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Vive La Desktop Difference!

Submitted by Anonymous George on Thu, 2005-12-29 11:03. GNOME

Matthew Newton of PCWorld writes: So, KDE or Gnome? Not a stupid question--but in my mind, kind of a silly one. Car/computer analogies always hold up well, so let's try one here: If you, dear reader, wrote in asking whether I think you should drive a Mini Cooper or a Hummer, how should I respond? My best bet is to offer no opinion. I know nothing of your preferences or your needs. Either vehicle will get you where you want to go. The difference will be in the experience of getting there. It's the same deal with KDE and Gnome.

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So GNOME is better because ?

Submitted by Anonymous George on Fri, 2005-12-30 07:37.

The author's example of the sound system configuration is a useful one, because it highlights the difference between the GNOME approach and the KDE approach, which I can some up as-
GNOME: "We are the one true desktop and you shall have no other upon your computer"
KDE: "We aim to please all followers of free software whom ever they may be".

This can be viewed by looking carefully the sound system configuration dialogs in both environments. The GNOME version is very simple (simpler then even the commercial operating systems') and its functionality relies on very tight integration with the OS configuration - you don't need to choose devices or sound servers because its all been taken care for you. If - you poor sup - it hasn't then you are in deep trouble: there is simply no way to set it to use a different sound device, different driver set (OSS vs. ALSA) or even a different sound server. This is mainly a problem if you like to use both KDE apps (that like ARTS) and GNOME apps (that like ESD) at the same time. This is not an issue for the GNOME way of thinking, because there is no KDE in the GNOME world - there is only one way to interact with the user, and that is using the GNOME way.

KDE on the other hand offers the sensible defaults that GNOME prides itself on - having a tight integration with the system, which any decent KDE packager will provide, you will not have to change a thing in this configuration panel - you won't even have to look at it. But if your system is not that trivial, KDE allows you to do marvelous things: like to interoperate with as ESD, MAS, JACK or NAS sound servers? not a problem - have a bizare sound device configuration ? not an issue. like ALSA better then OSS ? we can let you choose. Don't like to choose ? the defaults will auto-detect everything and will do the work just fine.

The article's author - like many deluded GNOME fanatics, take pride in choosing the in ability to make a choice, while at the same time praising the FLOSS way of offering more choice. I find this kind of hypocrisy baffling.

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