GNOME or KDE?

[cookie_monster]

Which GUI is your fave and which would you use on a school classroom desktop?

[Ric_]

Wars have been waged over this very subject... a brave brave man!

 

Why stick to Gnome and KDE? What about XFCE, Fluxbox, IceWM... the list is almost endless!

 

It's one of those things which is down to personal preference as much as anything else... I like to use Gnome but have found IceWM on the HP thin clients very easy to lock down. Of course KDE4 has shiny nonsense

[cookie_monster]

You can only fight a war on so many fronts ;-) is KDE4 like Compitz or based on it?

 

Of course if i really wanted just shiny i'd buy a Mac :-)

Edited March 13, 2008 by cookie_monster

[CyberNerd]

obligatory quote:

I personally just encourage people to switch to KDE.

 

This "users are idiots, and are confused by functionality" mentality of

Gnome is a disease. If you think your users are idiots, only idiots will

use it. I don't use Gnome, because in striving to be simple, it has long

since reached the point where it simply doesn't do what I need it to do.

 

Please, just tell people to use KDE.

 

Linus

[CyberNerd]

is KDE4 like Compitz or based on it?

 

no, KDE4 is based on QT (now nokia QT) - but it can use compiz.

 

Of course KDE4 has shiny nonsense

 

It's also faster and runs on slower machines than kde3.5

[cookie_monster]

Interesting quote there. I might give KDE a bash i've always used Gnome untill now, well since i moved from Red Hat i did like the blue curve look.

[dhicks]

Which GUI is your fave and which would you use on a school classroom desktop?

 

GUIs are, like, so last century - all the cool applications are web-based.

 

--

David Hicks

[Simcfc73]

Prefer Flagger personally, very quick and hardly uses any memory at all.

[bizzel]

For me it's KDE4 > Gnome > KDE 3

[Geoff]

Does bash count?

[webman]

Mmmm Ratpoison!

 

My current personal GUI preference is KDE3. I find the applications better than the GTK-based desktop alternatives, usually faster and less resource-hungry than Gnome, and just more usable in general. I did have a long time running XFCE though which was pretty good.

 

I've often found Gnome slow and un-responsive (eg. icon-loading delay on menus).

 

There is an article in the previous/current Linux Format magazine on lightweight WMs.

[Ric_]

You see, I told you that everyone had their own opinion.

 

It's all about what you like to work with.... I have tried to use KDE4 but I just didn't get on with it. That isn't saying it is any worse than any other window manager of course. You also have to consider the whole ethos... KDE isn't as 'free' as Gnome and at the end of the day you can make most window managers do the job - it's all about eye candy.

 

If you are looking at a window manager for use in a school, it will come down to your expertise and whicher one you are comfortable locking down - IceWM uses a sensible config file whic is easy to edit so it is a sensible choice IMHO.

[cookie_monster]

I'm going to tighten this down ;-)

 

Really the choice is the original 2, in an environment that has a mix of Windows and Linux would it make moving between environments more straight forward to use KDE or should we look long term (if GNOME is better) and push them in that direction.

[webman]

Can can run KDE on Windows, too

[cookie_monster]

KDE on Windows is mostly in an alpha state

 

I might give that a pass for now Windows has enough issues :-)

[CyberNerd]

KDE has a nice tool to 'lock down' desktops.

http://extragear.kde.org/apps/kiosktool/

 

KDE on Windows is mostly in an alpha state

they keep it that way for consistency with the rest of windows. Edited March 14, 2008 by CyberNerd

[FN-GM]

I'm not a big linux user, but my machine is in KDE.

[linuxgirlie]

KDE for me too, have found it very very easy to lockdown using kiosk(well I edited the KDE scripts, but its the same thing) and all our curriculum desktops run KDE here.

 

Jo

[el8linuxel8]

Does bash count?

 

zsh > bash

 

fluxbox is my fav, use compiz+kde at work though(Teachers love that shit)..

 

in terms of education id imagine something lightweight like flux would be the best though, keeps things simple.

[bizzel]

For students, I reckon Gnome is much simpler to use and I find it much more intuitive.