taking bets

Story: A fifteenth chance for GNOMETotal Replies: 30
Author Content
jimf

Aug 28, 2006
5:10 PM EDT
Now just how long will he stick it out?
tuxchick2

Aug 28, 2006
5:30 PM EDT
Until he tries to do something productive.

heeheeheeeeee.....
joel

Aug 28, 2006
9:16 PM EDT
tuxie, that's my line, and my experience too. I gave up on G*o'my after three tries. :) Ice is nice, & KDE just works.
Sander_Marechal

Aug 28, 2006
10:16 PM EDT
Sorry, I have to disagree with that, being a long time Gnome user :-)

/me dons asbestos suit and upacks the aerosol cans & zippo lighter
salparadise

Aug 28, 2006
10:19 PM EDT
You're all mad.

KDE is a cluttered mess by comparison to Gnome's elegance and what's worse is that KDE seems to really really want to be OSX whereas Gnome is Gnome and doesn't try to copy anyone (AFAIK).



jimf

Aug 28, 2006
10:42 PM EDT
> whereas Gnome is Gnome and doesn't try to copy anyone

Yep, that's Gnome. Elegant, exclusive, and totaly nonproductive :D
Sander_Marechal

Aug 29, 2006
12:30 AM EDT
As opposed to KDE's clutter, more clutter and a pile of clutter on top? Yeah, thát's great for productivity. The only KDE I've seen so far that doesn't crash under it's own clutter is PCLinuxOS.
salparadise

Aug 29, 2006
4:59 AM EDT
Having not seen a KDE v Gnome war before, I now understand the references to it.

Vive la difference.

And maybe less of the internet taken up with "articles" along the lines of "I've used and sworn by application/desktop/OS xxx for xxx amount of time and now am going to change and am going to provoke/bore/interest you with why/how/because".
jdixon

Aug 29, 2006
5:14 AM EDT
> Having not seen a KDE v Gnome war before, I now understand the references to it.

Fortunately, being primarily an XFCE user, I can hold myself aloft from the fray. :)
Sander_Marechal

Aug 29, 2006
6:17 AM EDT
> Having not seen a KDE v Gnome war before, I now understand the references to it.

Be glad this here is all in good (p|f)un :-) You should have seen the flamewars that erupted after Linus said KDE was better than Gnome! O_o
techiem2

Aug 29, 2006
6:17 AM EDT
*hugs fluxbox*
jimf

Aug 29, 2006
6:58 AM EDT
> Be glad this here is all in good (p|f)un :-)

Absolutely.

Whether or not you agree with any particular GUI interface design, the diversity of interfaces in linux should be regarded as one of its strengths, something to be celebrated, not fought over. You certainly don't get that kind of choice in Windows.

As I've noted before, even though I much prefer the KDE primary interface, I really like many of the GTK apps, so, I too benefit from having more than one type of development in Linux.

Sal, I do find it odd that GTK app designers can come up with clean, logical, and functional interfaces, while Gnome itself is such mess :D

Again, the point is that one man's 'elegance' is another's nightmare.

> *hugs fluxbox*

But that's just 'wrong'! :D

dek

Aug 29, 2006
7:23 AM EDT
jimf: > while Gnome itself is such mess

I'd like to know where you get that????????

I prefer the elegant simplicity of Gnome over the gnarish Gnightmare that KDE presents. Sure, there are things that can be improved but, on the whole, I Much Prefer what I'm looking at now!! KDE strikes me as being a kludgy combination of Windows and Gnome together!

I suppose, though as you say later, "Again, the point is that one man's 'elegance' is another's nightmare.", the personal choice and aesthetics of every user must be respected and, in this mode, GNU/LInux is far superior to anything else out there today!

Don K.
jimf

Aug 29, 2006
7:35 AM EDT
Lighten up Don... notice the :D

On the other hand, I find nothing elegant and a lot of disfunctionality in Gnome's design. But, that's just the opinion of this old Controls Engineer and Graphics Designer. Use what you want.
techiem2

Aug 29, 2006
8:54 AM EDT
>> *hugs fluxbox* >But that's just 'wrong'! :D

:) What can I say, I like my screen space (and it saves my cpu for more important things, like firefox tabs and the 10+ other apps I have running at all times....).

As for gnome/kde, I've used both now and then through the years. I was always slightly more partial to gnome cuz I thought it looked a little cleaner, but both take up too much screen space for my taste with stuff I'd never use.

But then, as we say often, it's all about choice.
jimf

Aug 29, 2006
8:57 AM EDT
techiem2,

It's the 'hug' part that's creepy :D
techiem2

Aug 29, 2006
9:00 AM EDT
fine. *gives a manly handshake to fluxbox* That better? :)
tuxchick2

Aug 29, 2006
9:08 AM EDT
oh geez, you won't lose your manhood over a hug. Anyway Fluxbox is a girl, so it's OK.
jimf

Aug 29, 2006
9:36 AM EDT
> Anyway Fluxbox is a girl, so it's OK.

The ultimate personification... I'm not even going to touch that one :D

Seriously, the one big negative to all this rivalry is that no one can rationally discuss what a logical and (somewhat) universal interface could be. the personification of our chosen GUI makes the evaluation and recognition of superior design elements in other GUIs, or even our own, difficult if not impossible. To a greater extent, we go with what we first learn, and what works for us, without thinking how it could be 'improved'.

