KDE -vs Gnome?

Carlosinfl

Loves the juice
Joined
Sep 25, 2002
Messages
6,633
Wondering what you Linux users prefer?

I did like KDE but Fedora Core 2 has a sound bug that mutes my entire system so I switched to Gnome and find it pretty cool.

I know there is fluxbox and what have you but I was wondering what you guys like...I also have a Gnome question if anyone knows...I want to repalce my trash icons (empty and full) with my own .png icons...anyone know where and how I can do this?
 
I'd be quick to say neither, cause it's true.

If you need an answer, I guess KDE...though honestly, I find KDE and Gnome to be a little over the top and bloated (KDE is more guilty of this). Probably why I stuck with window managers Openbox and Waimea.

And I don't know how to change just the trash icon under Gnome.
 
I guess for the average user I don't mind either - I just wish I was strong with terminal commands more than anything.

I still find all the tar and untar xvzdofchoidhcpid commands way over my head :p

I guess if I stick with Linux in the long run and maybe even find a logical buisness job where I can use Linux - that would be ever better.

Thanks for the help.
 
Let me start off by saying that if I had to, I could use either one.
Technically, I think KDE is a better system, however, I don't think they have a grasp on what "good HCI" is.
When I actually have to use the computer to get work done, I prefer to use Gnome. The UI is much cleaner, more intuitive, and tends to "stay out of the way".

So I would say KDE has more technical merit, but Gnome is much more practical and actually useful.
 
kde is nice and all, it just feels to mac os-ish (or more precicely, most of the canned themes are too mac os-ish). gnome feels like it's another animal entirely.

i use xfce as a window manager, and it heavily relies upon gtk, which is tied closely to gnome.

but thank kde for k3b.... it's the only reason i have kde libs on my gentoo box.
 
well good point on both being bloated beyond what they should be, but I am a GNOME fan, used it since started linux (didnt get along with kde)

just my prefence. If performance is required I do have windowmaker configured for a slightly more lightweigh DM
 
BriguyNJ said:
kde is nice and all, it just feels to mac os-ish (or more precicely, most of the canned themes are too mac os-ish). gnome feels like it's another animal entirely.

i use xfce as a window manager, and it heavily relies upon gtk, which is tied closely to gnome.

but thank kde for k3b.... it's the only reason i have kde libs on my gentoo box.

Ditto :D
 
i like kde, but xfce is pretty damn kewl too.. check it out at www.xfce.org kde 3.3 is supost to be much faster than 3.2... dunno bout other improvements though >.<
 
I really prefer KDE...A much better GUI, IMO. The only thing I like about Gnome, which I usually install in KDE, is Gedit as my text editor.
 
RazeDS said:
Let me start off by saying that if I had to, I could use either one.
Technically, I think KDE is a better system, however, I don't think they have a grasp on what "good HCI" is.
When I actually have to use the computer to get work done, I prefer to use Gnome. The UI is much cleaner, more intuitive, and tends to "stay out of the way".

So I would say KDE has more technical merit, but Gnome is much more practical and actually useful.

I feel that Gnome's sleek design and "out of the way"ness is why I choose it over KDE.

Additionally, Gnome is the GNU-standard ;)
 
starbuck8968 said:
fluxbox owns them all
but i'm in console 90% of time so doesn't matter to me
I spend about 60/40 time between a 1280x1024 framebuffer and Fluxbox.
 
I'm addicted to KDE's IOSlaves: In any KDE-program, try fish://username@someserver, and if it supports scp you're set. There's others, but this is my favourite :)
Overall, I think KDE feels more like a system, while gnome is a sum of its parts, that happen to look more or less alike. It's also visible in small things like how quanta and kate use the same text editor widget (from kwrite, IIRC), of course with the same settings, or how kmail just recently had khtml (originally from konqueror) implanted to show html emails.

A side effect is that while there's a lot to load when you start KDE (or the first program using kdelibs), additional programs should be much faster.

