some of these....amarok == rhythmbox? In what way? Amarok is way beyond rhythmbox. And have you see KDE4 games yet? :p

madmetal
May 27th, 2007, 02:32 PM
i use Gnome but i think kde apps are little better..
although all these kde vs gnome polls getting me tired :P

starcraft.man
May 27th, 2007, 02:33 PM
Neither.

I use a mix of KDE GNOME and third party apps on my Gnome/Ubuntu desktop. I don't think either has the better apps, it depends for what you need. Each individual app has its own pluses and minuses.

I just happen to prefer k3b for instance to gnomebaker, there isn't anything wrong with gnomebaker though. Its perfectly functional in fact and I used it before I found k3b and was really happy with its simple and easy layout. And I use open office rather than gnome or koffice. I just think people should use whatever mix of apps make them comfortable, they are all (most, except VMware and a few closed) free and open source anyway.

It's really subjective, just like KDE VS Gnome, so people should use whatever they like. Oh and you should have a third party option, you don't have to use KDE or Gnome apps.

Oh and Sluipvoet : Firefox > Konqueror or epiphany :D. hehehe, I *heart* my Firefox :).

Edit: I agree with madmetal, getting tired of these polls. Everyone should just use what they like, its not a competition you know, we are all one big community.

Sluipvoet
May 27th, 2007, 02:38 PM
I wonder about some of these....amarok == rhythmbox? In what way? Amarok is way beyond rhythmbox. And have you see KDE4 games yet? :p
While I looked at it from my personal POV, I don't need all those extra amarok-features(though it's nice they exist).
And while the KDE3-Games are mainly the same as GnomeGames(Minesweeper, cards, tetris), I must say that the Gnome-versions look better.

%hMa@?b<C
May 27th, 2007, 02:41 PM
QT is easier to write programs for than for GTK+ so I would have to say that more apps are written for KDE so therefore there are more good apps for KDE.

ComplexNumber
May 27th, 2007, 02:44 PM
QT is easier to write programs for than for GTK+ so I would have to say that more apps are written for KDE so therefore there are more good apps for KDE.
it doesn't quite work out like that because with qt you are stuck with 1 language, whereas gtk has a number of good bindings.

Sluipvoet
May 27th, 2007, 02:45 PM
QT is easier to write programs for than for GTK+ so I would have to say that more apps are written for KDE so therefore there are more good apps for KDE.
Quantity is not the same as quality.

PatrickMay16
May 27th, 2007, 02:45 PM
There are applications in KDE with no gnome/gtk alternatives (rosegarden4, etc) and applications in GTK/gnome which have no kde alternatives. I just wish it would be easier to get gnome and gtk applications to fit in with each other better, because I end up having to use applications from both environments.

maniacmusician
May 27th, 2007, 02:53 PM
it doesn't quite work out like that because with qt you are stuck with 1 language, whereas gtk has a number of good bindings.
Uhh, I'm pretty sure QT has bindings for more than just C++. I've definitely seen ruby bindings for it, and it probably has python as well. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if it had most of the same bindings that are available to GTK

edit: yup.

python-qt4
libqt4-ruby
libqt3-java

those are the ones I found in the repos after 5 seconds of searching. I'm sure there are lots of others.

atlfalcons866
May 27th, 2007, 02:53 PM
i like koffice

Bloodfen Razormaw
May 27th, 2007, 03:21 PM
Uhh, I'm pretty sure QT has bindings for more than just C++. I've definitely seen ruby bindings for it, and it probably has python as well. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if it had most of the same bindings that are available to GTK
Not only that, but KDE has far superior bindings to anything available for GTK. Almost all GTK bindings have serious flaws, e.g. the Python bindings, which don't manage memory correctly, or Gtkmm, which has the same problem to even worse degree. The only one worth using are the Mono bindings. C GTK+ has serious problems with threading, making Gtk# superior to even the original C API, essentially forcing you into Mono for any sane development (yet noticeably even the Mono apps for GNOME are far behind the KDE equivalents).

Ironically, even KDE's Mono bindings are already more maintainable than Gtk# thanks to KDE's awesome Smoke library for binding generation. KDE also includes Korundum, easily the best GUI development platform in existence, plus excellent bindings for Python, Java, Perl, and Javascript.
Edit: And note that Trolltech themselves provide fully supported bindings for Java.

arsenic23
May 27th, 2007, 03:35 PM
Hm... I'm going to have to run a tally for this. I use Gnome but have a lot of KDE apps installed.

