I agree with the general sentiment, though KDE’s apps do have some real performance issues.
Dolphin sometimes takes 2-5 seconds to open on my gaming PC, whereas Nautilus (Gnome Files) is usually done before I’ve even let go of the click.
Maybe that’s just preloading, but it makes a bloody enormous difference in everyday usage.
I prefer Plasma overall, though.
Truly excellent GNOME slander. Who made this?
Where is TempleOS when you need it, huh?
I just realized that this desktop environment debate has slowed down a lot these last few years. I reckon it’s about time we heat it back up. I’ll get the popcorn!
Sounds like something a goddamn GNOME user would say 😠
We’ll have to see if System 76’s Cosmic DE can stir up some tribalism again!
I’ve found GNOME a pleasure to use. From my experience many folks that use Linux like to tinker with their computers. Even those new to Linux see a world of possibilities. GNOME doesn’t really embrace this tinkerer philosophy. They have an opinion on what at desktop manager should be and they’re constantly working towards that vision.
When I introduce GNOME to new people I explain to them some the project goals, design elements and how it’s intended to be used. Then I tell them that GNOME is opinionated on how things should behave and look, and if you try to force GNOME to be something it’s not you’ll probably end up using poorly documented or unsupported third-party extensions that break things. Generally the advice is, GNOME is great, but not for everyone, take the time to learn the GNOME way of doing things and if you don’t like it you’re better off switching to another desktop environment than trying to change GNOME.
You know that sounds an awful lot like how windows GUI behaves. I only recently started daily driving and the amount of gui elements you can change is mind blowing.
I ran gnome for about a decade. I really didn’t like how a lot of bits and pieces of it worked so I went and found all of the plugins and religiously installed and updated them. Updates what happened, crab would break, I’d just have to deal.
At some point I tried KDE. And it literally did everything that I was doing to gnome through plugins out of the box.
I’m all about configurability but I’m also a pretty big fan of not having to fuck with it because it already does what I want out of the box.
I have no problem with using Gnome. It stays out of my way and Things Just Work for the most part as 99% of what I do is in a browser or a terminal anyway.
You forgot to add that unlike GNOME, KDE does not depend on SystemD
I think both have their use cases. Gnome is absolutely fantastic, if you use it on a laptop with a touch screen (for university, school, etc), but on desktop I dont really like it that much. I like the simple design, but KDEs customisability is much better. However, their virtual desktops are kinda ass, but I dont really use them on my desktop PC anyways.
KDE is objectively the better DE from a technical standpoint (in my objective opinion) but sometimes GNOME just feels right in the moment. I have both installed and switch between them all the time
I liked gnome for its minimalistic UI. I then realized i3 does that better :D
I am really glad both exist. Gnome is awesome because of its simplicity and ease of use and KDE is really cool because it makes me feel like a superior human being
Maybe I’m biased because gnome is stock fedora but it runs so smoothly and I love how the windows button and search feature works out of the box. I know that can be setup in KDE though. I love how it feels unique unlike KDE and most other DE that just feel like bad windows. I love that it doesn’t have dumbass names like KDE adding k to everything. Also feel it just works.
Every time I’ve added KDE there’s also a bunch of stupid minor things that just down make sense. Why do so many applications lose the ability to use the right click menu like in jdownloader? Why do windowed games get pushed so vertical low? Why does search recommend things I clearly didn’t ask for? Moving windows with the arrow keys is icky and not smooth. Blowing them up with windows W like gnome’s windows key just looks bad. I want to love it but it just feels like a FOSS windows.
Same here. I really tried using KDE as Fedora and Nobara were pushing for it with HDR, fractional scaling and variable refresh rates available. But there are so many useless options that seem to over-complicate everything.
I always go back to Gnome especially now that the missing technologies were added with 47 and 48. I just need my 2 extensions (DashtoDock, Just Perfection) setup via Nix and Home-manager.
also: Libadwaita > QT in terms of looks and usability.
Thanks for sharing! I’ll have to check those out. Have you ever tried Hyperland?
lol if
I wish KDE worked well on Touch screens. It seems to really fail at that. Don’t tell me it’s X11. X11 on Gnome doesn’t think my touches are a mouse. KDE thinks it is though.