Another thing is the approach they've taken to simplicity:
KDE makes it easy to change everything, and tries to make it simpler by organizing things better.
Gnome tries to be simpler by having good defaults and hiding the settings.
Both have their pros and cons, but I must confess that I personally find the gnome way a bit frustrating.


So, as you've all guessed by now, I use XFCE4.
(Look at the screenshots thread if you don't believe me :D )
 
XfCE4 = pwn4g3

Highly usable, and you can configure everything in the UI "on the spot". Nothing touches it for configurability.
 
I just now got my first Linux box up and running after some trouble configuring my video card in XFree86. I have installe Redhat 9 Shrike as my first distro to learn on and I went ahead and installed both Gnome and KDE to test them out. I first used Gnome and almost dropped Linux completely thinking it was gheyer than everyone makes it out to be :D but then remembered I could try KDE. I ran KDE and instantly changed my mind. Organization much better, seems cleaner to me because of this and makes configuration so easy for a n00b. I like the packaged themes and backround sets. Just my opinion. Still "n00bing around" with it so after using it I may change my mind.
 
KDE is great but I can't use it because Fedora Core 2 and KDE = no sound on my system? It's a known bug for some reason and when I switch to Gnome, I have sound :confused:

So I guess reguardless what I like, I am stuck with Gnome :rolleyes:
 
666 said:
KDE is great but I can't use it because Fedora Core 2 and KDE = no sound on my system? It's a known bug for some reason and when I switch to Gnome, I have sound

If you've got yum installed, just head over to www.fedora.us and add one of the mirrors to your /etc/yum.conf (I personally like the kernel.org mirror), then just yum install xfce4 ;)

really, I've always been a GNOME fanatic, I've used it since version before the 1.0 release. I really hated it when they went with Nautilus as the default file manager, at the begining it was crippled with bugs and memory leaks!! (fortunately you could still use the old style Gnome). Some time around Red Hat 7.3, Gnome 1.4 (which also included Nautilus) wasn't that bad, nothing bad at all. I got really addicted to it, then it came Gnome 2 and I just had to try it, so installed a fogotten Beta version of RH: Limbo (7.99), which was the direct father of what would come to be known as Psyche (or RH 8). I wasn't too pleased with it, so I skipped RH 8 altogether and tried the next version (while I was still using 1.4 as my default DE), 2.2 was much nicer than 2.0, but still had some bugs and inconsistencies, but definitely much more usable than 2.0. When FC1 came I rushed and instlled just to give Gnome 2.4 a try, it was love at first use (yeah, it sounds horrible!! :eek: ). Many of the features I liked of the 1.4 were back, customizability was insanely high, but since you'd have to know where to look to make the changes take effect, well you can't have everyone happy, now can you? One of the things I first noticed was the Configuration Editor (or GConf) which would let you configure any integrated GNOME application in a style much like the Windows Registry (I thought Windows users would love this feature!), though much more straight forward and it actually makes sense! (human readable, not just hex values :mad: ). I really enjoyed 2.4. With FC2 2.6 came around (along the 2.6 kenel) and again I was impressed, if 2.4 was as speed boost over 2.4, 2.6 was yet faster than 2.4 and had even more apps to configure and tweak around (being the first change I made the browser behaviour of Nautilus back again, I'd rather have a bloated FM than a new window with each click!).

For me KDE has been a bad boy. Since version 1 I was trying to use it, being default on many of the distros I tried, I had pretty much no other choice but to use it. I always felt it sluggish, slow, hard to customize (I HATED too much that Windows-like style), always made my system feel like what at the time would have been a 486 DX 66/16 Mb RAM running Win98 (even though I had a pretty decent system for the time, a P166 64Mb RAM). Then it came version 2.0, I tried it, it was cool, too bloated to my taste. At least when compared to GNOME 1.2 or 1.4, it was slightly faster (virtually nothing), still sluggish and slow, didn't make my system feel much slower, though. Version 2.2 was much more better, I really got to like that version of KDE, though it wasn't a GNOME in the speed department, I still found it a little bit difficult to set up the way I wanted, but very useable. The trhee series is Ok, nothing spectacular IMO, if I hated aRTSd* before, in this releases I hated it even more, 3.1 and 3.2 though improvements over the first 3.0 release, and pretty good overall integration, only problem I currently have against KDE right now is that KDE has trouble with fglrx drivers, and GNOME doesn't.