Gnome:
Gthumb
Gimp
gftp
Gtk-Gnutella

KDE:
Konversation
Kopete
Armarok
K3B

Looks like it's about even for me.

tehkain
May 27th, 2007, 03:45 PM
Feature wise? KDE, there are tons of feature rich apps.
Polish, Consistency, ease of use, and stability goes to gnome apps by far.

I am a gnome user. So I am saying gnome, because I define better by the qualities I listed for gnome.

Hex_Mandos
May 27th, 2007, 03:52 PM
I prefer KDE apps, most of the time.

ComplexNumber
May 27th, 2007, 03:56 PM
Uhh, I'm pretty sure QT has bindings for more than just C++. I've definitely seen ruby bindings for it, and it probably has python as well. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if it had most of the same bindings that are available to GTK

edit: yup.

python-qt4
libqt4-ruby
libqt3-java

those are the ones I found in the repos after 5 seconds of searching. I'm sure there are lots of others.
it does. but they are just nowhere near as good. try them out to see for yourself.



Not only that, but KDE has far superior bindings to anything available for GTK.....
.....in your dreams. your statement is complete rubbish. C++ is extremely difficult to write bindings for compared to C, and that's a fact.

juxtaposed
May 27th, 2007, 04:03 PM
the biggest one I would mention is that kate > gedit

gedit is great :P



I like the look of gnome software much more then kde software. I like the gnome terminal better then the kde one also.

ThinkBuntu
May 27th, 2007, 04:09 PM
Oh, certainly KDE.

* K3B is the best burning software on the market
* Amarok is the best music organizer and player
* Kate and even KWrite blow away any of GNOME's offerings
* Konqueror is a better file browser than Nautilus, and Dolphin looks amazing. As a Mac OSX user, I almost solely browsed using the columns feature, and this is being incorporate.
* KFTPGrabber is better, IMO, than gFTP

On the other hand,

* Evolution is better than Kmail
* gPaint is nicer than Kolourpaint

maniacmusician
May 27th, 2007, 04:23 PM
Oh, certainly KDE.

* K3B is the best burning software on the market
* Amarok is the best music organizer and player
* Kate and even KWrite blow away any of GNOME's offerings
* Konqueror is a better file browser than Nautilus, and Dolphin looks amazing. As a Mac OSX user, I almost solely browsed using the columns feature, and this is being incorporate.
* KFTPGrabber is better, IMO, than gFTP

On the other hand,

* Evolution is better than Kmail
* gPaint is nicer than Kolourpaint
KFTPGrabber is alright, but I prefer to use Konqueror for FTP managing. It's so much easier, because it still displays stuff in its "file manager" view.

Bloodfen Razormaw
May 27th, 2007, 07:35 PM
.....in your dreams. your statement is complete rubbish. C++ is extremely difficult to write bindings for compared to C, and that's a fact.
Wow, nice way to prove you don't know what you are talking about. KDE bindings are written against C, not C++. Try again.

ComplexNumber
May 27th, 2007, 08:01 PM
Wow, nice way to prove you don't know what you are talking about. KDE bindings are written against C, not C++. Try again.
you seem to make a habit of being wrong all too often.
whats toolkit does kde use? what language does qt use? what is the overwhelmingly predominant language of kde? clue: it's not C.
you may also want to ask yourself why there are C bindings for kde.

Bloodfen Razormaw
May 27th, 2007, 08:19 PM
You really need to stop embarrassing yourself, ComplexNumber. I don't see a reason a mod can't troll, but the higher standards mods are held to means you should at least be able to do it well.

Know what Smoke is? I'll educate you, since you apparently don't. Smoke is a library provides a C interface to dynamic invocation on Qt objects. Know what that means? It means anyone writing bindings can write them in C, and more importantly, they don't have to manually implement interfaces to KDE/Qt functions. You might want to keep that last part in mind. Because every single time there is a change to GTK, a GTK binding maintainer has to go back and rework his bindings for the new GTK interfaces. KDE doesn't require that. That constant rewriting and bug introduction is the reason for GTK's infamously low quality bindings.

You should really try to learn these things before spouting off incorrect information. You could have easily found this information in a minute had you tried. I think I'll add this to the list of your failed attempts at knocking KDE, right up there with the time you got humiliated claiming Solid was a replacement for HAL.

