Is Gnome/GTK a viable solution?
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Is the general Linux Desktop expirience based on gnome getting any better? On the whole do you feel it is consistant and reliable?
Yes
20% (1 vote)
No
20% (1 vote)
KDE Is the way forwards
60% (3 votes)
No - Windows (XP onwards) is the way
40% (2 votes)
No - I prefer Mac - OS X
20% (1 vote)
Total votes: 5
I voted "No", "Win XP is the way", "I prefer OS X". Gnome and KDE both feel very clunky and tend to break often. The whole X11 experience is a huge turnoff. Not sure why Linux is still pushing ahead with the obsolete X-window technology... its as if developers are piling more fixes & tweaks & window dressing on the same old broken interface. Very disappointing.
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Submitted by Eric Layne on Thu, 05/10/2007 - 15:14.I think X itself is fine, KDE naturally is more cohesive due to its stronger ObjectOrientated background which forces the developers to think in a clearer frame about what is going on, while gnome is a patch work of C code.
i am running latest debian lenny and i still get font issues with gnome but in KDE it all works pretty good, I think font support is a good indication of the maturity of any window manager and display server, take mac for example, it is so well written than you can convert any screen into a perfect pdf with correct text embedded, whist in gnome, you get clitches when you highlight some text!
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Submitted by admin on Fri, 05/11/2007 - 00:03.What is there besides X?
X is not primitive, X is now highly refined. In fact I keep finding more and more stuff that it can do, some of which just blows my mind:
Eg. Quickcam IM camera that (thanks to Phillips being morons and Logitech being the morons that use the morons' chipset) only had shitdos32 drivers: Run it in shitdosXP in vmware under linux on one box, with the vmware display X-exported to X on another linux box - and I could wave my hand around in front of the cam and see the picture move on the other linux box with NO jerkiness whatsoever other than that which the cam and its shit driver introduced (ie. exactly the same running natively on shitdos32).
Also:
Don't be fooled by Apple - Aqua has an 'unspecified' chunk of itself that is basically X. Aqua was taken from NextStep which was basically a modified X server that used Display PostScript to render parts of itself - Aqua is the same tech but uses PDF instead of raw PostScript.
There really isn't anything apart from X. X is it. Calling X 'old tech' is like calling Unix 'old tech' - a better, more accurate term is 'Highly Evolved Technlogy.'
Jon
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Submitted by jon on Fri, 05/11/2007 - 00:31.Theres the whole issue between sound daemons and kernel drivers too, been some choice quotes about "esound" and "artsd"
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Submitted by dgtlmoon (not verified) on Thu, 02/01/2007 - 00:04.We need to start a Sound thread, yes!
-Jon
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Submitted by jon on Thu, 02/01/2007 - 02:46.Sound thread started.
Jon
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Submitted by jon on Thu, 02/01/2007 - 04:14.I voted both for 'yes' and 'KDE is the way forward'. I've been a Gnome user since I started getting into Linux seriously, but I've switched to KDE. I like some of the things Gnome has done - and I dislike a lot about KDE as well (in general I find it tacky and a bit plastic).
However, two points are very firm in my mind:
1) Metacity is clunky and slow and doesn't render very nicely even with a great graphics card. Kwin on the contrary, perhaps because it is older (?) and has had more development through age, is so remarkably smooth.
2) Many KDE apps are more powerful than what Gnome offers - quick examples: k3b, kftpgrabber & kasablanca, kflickr. On the other hand, some Gnome apps seem easier to use than KDE apps - quick examples Xchat compared to Konversation, Gaim compared to Kopete.
I think Gnome is great but jerky and frustrating. KDE is smoother but prone to more crashes (in my experience) and takes longer to configure (which can be another way of saying it offers more features/functionality).
Despite liking Gnome, I think KDE is far ahead and probably due to its age more than anything: it's more refined. I'm not sure if Gnome can catch up to it.
Sorry for the tome! Nice site btw, I like a site that has the balls to be critical in the interest of building solutions to put back in, rather than just bitch about stuff that doesn't work. :)
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Submitted by frenchninja on Wed, 01/31/2007 - 13:14.