Is 'killing' Gnome right for Linux?

By 4CxbqFxVnstmA
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Grand Master

4CxbqFxVnstmA Veteran

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@kyro:

I was worried the article was flame bait as well. I was worried because I actually like Gnome but like others here think it's cool that it's not hard to try other desktops. The basics are there, with different ideas of design and different programs appealing to different users.

I read the article as somewhat hypocritical because he criticised Canonical for selling proprietary development tools and then complained that he found it hard to sell his own proprietary software because of the existence of both Gnome and KDE.

I also read the article as somewhat 'area 51' with the suspicions cast against the original developer of Gnome.

@bangbang023:

I think people who come to Linux are excited by the idea that there is variety. It is not a concept that frightens but rather entices. Out of the box, Gnome is good for people who want simplicity, from what I can gather. I like its clean lines. (I use Ubuntu and (so far) stick to the standard menu layout). KDE does look a bit more exciting and flashy. I am looking forward to trying others (it is easy with Live CDs to play about with new ones to get a feel for them).

I know what you mean about variety scaring a lot of people. But people can handle the fact there are dozens of types of tooth paste, they just pick one and tend to stay with it. The market should be able to bear more variety in operating systems too, I think.

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Grand Master

Pc_Madness

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What were the arguments? I couldn't see any other than its poorly coded. :\

I like Gnome, its simple to use, and I can get to everything with ease. Ubuntu (I think.. but perhaps its the Gnome team) have been adding a heap of little gui programs to manage alot of stuff I like to do without having to go into a console. My only annoyance left is being able to edit folders marked as root inside the file browser thing thats name I can't remember.

KDE on the other hand is quite ugly...I can't seem to find any decent screens of KDE 4 though?

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ntbnnt

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that is one ****ing flamebait article, who the **** is he to say kill off gnome? i can then say kill the ****ing people who try to ****ing blog such a ****ing flamebait article to get ****ing traffic.

****ing blogger.

hahahahaha, well said!

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Grand Master

markwolfe Veteran

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that is one ****ing flamebait article, who the **** is he to say kill off gnome? i can then say kill the ****ing people who try to ****ing blog such a ****ing flamebait article to get ****ing traffic.

****ing blogger.

Ballmer, is that you? :rofl:

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Grand Master

Miuku.

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I like choice, and I don't want anyone else forcing their decisions upon me.

Choice yes but at what cost? You cannot use software from one distribution on another without either recompiling it (and thus you lose all benefits of package management) and even if you do compile it from source, more often than not you'll face "library hell".

GNOME software on KDE and vice versa looks bloody awful. There is little to interaction between the developers and the results are quite plain to see - it's amazing that most of the time even clipboard functionality isn't necessarily shared by the applications.

There is absolutely no coherence of any kind on most Linux DEs. It's a nightmare for the home user or a business that wants to roll out of a controllable, useable platform.

And worst of all - the GNOME premesis seems to be "The user is ****ing stupid". The less functionality the programs offer - the better, after all, the user might get confused by all the buttons. Naturally the GNOME developers see it as "You don't understand what the user needs - we do".

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Grand Master

Glowstick

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Here, let me highlight why that clown on the blog is full of himself:

Technically, KDE was always superior to GNOME (And by technically I mean ?if you are not a coder you don?t know what I?m talking about? so don?t feel insulted please, in fact I find GNOME somehow more visually attractive in the user end but it?s a mess inside!)de!), so it would seem that people should have stopped using GNOME after that, but they didn?t.

The biggest point of his argument is ambiguated away. Great way to reason. No need to read past this point.

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Grand Master

Mouldy Punk

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I think killing gnome is a bit OTT. It is favoured by a lot of users. I don't know much about it's code, but apparently it's totally rubbish and messy. So maybe, instead of discussing killing gnome, they could be discussing making it better and fixing the rubbish code. Or, maybe development of gnome 2.x.x should be halted and a complete rewrite made in the form of 3.x.x

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Glowstick

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Linus has been known to criticise gnome's code too.

Linus calls everything what he doesn't like a load of crap. Not just expressing dislike, plain out calling everything ****. So excuse me if I don't hold out for his opinion.

