KDE or GNOME

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twophat

48 posts

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#27170 16-Oct-2008 14:15

Just wondering about what peoples preferences were GNOME or KDE? and any reasoning behind their choice

chakkaradeep

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#171532 16-Oct-2008 14:26

twophat: Just wondering about what peoples preferences were GNOME or KDE? and any reasoning behind their choice

Personally I find KDE to be bloated and Gnome to be more usable. Also Beryl,Compiz work very well with Gnome

Regards,
Chaks

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kobiak

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#171570 16-Oct-2008 15:42

I'm Ubuntu user thus Gnome :) and like it because of it's simpleness.

KDE is good too, but a bit too much for me in terms of settings, features and so on. If you want better then vista look -> KDE 4 is your choice :)

helping others at evgenyk.nz

chakkaradeep

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#171572 16-Oct-2008 15:44

kobiak:
KDE 4 is your choice :)

I wouldnt recommend KDE4 now. Its still buggy

twophat

48 posts

Geek

#171582 16-Oct-2008 16:01

I also use ubuntu so using GNOME atm, I'm guessing by the responses that KDE has a bit more that you can play round with then?

foobar

186 posts

Master Geek

#171630 16-Oct-2008 19:22

KDE offers a lot of options. Many people like that, some find it a tad confusing. Gnome tends to choose a few ways of doing things for you. So, at first glance it's simpler. Personally, I use Gnome, because I like the simplicity. It does all I need from a desktop and with Ubuntu it is all well integrated and tested. But there are some distros that focus on KDE and you will probably find the same good level of integration there then.

In the end, it's all a matter of taste. Don't listen to those who tell you that one is better than the other. They both have advantages and disadvantages, and some things that will hit your personal preference and some things that will not.

Here's an idea: Get the Ubuntu and the Kubuntu Live-CD and try them both for a bit and see which one you like.

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38894

80 posts

Master Geek

#171648 16-Oct-2008 20:03

foobar: KDE offers a lot of options. Many people like that, some find it a tad confusing. Gnome tends to choose a few ways of doing things for you. So, at first glance it's simpler. Personally, I use Gnome, because I like the simplicity. It does all I need from a desktop and with Ubuntu it is all well integrated and tested. But there are some distros that focus on KDE and you will probably find the same good level of integration there then.

In the end, it's all a matter of taste. Don't listen to those who tell you that one is better than the other. They both have advantages and disadvantages, and some things that will hit your personal preference and some things that will not.

Here's an idea: Get the Ubuntu and the Kubuntu Live-CD and try them both for a bit and see which one you like.

I couldn't agree more with foobar on this one. KDE is my desktop of choice most of the time, however I do have Gnome installed on all my installations as well because I like to be able to switch into it from time to time.

I actually find KDE more simple than Gnome and certainly more intuitive, than Gnome is, but it depends on whether you've used both desktops on different distributions or not, for example, a fresh install of full whack KDE in Gentoo takes a LOT longer than Gnome (It compiles it all from source and I've seen it take days, litterally) but it's worth it because the default installation of it (No modifications after installation) is far easier to use and more pleasant to look at than Gnome.

KDE is certainly what I recommend for those switching from Windows to Linux or dabbling from Windows to Linux, it just has so many similarities to the Windows environment the switchover is effortless in comparison to trying to learn where everything is in Gnome, plus I find the Gnome menu management setup isn't all that self explanitory sometimes, I still get lost in it if I'm looking for something unusual.

Gnome definitely has it's advantages and as I said I do use it, I just still have a leaning towards KDE. As for KDE4 being buggy, the latest release has fixed a LOT of them, I tested the Mandriva Linux 2009.0 release the other day in a virtual machine, it not only uses KDE4.1 as it's default desktop, they've customised it a lot as well and I really really liked it. If you want to read the review it's here http://inform.symsysit.com/?page_id=146

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rphenix

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#171756 17-Oct-2008 10:18

This is a bit like asking should I drink beer or wine... but anyway. KDE originally was far more functional however gnome always had a lot of potential. Gnome has had a lot of money thrown at it courtousy of Novell/Suse. Gnome seems to be more and more the default GUI.

Personally I'm a gnome user :)

tonyhughes

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#171772 17-Oct-2008 11:21

Originally a KDE user from the VERY early days, at which point I disliked Gnome with a serious vengeance, I now prefer Gnome - for default looks + simplicity.

ajobbins

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#171791 17-Oct-2008 13:31

Go Windows!!!!

freakalad

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#172778 22-Oct-2008 14:34

windows-shmindows! only usefull in a VM (and then only some)

Why KDE OR Gnome? Whay not both: it's your freedom.

I'm running Gnome, KDE, XFCE, Enlightenment & a few other on my Ubuntu 8.04.1 quite happity, though I tend to gravitata to Gnome, since I find it to be the most stable & "mature" ot the bunch

Just do a base-nstallation (KDE, Gnome or terminal-only) of you choice, add the appropriate repositories (check out ubuntuforums for more info on these), do an apt-get update & install
For Gnome: sudo apt-get install gnome-desktop
For KDE: sudo apt-get install kde-desktop
For OpenGEU: sudo apt-get install opengeu-desktop

you get the idea...

To play it safe, set up a seperate EXT3 partition for your "/home" folder.
That way you can do pretty-much anything you want to your system, and if worse comes to worse, tou can simply scratch the entire installation, reinstall & remount your (unformatted) home partition, and you'll be back in action!
No harm, no foul

FLOSS'er, aspiring Maker

twophat

48 posts

Geek

#172803 22-Oct-2008 15:58

that sounds pretty painless - do you have a link which I can go to which offers more detailed instructions for a novice like myself??

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freakalad

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#172818 22-Oct-2008 16:46

For anything gLinux, I would recommend you head over to ubuntuforums.org (and possibly wiki.ubuntu.com)
This, IMO, is the be-all & end-all for the vast majority of your gLinux needs; usually regardless of the distro you choose

The setup you're looking @ is something like this, though maybe not in this order: (assuming you've ditched multi-boot & going full-on gLinux)
* small (100-250 MB) primary (EXT2) partition for your "/boot". This is where you kernels & boot info is stored. This HAS to be the 1st partition
* a swap partition, usually around double the size of your RAM, rounded up. Required for performance. Recommended that this at the end of your partition-table; done for disk-head reasons, though the requirements for this partition has been debated.
* a partition for your "/home" directory, ETX3. This can even be on a separate physical disk, if you like, and can he safely shared across multiple OS's/distro's. Also simplifies backup & disaster-recovery a bit
* the rest you can use for your "/" or root directory, which it pretty-much everything-else. you can have multiples of these, if you want to run multiple gLinux OS's
* if you like, you can also have additional partitions for "/tmp" (temp folder; used when ripping & other day-to-day activity. cleared & reboot. ) & "/var" or "/var/log" (logs & stuff, which can fill up & make your system a bit unstable)

I'm pretty keen on the (x)Ubuntu's in general, so I can safely install (nearly) as many different flavours as I want without having to worry about breaking too much. I'm sticking with Hardy Heron 8.04.1 LTS version for now; for stability reasons
Some I'm "toying" with:
eeebuntu
kubuntu
LinuxMint
mythbuntu
opengeu
ubuntu
xubuntu

If you want to pick & choose a good fit, go over to www.distrowatch.com
This may be a bit overwhelming at first; that's why I would recommend sticking with the Ubuntu's initially, as it's pretty user-friendly & fairly forgiving

Happy hunting

FLOSS'er, aspiring Maker