ComplexNumber
May 27th, 2007, 08:23 PM
me embarrassing myself? how ironic coming from you, given your reputation.
i know what smoke is. they still need to be binded against C++. smoke merely makes the developers task slightly easier, and is not a magic wand.
the facts are, gtk bindings are considerably more well developed than their kde/qt counterparts, and C++ is a notoriously difficult language to bind to....with or without smoke.
one wonders why the q# bindings fell by the wayside, for example. or one could wonder at the fact that the amount of kde/qt bindings amounts to a very small handful, yet gtk/gnome has bindings for almost every one of the main languages. hmmm i wonder why that is.

and less of your patronising attitude.

end of.

ButteBlues
May 27th, 2007, 08:26 PM
Gedit isn't below Kate once you install the Gedit plugins.

Those alone make it infinitely better. :)

qamelian
May 27th, 2007, 08:43 PM
I wonder about some of these....amarok == rhythmbox? In what way? Amarok is way beyond rhythmbox. And have you see KDE4 games yet? :p

This depends on what criteria you use to judge. Amarok has way more features (none of which I need or want) and, in my experience, Rhythmbox is way more stable. From the point of view of stability and desired features, Rhythmbox wins for me. Others might actually want some or all of the features in Amarok, so their opinion would necessarily be different.

In general, I prefer most K apps to their Gnome equivalents, but I find the Gnome apps to be more stable, hence I stick with Gnome. One notable exception is Evolution vs Kontact. Kontact currently just can't be configured for multiple accounts in a way that is comfortable for me, and that is a showstopper for me.

If I could get a KDE install that was as stable for me as a typical Gnome install and if Kontact was closer to Evolution in the way that it handled some config issues, I would probably switch to KDE in a heartbeat. KDE was the first desktop I really felt comfortable with and it is still my favourite, but as long as I find Gnome to be more stable, I'll stay where I am so I can keep getting work done.

Bloodfen Razormaw
May 27th, 2007, 08:50 PM
they still need to be binded against C++
Smoke is all that binds against C++. The Smoke consumer does not have to know about that. As far as he is concerned, he is dealing with nothing but cross-referenced metadata. The developer who uses Smoke doesn't see any C++ objects. BTW, bindings for languages without multiple inheritance usually handle the single inheritance transformations automatically, too. Saying Smoke isn't a magic wand is just trite. Using Qt or GTK+ instead of writing your own toolkit isn't a magic wand either, but no one would claim that using them only "slightly" makes your task easier compared to rolling your own.

When you say it makes the job "slightly easier," replace "slightly" with "much, much." A binding for something the size of GTK+ or kdelibs is a huge undertaking. How much time do you think it takes to manually write an interface to all of those (and then to do it some more after every update)? That's a lot of interface code, and every one you write is a chance for a new bug. Rather than spending that time possibly introducing bugs, Smoke makes your interface code little more than the special cases, and all that saved time goes into polishing your product.

Quillz
May 27th, 2007, 09:07 PM
I'd have to go with KDE. Amarok, KOffice and K3b are all popular programs that are used on many distros, including GNOME based ones.

Bloodfen Razormaw
May 27th, 2007, 09:13 PM
I don't think many GNOME distributions use KOffice :P
KOffice does include a far larger array of functionality than any other office suite overall, and is advancing the fastest, but the big three of word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations are still behind the competition. I'd love to use KWord, but the lack of character styles is absurd (and what is really irritating is that the code is there for it, but IIRC it won't be included until KOffice 2 -- that should be considered an emergency fix!).

dada1958
May 27th, 2007, 10:40 PM
Amarok is certainly a killer application here with my Zen V, but on the other hand nothing can beat Gedit when I'm talking about the ultimate LaTeX front end editor ...

Bloodfen Razormaw
May 28th, 2007, 12:08 AM
Amarok is certainly a killer application here with my Zen V, but on the other hand nothing can beat Gedit when I'm talking about the ultimate LaTeX front end editor ...
KDE's Kile is the king of LaTeX editing.

dada1958
May 28th, 2007, 12:36 AM
KDE's Kile is the king of LaTeX editing.
Kile doesn't have an inline spell checker, I tried it;)

Bloodfen Razormaw
May 28th, 2007, 12:49 AM
No, but it has a non-inline spell checker (spell checking selection is much more useful for LaTeX). On the other hand, Gedit doesn't support most of the LaTeX IDE features in Kile.

ComplexNumber
May 28th, 2007, 02:01 AM
Bloodfen Razormaw
you're priceless :lol:. don't ever change.

deadlydeathcone
May 28th, 2007, 02:23 AM
What an odd thing to ask! Really, if any of the two DE's apps win over the other it's by a hair's width, and it's a bit of an apples to oranges comparison anyways, which makes personal opinion pretty tricky to rule out.