There is also the thought that even if a 'universal' interface is possible, only noobs and business's would want it. Most experienced users would reject, or modify immediately.
techiem2

Aug 29, 2006
9:52 AM EDT
>There is also the thought that even if a 'universal' interface is possible, only noobs and business's would want it. Most experienced users would reject, or modify immediately.

Very true. Some of us just can't resist the urge to tweak/replace/etc. our interfaces. Whereas your average user just happily uses what they learn first and gets lost if you change it. And of course as you mention the business end. I would think a business or a location where multiple people have to share computers (schools/colleges/etc.) would use a single interface to keep everything uniform and cut down on headaches for the IT staff cuz Bob sits down at the comp that Joe usually uses and "can't" work because the interface is a little different(ignoring per-user profiles and such like that that might get around the issue).
tuxchick2

Aug 29, 2006
10:23 AM EDT
techiem2, that's called "terminal services." Easy as pie on Linux, completely retarded but marginally do-able and expensive on windoze. Not sure why more businesses and schools don't go for it- it's lower-cost and easier to administer. Just get a nice stout machine for the server, then connect whatever motley antique PCs and dumb terminals you have lying around, no muss no fuss. Users can't do a thing except use whatever you give them, and resetting or deleting accounts is dead easy.

techiem2

Aug 29, 2006
11:01 AM EDT
Yeah...We do that in one lab here at the college I work at (windows unfortuneately). Most of the labs are normal winders installs on a domain and are quite locked down. Pain in the neck to do tweak the policies open/closed when you need to redo and update the machines though.

At least several of our servers are linux.
dek

Aug 29, 2006
6:25 PM EDT
jimf: Lighten up Don... notice the :D

(I'm sorry this post is way late and out of order.)

I saw it, ok, just decided to ignore it so I could insult KDE a little bit! ;-)

Seriously, aren't you glad you have a choice? Don't you wish every one did?
tuxchick2

Aug 29, 2006
6:29 PM EDT
choicessss...noooo...baaaaad... must not think....
helios

Aug 29, 2006
8:16 PM EDT
...hugs fluxbox...

ewwwwhhh, I got flux all over me now, Dude!

PCLinuxOS just accomplished what I had come to enjoy in Mepis and a few others. Want a gnome app? just app get the little troll and there he is. I like banshee and the gnome search tool (gnome-utils) and a few other offerings while running in KDE. best of both worlds is...well the best of both worlds. However, when Im on an "in and out" mission, it's Ice baby Ice all the way...

no nonsense, no clutter (I get distracted with all the pretty sparklies) just get it done and get gone.

The gnome mixing with KDE IS cool though. Texstar belts another one into the Crawford Boxes.
dcparris

Aug 29, 2006
10:24 PM EDT
I just don't understand! Where are all the EMACS fanbois? No one is taking up for EMACS! (/runs to call RMS & Co...)

Look. Everyday I boot to init 3 so I keep my network functionality. Then, using GNU/Linux' built-in, powerful virtualization technology, I load EMACS. (And people think VMWare is cool!) From there, I have instant access to e-mail, calendar, tasklist, newsgroups and web, not to mention my IDE/office suite combo - all at the tap of a simple keyboard shortcut like this:

^+shift+o+O+w+[F5]+ex

O.k., so it's a memory hog, compared to that *other* cheesy little postcardware program. Still beats KDE and GNOME hands down! :-D
jimf

Aug 29, 2006
10:38 PM EDT
> ^+shift+o+O+w+[F5]+ex

Wow Don, I just know that won over a whole mob of noobs to EMACS :)
dinotrac

Aug 30, 2006
2:51 AM EDT
I think everyone here is being a bit unfair to the "ordinary" user - and ignoring some history.

Back when the PC came out, nobody thought there would be very many ordinary users -- the market was projected at a quarter million or so units. Projection was wrong.

Later, when designing a "home" PC, IBM figured a stripped down and cute little thing with a funky (but wireless) keyboard was just the ticket. They were wrong.

Look around at what a lot of ordinary users are doing. They're editing their pictures and videos on their computers, making newsletters, doing lots of things nobody ever figured an "ordinary" user would want to do.

I'm highly skeptical of a such a thing as a universal interface. I have no doubt that some elements will be common and useful to all, but look at that crowd of ordinary users. They are old, young, colorblind, near-sighted, eagle-eyed, patient, ADD, left-handed, right-handed, one-handed (in some cases, no-handed), American, Asian, highly educated, barely literate, etc, etc, etc.

It's hard for me to believe that a computer -- with its fantastic ability to morph into whatever you may need it to be -- best serves all of those people with a single interface. Even books, which are far more constrained than computers, do better than that. Books come in regular print, large print, braille, annotated versions, illustrated versions, pop-up books, etc. They even come on tape.

I suspect that extent to which ordinary users leave their interfaces alone is a matter of not knowing enough to seriously mess with them, it not being easy enough (which includes being easily reversed if an experiment turns out unsatisfying), and there not being sufficiently useful options available to be worth the effort.





jdixon

Aug 30, 2006
7:47 AM EDT
> O.k., so it's a memory hog, compared to that *other* cheesy little postcardware program.

I tried emacs once, but my computer lost all of its vim and vigor, so I gave it up. :)
dinotrac

Aug 30, 2006
7:54 AM EDT
jdixon:

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
cjcox

Aug 30, 2006
11:53 AM EDT
Or simply.... (if you're using vi)

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

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