It works fine for me, and I use Wayland.
Steam deck is quite good with touch I find.
It’s okay. But it would be better if it didn’t recognize touch as a mouse input. When I booted into Ubuntu once it worked flawlessly on the Desktop touch input working distinctly from mouse input. on KDE touches are mouse input which is annoying and uncomfortable.
UX wise, GNOME is oversimplified and Plasma is overcomplicated.
Can you give an instance of plasma being overcomplicated?
Gnome: We lock down everything since youre too wtupid to handle womputers Also gnome: “oh you want right click-create file? We can’t think of a more streamlined solution than navigating to the folder you already have open in nautilus using terminal, making an empty file with a terminal text editor and googling the command to save and exit empty file. Intuitive is our MO”
I love gnome workflow and simplicity but it is too locked down in nonsensical ways and it is too broken too often.
What’s the point in being able to create an empty file from the file manager? You pretty much never want to actually have an empty file.
Open whatever program that can edit the document type you want (you would have it open later anyway to edit the document), make a new document, put something in it and save it. You have to do that anyway with any document type where an empty file isn’t valid data.
- making a readme
- making notes
- making task lists
- prewriting messeges for proof reading
- writing down passwords, keys or hashes and hiding them
- writing down links -archiving general information -not writing anything in the file and using the filename to make notes or organize -making todos -making text files you intend to fill out later as you get more info
All done conveniently by right click and double click in the folder you’re in already. No need to open another program, rummage through the menus to find “save as” or “export as” then navigate to the same location you are already in AGAIN.
Ive used txt files in windows constantly and I do not program. My archidect gf uses them constantly as well. It is very useful in a myriad of ways. Its a post it note since the other solutions for making notes, task in specific folders do not exist or suck.
For all of those you need to open an editor anyway.
Open your editor, start typing, press ctrl+s, drag the folder from the file manager to the save dialog to navigate there.
If anything, there should be a “Create new document with…” menu entry with a submenu that lets you select an editor, and when you save, the save dialog has the correct folder open. Anything, but have the editor create the document because it knows best what data to write when you do save.
A menu entry to create new empty file is a bad solution to this. It’s not general enough, and people don’t actually want an empty file as you just demonstrated with your list.
None of those are solutions and make a widely used feature more annoying to use.
Well duh, I just came up with it on the fly instead of actually spending time thinking about what the right design would be for this. I don’t know why you expect otherwise.
I expect right click-new file.
Gnome has always been like this. They started on this trend at the very beginning.
I dropped it when they released 1.0 or 1.1 as they had released another of idiotic changes that were half because “we know better” and because “fuck you, user peons”. Never looked back as it’s been managed the same way ever since.You can just put a blank file in the Templates directory then it shows up in the right click menu. At least it does that on PopOS
Or, and now hear me out, you could add a New > File/Directory to the context menu.
Yes that is what you have to do. It is ridiculous that this is what you have to do.
I was searching for this a few days ago and was stunned that you aren’t able to just create an empty file in the gnome file manager.
In the terminal you can use
touch file.txtto create an empty file, but it should be possible to do this in the file manager.Oh i know i can painstakingly navigate to the correct folder with ls and cd, then google what that one command I never use is and then use man to stop the whole process and read how to use it.
It’s nice to have that option for those who want to have fun with it, but it is a joke this is the intended option in gnome of all places.
Whenever I try KDE there are a many minor bugs that are super annoying. Last time it just switched main and secondary monitor so my main one was a weird mix of both. I really wanna like KDE but since I switched to Wayland it always feels like something weird is going on.
You really need to be on Plasma 6 if you use Wayland.
iirc that was fixed in 5.27 or so, kde’s been really smooth since for me
5.27 is great, perfectly stable on wayland with amd
Even in plasma 6?
Do you have an nvidia GPU?
No.
Exactly my experience too.
It’s hard to believe that KDE used to be considered one of the worst DEs around and now it’s like Gnome is getting worse while KDE is getting better and better.
I’m pretty sure that the vast majority of hate for KDE back in the day was because Qt started out with a non-Free Software license, not because it was bad in terms of quality.