Personal opinion:
K3b>GnomeBaker
Isn't Gnomebaker pretty deprecated by now? A better comparison would be against Sound Juicer (a simple Gstreamer-based frontend) or the more advanced Grip (mainly a frontend for CDparanoia and CL encoders). It's mainly in the name of accuracy, though, since K3b wins against either of them.



Kontact>Evolution
I'd rate these as equals, as they have separate strengths and weaknesses that don't really overlap in any definitive way.


KOffice>GnomeOffice
Konqueror>Epiphany

Both of these are odd comparisons as each are eclipsed by products from third parties. The first I can probably agree with, though, as Gnumeric is really the only part of GnomeOfiice worth using, but I'd have to throw up the = sign for the second, as different as they are.


Amarok=Rhythmbox

I prefer Rhythmbox, but I still think Amarok is the clear winner here. Amarok stomps all over it in terms of features, and when they share any Amarok tends to do them better (tagging, Last.fm and iPod integration, are a few examples). I'm no fan of the interface, but I really don't that's enough to give Rhythmbox any large advantage.


Digikam>F-Spot
Totem=Kaffeine
The GIMP>Krita
Yup

The games and bindings part of the argument I'll leave well alone, as I don't know enough about either to avoid sounding like a moron. :)

As for the poll, I guess console apps shall get my vote as I really can't decide on the first two. Picking between either usability + interface polish or features + platform maturity is such a nebulous thing to do.

Kingsley
May 28th, 2007, 02:35 AM
KDE's apps are far better. It's what ultimately made me make the switch to Linux as a primary OS.

plb
May 28th, 2007, 03:06 AM
Let's not forget about ktorrent :p

jiminycricket
May 28th, 2007, 03:06 AM
I think KDE has a great architecture (khtml, dcop, konqueror file paths), but I also think the UI is too confusing. So I still prefer to use GNOME applications.

I know that Edubuntu does use KDE games.

maniacmusician
May 28th, 2007, 04:29 AM
Bloodfen Razormaw
you're priceless :lol:. don't ever change.
same goes for you.

You're obviously both a little opinionated (and I say that lightly). Let's not turn this thread into anything that needs to be closed.

If you want to argue about which toolkit has the best bindings, start another thread and get some real programmers to chip in. As for the best apps, it's obviously all very opinion and need based, so arguing about that is quite futile. Childish baiting back and forth doesn't help either.

guitarmaniac
May 28th, 2007, 11:54 AM
KDE apps are better
GNOME desktop environment is better.
IF ONLY SOMEONE WOULD REWRITE KDE IN GTK!!!!

:p;):p

maagimies
May 28th, 2007, 12:04 PM
I think Amarok stomps over Rhythmbox easily, if not only because you can edit tags very easily and effectively.
An entire folder of music has the wrong artist/cd title/not those at all? 3 mouseclicks away it is.

thesmartace
May 28th, 2007, 12:06 PM
I use gnome for everything except Amarok, Quanta Plus, and RoseGarden. I prefer the GTK but some KDE programs are just better for a given need.

maagimies
May 28th, 2007, 12:12 PM
it doesn't quite work out like that because with qt you are stuck with 1 language, whereas gtk has a number of good bindings.http://www.gtk.org/bindings.html
Doesn't seem like there's a lot of bindings complete for the current version of GTK :D

ComplexNumber
May 28th, 2007, 12:21 PM
maniacmusician
you're targetting the wrong person, and why did you not address Bloodfen Razormaw.? you should know as well as everyone else does that Bloodfen Razormaw is forever stating inaccurate information heavily tainted by his fanaticism of kde. consequently, he constantly needs correcting, but he remains blinded by his own fanaticism and refuses to listen to truth and reason.



http://www.gtk.org/bindings.html
Doesn't seem like there's a lot of bindings complete for the current version of GTK :D
its comsiderably larger than the number complete for current qt/kde, though ;). and it always will be like that for reasons already outlined.

Magnes
May 28th, 2007, 12:27 PM
I use Gnome but I don't really care if some application uses GTK or Qt or something else as long as it works fine.

Lord Illidan
May 28th, 2007, 12:30 PM
I use GNOME, because I tend to prefer its looks, however, yes, I do use a lot of KDE stuff.

Amarok, K3B, etc.. Also, while I use Nautilus, Konqueror beats it imho for filebrowsing, and the same goes for gaim and kopete.