Other WM I've tried and liked, well fluxbox is pretty darn good and light, though it isn't what I'd call a Desktop Environment, gets the job done, though. Open and Black box are pretty much the same story here... WindowMaker is good, though for some reason I always felt its UI took too much of the screen and that I felt like "messy". If one will be my next work horse for the Desktop Enviroment, that'll be XFCE4.1. It's simply awesome! I love it, slick, fast, simple, and fun to use, can I ask more? Ohh and like GNOME it keeps out of the way. I like to call it GNOME's little brother or GNOME-light. I just haven't messed around with it to fully configure it to my heart's content.

Bottom line, I really like the three modern DEs, but I tend to prefer the GTK+ ones than the QT based one (even from a programmer's point of view, I like GTK better ), I just don't like how intrusive KDE feels; and yes XFCE Ro0LeZz!! :D

*666 about your KDE and sound problem, have you tried disabling Arts from the KDE Control Center? I'm betting that's the problem there.
 
I've been messing with Gnome and KDE tonight after I posted and both seem very sluggish. I am running an Athlon Xp 2200 with 128mb SDRAM (all I have spare atm). Is the RAM amount my problem here or shouldn't Linux be better than this?
 
Both KDE and Gnome are pretty resource intensive, but 128 MB RAM should be good, and the processor is more than enough.

Maybe you're accessing swap a lot. Thought of giving FLuxbox or Openbox a try? Or maybe XFCE 4?
 
pixelbaker said:
I've been messing with Gnome and KDE tonight after I posted and both seem very sluggish. I am running an Athlon Xp 2200 with 128mb SDRAM (all I have spare atm). Is the RAM amount my problem here or shouldn't Linux be better than this?
If you keep a clean desktop on either (GNOME and KDE), you should be fine with 128Mb RAM (though the minimum recommended for modern distros is 192Mb). You can tweak further your memory usage by diabling unused system services. If you want further advice, I'd recommend you post your distro, to guide you through a method to disable such services. Usually Mandrake, SuSE, Xandros, Fedora, Red Hat and others tend to enable a lot ton of services at boot up, this is Ok, if you have the resources to spare on them and if you run any kind of server. But generally it is a good idea to disable those unused, or less used. Also it will depend on your resource drain the amount of "goodies" you have in each DE (transparent terminals come to mind) and the size (and file type) of your background image (generally it is a good idea to have jpeg's of good resolution, but less than 1 Mb in size), number of panels, applets, etc, etc. You can have a very slim, slick and fast GNOME or KDE desktop by tweaking some ;)
 
I converted to Xfce4 a few months ago, never turning back. I did use KDE for about a year when i was new to linux on the desktop, and switched to Gnome before i finally found Xfce.

KDE is great if you want a whole lot of everything to do anything right out of the box. However, I am a man who likes to pick and choose my favorite program for each task (you think i am going to use Konqueror over Firefox? Ha!), but for some people... this is a good thing. KDE also does a good job with configuration, better then Gnome IMO. I also prefer Qt over GTK, but thats a whole differenct conversation.. :)

Gnome to me is somewhere between KDE and Xfce. It comes with a lot of stuff, but not everything for every task.. this is good or bad depending upon your taste/goals. It's configuration can be a little annoying, and in general Gnome seems to be all over the place. The end result of a good looking and functional linux desktop usually seems better to me in Gnome rather then KDE though.

