Gnome or KDE

[kethwika]

I am installing gentoo tommorow on a aus a8n sli premium, 3800 x2 and 2 gigs of platinum ocz ram with an nvidia graphics card and I wanted to know what desktop environment is better. I have tried xfce4 and its good but it has NOTHING, windows managers and everything. I want a desktop enviroment thats a little easier to use and less tedious. i just dont want anything useless (games, etc). basically, What will KDE and Gnome come with when i emerge them after I install gentoo

[MorfiusX]

I think it's a matter of personal preference. I prefer KDE.

[acascianelli]

My vote goes to Gnome...

KDE has more eye candy than Gnome, but I find that Gnome is faster and more light weight. I run Gnome 2.12.1

[eno-on]

I run KDE, but prolly just because I don't know any better. It looks nice, though.

[kethwika]

i am seeing that KDE has 101 applications. I really dont want this because i dont want to run kmail i want to run thunderbird so if i install gnome will this come with a bunch of bs

[Raaben]

My vote goes to Gnome...

KDE has more eye candy than Gnome, but I find that Gnome is faster and more light weight. I run Gnome 2.12.1

Me too. I am running 2.12.1 on Ubuntu, and it rocks. I find Gnome a bit faster, and far easier on they eyes by default. It seems cleaner to me.

[HHunt]

KDE is very well integrated. Store a password for a network place in one program, and it'll be there in all of them. You can work with files over ssh in the simplest text editor (because al programs share the same supported addresses), and they all look fairly alike. Change the menu font, and all KDE programs change immediately.

Gnome tries to do the same things, but so far I'm not impressed. It's a nice enviroment in all sorts of ways, but IMHO it feels more like a collection of programs than a cohesive whole.

That said, "a collections of programs" might be what you want. I suggest you try both, and that you give both a fair chance. (When you try KDE, use konqueror for web- and file browsing, kate as your text editor, set up printing with kprinter and cups, and so on. Ditto for gnome.)

I use xfce4 on the laptop, simply because it's small and neat. The desktops use KDE.
Or, to be (even) less diplomatic: I think KDE is currently better. Gnome doesn't feel faster, it seems like a bunch of programs instead of a system, and it has sacrificed functionality and configurability for simplicity. It's not actually bad, and I can see a lot of good things in it (it's often easy and uncomplicated), but I get frustrated using it. If you want fast, simple and/or gtk, try xfce4.

[kethwika]

does anyone know anything about X11? and also if i install KDE and then when i get it up and running decide that I dont want kmail can i remove it. and how do i know how to remove the packages i dont want and after i remove them will it still be as clean. another thing, after i try say KDE and i dont like it then how do i uninstall it completely and install gnome or x11? i don't want to install kde and trash up the system and then uninstall it and then install gnome and have a shitty install in gnome therefore forcing me to install gentoo again. just let me know what to do

[HHunt]

Having KDE installed will in no way make problems for gnome, or the other way around. They coexist fine.
As for how, I haven't touched gentoo in a while. man portage ?

[1c3d0g]

KDE (http://www.kde.org/) hands down. :)

[eeyrjmr]

Having KDE installed will in no way make problems for gnome, or the other way around. They coexist fine.
As for how, I haven't touched gentoo in a while. man portage ?


emerge kde gnome -vp

thats all there is to it.
KDE has better GNOME-apps intergration into KDE menu, while GNOME doesnt pick up KDE apps (well that is more gentoo prob)


Gnome all the way, after 2.12 they impoved alot of the back-end and it is alot faster!!!!

equally with GTK now starting to use Cairo and Glitz the next release is going to be more eye-candy (if thats really what you want)

[tdg]

KDE for good integration and eye candy, or Gnome for better speed and lower resource usage.

Just install both and then decide which you like better, the KDE vs. Gnome war is like any * Linux vs. * Linux, it's all a matter of personal choice :cool:

[SiathLinux]

I use KDE - but it's just a personal preferance, mostly due to one thing, if I wanted to have to go to the corner to click to get a menu, I'd have booted to Windows...
I actually prefer Enlightenment over either of them...but FC4 doesn't come with it and I haven't gone to d/l it yet.

[BillLeeLee]

If I have to, I'll use KDE just because I use more KDE-based programs (and kdeinit and such suck up resources) - K3B, Kdevelop, etc.

However, I run the *boxes like Flux and Open, cause they look a lot nicer to me. :D

[Whatsisname]

I use gnome.

I don't like how KDE looks like it's UI was developed by fischer price, and if I wanted to use windows, well, I'd use windows.

[HHunt]

I suspect you've used the keramik theme, then. :)
(Which I agree is rather ugly.)

As for windows-like, yes, the default look has similarities. KDE button in the bottom-left, same design for the window manager buttons. Some of the dialogs are similar. That doesn't really make it a windows clone, though.

[Josh_B]

KDE is very well integrated. Store a password for a network place in one program, and it'll be there in all of them. You can work with files over ssh in the simplest text editor (because al programs share the same supported addresses), and they all look fairly alike. Change the menu font, and all KDE programs change immediately.

Gnome tries to do the same things, but so far I'm not impressed. It's a nice enviroment in all sorts of ways, but IMHO it feels more like a collection of programs than a cohesive whole.

That said, "a collections of programs" might be what you want. I suggest you try both, and that you give both a fair chance. (When you try KDE, use konqueror for web- and file browsing, kate as your text editor, set up printing with kprinter and cups, and so on. Ditto for gnome.)

I use xfce4 on the laptop, simply because it's small and neat. The desktops use KDE.
Or, to be (even) less diplomatic: I think KDE is currently better. Gnome doesn't feel faster, it seems like a bunch of programs instead of a system, and it has sacrificed functionality and configurability for simplicity. It's not actually bad, and I can see a lot of good things in it (it's often easy and uncomplicated), but I get frustrated using it. If you want fast, simple and/or gtk, try xfce4.

QFT... although I use Gnome myself, I can see your point of view. I agree that the less-integrated approach might be frustrating for some people, but I prefer it myself.

[HHunt]

QFT... although I use Gnome myself, I can see your point of view. I agree that the less-integrated approach might be frustrating for some people, but I prefer it myself.

The one thing I don't really get with gnome is "what does it offer over running the programs on their own"?
(I'm open for examples.)

[Josh_B]

The one thing I don't really get with gnome is "what does it offer over running the programs on their own"?
(I'm open for examples.)

I would argue that the Gnome approach is moreso a compromise between integration and modularization. Of course, everyone's interpretation of the degree of integration required is going to be different... you can never please everyone, I suppose.

[HHunt]

I would argue that the Gnome approach is moreso a compromise between integration and modularization. Of course, everyone's interpretation of the degree of integration required is going to be different... you can never please everyone, I suppose.

Yeah. Gnome does fit somewhere between KDE and XFCE when it comes to level of integration.
The interesting question is how the benefit/overhead - ratios compare, but that's not something that easy to compare or discuss in a rational manner. :)
(Not that my opinion on the matter is a secret.)