I tend to prefer KDE apps overall.

mech7
May 28th, 2007, 02:16 PM
I use gnome some kde apps do seem to be a bit better

RAV TUX
May 28th, 2007, 02:21 PM
KDE has better apps but I do admit that Gnome has a better default look.

Once you tweak KDE it is just as nice.

All the killer KDE aps can be used in Gnome also.

Bloodfen Razormaw
May 28th, 2007, 04:04 PM
Doesn't seem like there's a lot of bindings complete for the current version of GTK
That's the problem with not having something like Smoke. KDE bindings dynamically invoke kdelibs functions, so upgrading Smoke will upgrade most bindings automatically, whereas GTK bindings need upgraded with every GTK+ upgrade (and for GNOME bindings, they need updated separately for GNOME releases too), which is very time consuming. Hence why most GTK+ bindings always lag behind, while KDE bindings stay up-to-date. And all the busy work keeping up to date is why GTK+ bindings aren't as polished.


IF ONLY SOMEONE WOULD REWRITE KDE IN GTK!!!!
They already made an attempt. It was called GNOME. The difference between KDE and GNOME is the difference between a framework and a library. GTK+ cannot replace kdelibs. kdelibs is a full general-purpose development framework, while GTK+ is just a library with a single function. So, no you can't rewrite KDE "in GTK." That would just result in a GUI, but with a fraction of KDE's functionality (i.e. GNOME).

loathsome
May 28th, 2007, 04:07 PM
I really don't care. I use both the KDE and GNOME environment, and apps from both engines as well. KDE applications works without any hassle in GNOME and vice versa (except small things such as GTK icons in KDE etc. but that really doesn't matter)

Ubuntiac
May 29th, 2007, 03:19 AM
I use multiple machines running both Kubuntu, Ubuntu and Ubuntu Studio.

I have no idea where these "Gnome apps look nicer than KDE one's" comes from. IMHO KDE apps look far cleaner, are more clearly laid out and easy to access their functionality. The actual layout of the desktop in Gnome is definately cleaner (very mac-like), but the apps (which lets face it, are what you'll be looking at most of the time) tend to have a more consistent look without chunky, rectangular old unix looking buttons of gtk. Of course it's worth noting that with a bit of fiddling, both sides can look completely hot, but I'm going off the defaults here.

Generally speaking the KDE apps are great for being light, fast and fully featured. I do wish Krita would catch up to Gimp in features and stability, but then it's layout stomps well and truly over the big G.

Similarly, Open Office has much better functionality and .doc handling than Koffice, but if you actually try and open a .doc over the network from a windows machine, Koffice handles it with ease while OO forces you to stop, copy via natilus, work on it, save and then copy it back the other way. Ewww!

Like many people I just end up using a mix of apps from both camps on most machines happily enough. Now if we could just find a way to get copy and paste working happily between KDE and GTK I think we could all be pretty happy (at least those of us who aren't developers! ;)

ukripper
May 29th, 2007, 10:37 PM
I use GNOME but many applications like K3b wlassistant and ktorrent I use with sudo with no problem.

Adamant1988
May 29th, 2007, 10:48 PM
maniacmusician
you're targetting the wrong person, and why did you not address Bloodfen Razormaw.? you should know as well as everyone else does that Bloodfen Razormaw is forever stating inaccurate information heavily tainted by his fanaticism of kde. consequently, he constantly needs correcting, but he remains blinded by his own fanaticism and refuses to listen to truth and reason.



its comsiderably larger than the number complete for current qt/kde, though ;). and it always will be like that for reasons already outlined.

It seems like you both are fairly adamant about this argument. Perhaps it would assist us in knowing which one of you is the ignorant fool in the situation by both of you actually posting sources for your information?

56phil
May 29th, 2007, 10:53 PM
I use GNOME much of the time. However, Kile makes my LaTeX work a lot more pleasant and productive.

Luggy
May 29th, 2007, 11:20 PM
Anyway, personally, from a technical standpoint I'd have to give the edge to KDE apps although I do tend to like the look and feel of GTK apps more.

I'll agree with that.
Amarok may have more cool bells and whistles but I perfer the presentation of Rhythmbox and it's that presentation that keeps me so attracted to Gnome as opposed to KDE.

Xbehave
May 30th, 2007, 07:20 PM
i find that the best apps look good in both environments
i personally use kde apps because they have more options, and from a scripting point of view i find them easier to interact with, ( e.g i can control everything on my pc using my phone)