One just really has to try them both (try as in weeks not hours) and draw their own conclusions. On another note, in a world where i pick for everyone, you all use Xfce! :D
 
BillLeeLee said:
Both KDE and Gnome are pretty resource intensive, but 128 MB RAM should be good, and the processor is more than enough.

Maybe you're accessing swap a lot. Thought of giving FLuxbox or Openbox a try? Or maybe XFCE 4?
These are the most basic functions such as opening the KDE menu and running small programs and they are sluggish. (!Read Below!) I have a wireless Ad-Hoc (Peer2Peer) network that I use to connect to the internet and my wireless card is a rather unsupported type (Uniden PCW-200) and so I am unable to connect to my network and therefore my internet connection to try these other window managers (if that's the right term for them :D)

Thetargos said:
If you keep a clean desktop on either (GNOME and KDE), you should be fine with 128Mb RAM (though the minimum recommended for modern distros is 192Mb). You can tweak further your memory usage by diabling unused system services. If you want further advice, I'd recommend you post your distro, to guide you through a method to disable such services. Usually Mandrake, SuSE, Xandros, Fedora, Red Hat and others tend to enable a lot ton of services at boot up, this is Ok, if you have the resources to spare on them and if you run any kind of server. But generally it is a good idea to disable those unused, or less used. Also it will depend on your resource drain the amount of "goodies" you have in each DE (transparent terminals come to mind) and the size (and file type) of your background image (generally it is a good idea to have jpeg's of good resolution, but less than 1 Mb in size), number of panels, applets, etc, etc. You can have a very slim, slick and fast GNOME or KDE desktop by tweaking some ;)
I am running my first linux distro, Redhat 9 Shrike. I did some searching and found my Services settings and turned off some that did not need to be on. (Desktop PC so PCMCIA was unnecessary I believe, along with battery management.) I have noticed a change in the speed and it is overall approximately 20% quicker but it is still not the speed increase I desired.


edit| By The Way: Someone please let me know if I'm crapping on this thread by switching the topic! I'm new to the forums as a general communication form as I previously only used For Sale/Trade section. Thanks!
 
Well what you posted is still on-topic ;)

However, you could make another thread maybe called RH9 Shrike tweaking to make it easier for you to find more answers on tweaking RH9, and have a reference to this thread (and post numbers) just in case ;)

So answering your questions, when you use the program redhat-config-services on any Red Hat system and Fedora Core 1 (system-config-services for FC2+), you can have a lot of services that you could turn off, just make sure you won't use them (like sendmail for example or gpm). About your wireless card, google around and see if it supported by any newer version of the kernel, since RH9's is a little bit (Ok, a LOT) outdated. Again just ask. I have written a custom kernel compilation mini-howto, so you could follow it to build a newer kernel with support for your card. Bare in mind that getting a 2.6 kernel (latest version of it) is difficult to say the least, in RH9.
 
Thetargos said:
Well what you posted is still on-topic ;)

However, you could make another thread maybe called RH9 Shrike tweaking to make it easier for you to find more answers on tweaking RH9, and have a reference to this thread (and post numbers) just in case ;)

So answering your questions, when you use the program redhat-config-services on any Red Hat system and Fedora Core 1 (system-config-services for FC2+), you can have a lot of services that you could turn off, just make sure you won't use them (like sendmail for example or gpm). About your wireless card, google around and see if it supported by any newer version of the kernel, since RH9's is a little bit (Ok, a LOT) outdated. Again just ask. I have written a custom kernel compilation mini-howto, so you could follow it to build a newer kernel with support for your card. Bare in mind that getting a 2.6 kernel (latest version of it) is difficult to say the least, in RH9.


If RH9 is such an outdated distro and I need to download FC2 just say so :D
I don't mind trying Fedora but I'm on dialup and therefore downloading would have to wait a while until I could get on my school's T1 (with permission of course :))
 
i want enlightenment 17... mayb i should give xfce 4 a try, since so many of you guys like it. I go back and forth between kde and fluxbox...
 
