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Seeing Linux clearly: Demystifying KDE and GNOME (iTWire)
David M. Williams at iTWire looks at desktop environments, covering what they are and some of the differences between GNOME and KDE. Desktop environments are sometimes a bit of a puzzle for new Linux users; this article should help explain them. "This perhaps may explain why when we talk about KDE and GNOME its not immediately apparent just whats going on. Anyone who comes from a Microsoft Windows or MacOS world has been brought up with the concept that your operating system has just one look. You might be able to tweak it or apply a few colour schemes and minor themes, but fundamentally Windows looks like Windows anywhere. In the Linux world any number of different looks can apply because the window managers are replaceable."
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Seeing Linux clearly: Demystifying KDE and GNOME (iTWire) Posted May 19, 2008 17:15 UTC (Mon) by horen (subscriber, #2514) [Link] The article misses a (to me) crucial aspect of the modern-day difference between a window manager and a desktop manager: session management. I admit to being ignorant (both hands-on and intellectually) about GNOME; however, the ability of KDE to "save state" between sessions is both powerful and enabling. Whether in a home-user or business setting, session management is a solid productivity/frustration-freeing tool.
Seeing Linux clearly: Demystifying KDE and GNOME (iTWire) Posted May 19, 2008 17:20 UTC (Mon) by rmn30 (guest, #36960) [Link] The author also appears unaware of the distinction between a window manager (kwin, metacity) and a widget toolkit (qt, gtk...). Viz.: "In fact, most all software will run under both KDE and GNOME and will correctly adopt the appropriate user interface so as not to cause offence. After all, the programs are merely requesting a button or any other visual element, and it is up to the window manager within the desktop manager to draw it as it sees fit." Seems that this article is likely to cause as much confusion as it resolves...
Seeing Linux clearly: Demystifying KDE and GNOME (iTWire) Posted May 21, 2008 1:57 UTC (Wed) by kh (subscriber, #19413) [Link] For Gnome, (at least in Ubuntu), System > Preferences > Sessions [Session Options] tab
Seeing Linux clearly: Demystifying KDE and GNOME (iTWire) Posted May 19, 2008 17:20 UTC (Mon) by deucalion (guest, #12904) [Link] Except that he doesn't explain the differences betweend KDE and GNOME. He resorts to a simple history of X and Desktop GUIs in general, explaining what a window manager is and then lists a few packages of GNOME and KDE. And actually calls it a comparison. It clearly lacks a feature comparison. This article doesn't really deserve a mention on LWN, in my very humble opinion. Not with so little actual content in terms of really comparing the two (which could be done in layman's terms, eventhough the author seems to doubt that). Could anyone explain to me please what special pages I must've overlooked that might change my (hopefully) distorted impression?
Seeing Linux clearly: Demystifying KDE and GNOME (iTWire) Posted May 19, 2008 18:29 UTC (Mon) by pr1268 (subscriber, #24648) [Link] I agree, Mr. Williams didn't accomplish that which he set out to do (compare GNOME vs. KDE to novice users). Yes, he did give a history of Unix evolution from command-line only utilities to the X-windows system, but I was unfulfilled as a reader. Plus, I wonder if he is misleading readers by listing the packages specific to each desktop manager--I'm unsure whether novice Linux users would care what the specific package names are (a definition of "novice Linux user" might be useful here), or by the sheer numbers of packages (50 for GNOME vs. 25 for KDE--does that mean GNOME has more features, bells & whistles, or "stuff" than KDE?). The one saving grace was that he did mention how Ubuntu users could get KDE to run alongside the default GNOME (with the sudo apt get command). I think that a lot of new Linux users (Mr. Williams' obvious target audience in this article) might be confused at having a choice of two desktop managers, but then again Linux and FLOSS is all about having choices to begin with. I suppose he's done a little to assuage their confusion.
Seeing Linux clearly: Demystifying KDE and GNOME (iTWire) Posted May 20, 2008 8:24 UTC (Tue) by jasonjgw (guest, #52080) [Link] If you visit certain Web sites that I could name but won't, you'll find that there is an abundance of poorly written, uninformed, content-free or misguided articles published about Linux. The LWN editors usually exercise good judgment in deciding which articles to cite here. Occasionally, though, mistakes are made, but that is only to be expected. By reading LWN and avoiding most of the articles (not referred to on LWN) written by technology journalists, industry analysts, etc., we avoid most of the mediocre commentary, which saves a lot of time that, in my experience, can be devoted to doing real work.
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