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Darksoft

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Although I do not consider myself knowledgeable enough to say that Gnome or any desktop environment should be "killed", I do agree with the fact that linux would be so much more awesome if there was some kind of universal standard. I agree that choice is good, but imho, Linux just has too many damned choices.

http://isbn.nu/0060005688

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Leddy

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+1 to darksoft.

While I'm quite happy with the state of Linux at the moment, if they want to bring it out to the "consumer" level (i.e. where the bulk of the users are), they really need to all come together and agree on one distro, one look; one standard.

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Grand Master

markwolfe Veteran

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+1 to darksoft.

While I'm quite happy with the state of Linux at the moment, if they want to bring it out to the "consumer" level (i.e. where the bulk of the users are), they really need to all come together and agree on one distro, one look; one standard.

The big question is, will a common preference arise by user choice? Or shall it be forced upon the masses?

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Grand Master

4CxbqFxVnstmA Veteran

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Someone please correct me if I am wrong, but my understanding from what I have read here and elsewhere is that some argue that it would be good if there were more of a unified development platform/tools.

You could still have a great variety of desktop environments, it would just be that developers would use one set of tools to make their programs.

Someone installing for the first time could have example desktop environments pictured so they could select from them to choose which one they wanted to actually use. Of course they could always change later to another desktop environment, as you can now anyway.

Forgive me if I seem confused, as actually I am. My understanding is that you've got:

Desktop Environment (eg, GNOME, KDE, Flux, etc) -- what we as users see
	 ^
	 |
Development Platform (eg, GTK, qt) -- what developers use to make the programs
	 ^
	 |
Linux kernal -- what Linus Torvalds and his pals make

The developers have a problem at the middle level: which platform to use? If there were more cross-over at this level, things would be easier for developers. I have no opinion here as I am not a developer, but whatever attracts more developers to Linux seems to be a good thing. Is it?

The end users either like or dislike having a choice as to which desktop to run with (some people don't like choice). Personally I think the choice of look-and-feels is great.

If anything I've written here does not make sense, please let me know! :D

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mlauzon76

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I myself do not use GNOME, even though I install it on my system...just so I do not get into full dependacy hell when using apps programed to use GTK; I do use KDE and I do see where the author of the article is coming from, but I do not agree with him. Competition is good, that's why we have so many choices of DEs and WMs to choose from, but you really always hear about KDE and GNOME.

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Grand Master

markwolfe Veteran

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Someone please correct me if I am wrong, but my understanding from what I have read here and elsewhere is that some argue that it would be good if there were more of a unified development platform/tools.

You could still have a great variety of desktop environments, it would just be that developers would use one set of tools to make their programs.

...

You have part of it there. :yes: But others in this thread show that the "problem" is not clearly defined. You have comments that complain about not being able to take a binary from Ubuntu and run it on SUSE for example (you install the pre-compiled SUSE app, not the Ubuntu one). You have people pointing out that there are 'too many' Linux distros. Or too many text editors.

Which, if any, are real problems? Which ones are less of a problem, and more or less just an expression toward a different preference?

Does Gnome have to die? If a unified development system (library that replaces or combines qt & gtk, for example) is mandated, can Gnome and KDE both use this and still be different options for users? Should we then also unify the apps to remove duplication? What, exacty, is "duplication"? Abiword vs OO.o Writer? vi vs emacs? Does one have to be destroyed in order for the other to exist?

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Grand Master

PL_ Veteran

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The problem this guy fails to point out is that GNOME is not the only one that uses GTK. Xfce is also another one that uses it.

And I really don't understand what the big issue is with the relation to MS. I mean, come on, what would happen anyway even if they were related? :s

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Grand Master

The_Decryptor Veteran

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There are theme's for QT that render using GTK, and vise versa, but they are still buggy and such.

And they are working on a common standard for the stuff, but that has nothing to do with the issue most people seem to have, that choice is bad and there should only be one GUI API, and one Desktop environment, and one text editor, etc. And that can't be solved with standards.

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Grand Master

4CxbqFxVnstmA Veteran

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I probably shouldn't have posted the link to this whole article. I have been reading up on Miguel de Icaza and I think the article does him a libel. I read some of his speeches and they are in support of open source and he even got an award from the Free Software Foundation. I think that article I linked to was a bit of a conspiracy theory thing :(

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