I always used to use KDE but just a week ago I switched to gnome and it's pretty cool. I've also used fluxbox off and on, but at times it's just too minimalistic for me. I tried xfce4 because everyone was saying how great it is but I really hated it. Just annoyed the hell out of me. So gnome it is for now.
 
How can I get Xfce4 after I am already in Gnome? I have never seen this and wanted to give it a try.
 
zerogt86 said:
i want enlightenment 17... mayb i should give xfce 4 a try, since so many of you guys like it. I go back and forth between kde and fluxbox...

I liked enlightenment, very nice looking, but always wondered why it took a year just to get a new release, and it's still only at 0.17.
 
666 said:
How can I get Xfce4 after I am already in Gnome? I have never seen this and wanted to give it a try.
You are using FC2, right? Well the easier way is to go to www.fedora.us, get a mirror, add it to your yum.conf file, and then behold the magic: yum install xfce, e voilà :D
 
BillLeeLee said:
I liked enlightenment, very nice looking, but always wondered why it took a year just to get a new release, and it's still only at 0.17.

e17 still isnt out...
 
Thetargos said:
You are using FC2, right? Well the easier way is to go to www.fedora.us, get a mirror, add it to your yum.conf file, and then behold the magic: yum install xfce, e voilà :D

ok - so I just add that to my yum.conf file and then open terminal and type yup install xfce...then I am sure it ask me if I am sure I want to install this and click "y" for yes....

My only question is - since I always used Gnome - how do I now switch into this window manager rather than Gnome?
 
666 said:
ok - so I just add that to my yum.conf file and then open terminal and type yup install xfce...then I am sure it ask me if I am sure I want to install this and click "y" for yes....

My only question is - since I always used Gnome - how do I now switch into this window manager rather than Gnome?

Do you use GDM? After Xfce is installed, logout of Gnome and change the session type to Xfce 4 in GDM. Login and bingo, Xfce. Be ready for some configuring -- luckily Xfce's documentation is clean, straight to the point, and easy to read.
 
Tweakin said:
Do you use GDM? After Xfce is installed, logout of Gnome and change the session type to Xfce 4 in GDM. Login and bingo, Xfce. Be ready for some configuring -- luckily Xfce's documentation is clean, straight to the point, and easy to read.

Sorry, I am still learning but if GDM is Gnome 2.6, then yes....that is what I am using.
My question is how do I change the session type to Xfce 4 in GDM?
 
666 said:
Sorry, I am still learning but if GDM is Gnome 2.6, then yes....that is what I am using.
My question is how do I change the session type to Xfce 4 in GDM?
I assume you are using the default Fedora theme in GDM, just click under sessions and choose XFCE, login and you'll login right into XFCE.
 
I like Gnome over KDE just for the simple fact that I want to confuse our network admin (He loves M$ and the only window manager he will use is KDE.) Gnome just seems a lot cleaner.

Now for the window manager I actually use, I use Fluxbox just for the simple fact that I know it the best and it's really easy to set up and modify. After reading the posts in this forum I'm trying out xfce 4 right now. I have to say this isn't too bad. I've still got some setting up to do but it's not that bad at all.
 
pixelbaker said:
I've been messing with Gnome and KDE tonight after I posted and both seem very sluggish. I am running an Athlon Xp 2200 with 128mb SDRAM (all I have spare atm). Is the RAM amount my problem here or shouldn't Linux be better than this?

LINUX AND GNOME/KDE are SEPERATE ENTITIES. Don't confuse Gnome/KDE with the kernel. The Linux kernel is extremely well tweaked, whereas Gnome/KDE, maybe not so much so.

Have you disabled unnecessary services?
 
Josh_B said:
LINUX AND GNOME/KDE are SEPERATE ENTITIES. Don't confuse Gnome/KDE with the kernel. The Linux kernel is extremely well tweaked, whereas Gnome/KDE, maybe not so much so.

Have you disabled unnecessary services?

I know the difference. Previous posts by myself in this thread will show that I have disabled unnecessary services.
 
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