Yep. the Qt wars were real. And one needed to be careful about reveling your KDE use because you would get flamed with hatred.
KDE Plasma 4 was also really buggy when it first launched
That was it for me. I was actually a KDE user way back in the KDE 2 and 3 days. I found KDE 4 unusable. KDE 5 never won me over. But I have been using Plasma 6 on Wayland and am perfectly happy with it.
Yep, that’s what brought me over to XFCE for several years. Back at KDE again, though
I personally hated KDE because it was a buggy, unstable mess for a long time.
Are you referring to the fact that a lot of distributions shipped KDE 4 pre release code?
What is happening to GNOME is truly one of the biggest fumbles in OSS. They could have just continued improving things, but instead choose the path of most resistance, refused to commit to any logical strategies for further improvement, and are now stuck in a loop of nothing getting done
Seems to be an organizational thing, at least some who try to work with- or are part of the Gnome Foundation mentioned this. Apparently KDE e.V. got a way more flexible structure with work groups, easier ways to propose changes etc. while Gnome gets awfully stuck with their panel/council structure (not sure which one is the right word in english).
When mentioning the problems with extensions (rather furiously since I just lost some work again and installed KDE) I was told both: Go on an create a PR, but also that “this was discussed and a panel decided against changing anything”. Obviously no one will waste dozens, if not hundreds of hours of their time even just creating a Proof-of-Concept for sth. like an extension API if some authority already decided that nothing is supposed to be done about it.
As long as your Gnome environment can’t gracefully crash without taking absolutely everything with it (like with KDE or other DEs) there’s no way in hell anyone should use Gnome on computers where actual work is being done, let alone something critical.
I always try KDE and after a while all the quirks and odd behaviors make me go back to GNOME. GNOME may not be easily themeable but it is predictable
That’s the good part. There’s plenty of choice, and it’s easy to swap
Exactly this. It always surprises me when people get bent out of shape because there is an option that they don’t like. Even worse when someone makes a choice they don’t like. “Who the fuck cares. Let them do their thing. be grateful you have a choice.”
Exactly. Its the best part of Linux. I like what Zorin did, they customized backend of GNOME to give you 4 choices of DE style.
Can I ask what quirks/off behavior you see (genuinely asking)?
Sometimes its a slight hang of a dialog box, like delay. Sometimes its a dialog getting stuck on top of other dialogs and it becomes unresponsive. Like it is above all other apps on screen.
And hard to describe minor stuff that just feels a bit off. Where as when I go back to GNOME it is smooth like a fully finished environment.
Maybe most people don’t notice stuff like that, but I’m the type of guy that friends call when they want to buy a used car. 500ft and I’m like nope, bad bearing on right side, transmission shudder at start off, worn bushing in steering…and others are like it drives great
Yup!
At least we have MATE: fork of Gnome 2.
Tried that last week.
God it feels so outdated.
Yes, it’s what I started on, but there are good reasons we don’t use it much anymore.Use Xfce if you want something traditional.
This.
I remember, when Unity first came out and Gnome was considering mockups for Gnome 3, so many people complaining and me thinking that, yeah, maybe these weren’t perfect but they so clearly contained improvements over Gnome 2.
It was an exciting time to be joining Linux because there seemed to be real desire to experiment with new work flows and UI ideas that improved the standard computing experience.
I feel like time’s kind of borne out my feelings, there.
Umm, KDE/Plasma shell is a fucking absolute disaster of a UX. It makes Windows look good. Gnome has major flaws in its software that make performance go to shit, but overall the architecture and design guidelines are superior and at least have a semblance of direction. Just open the preferences/settings on KDE and you see nothing but pure chaos.
I don’t know… Friday I installed Linux on my dad’s “new” Thinkpad T495.
I tried to go with Gnome. It’s supposed to be the user friendly one, right?
First thing I want to do is change the charging limit of the battery to 80%. It’s not impossible to replace the battery, but it would be nice to not blow it too fast.
After 20m of trying and failing I switched to KDE, where the whole thing was 3 clicks.
And even if I didn’t know how to do it, the systemsettings window has a search function that will get you the right option in a split second.
Cool, a setting that’ll have zero practical real world effects.
Just open the preferences/settings on KDE and you see nothing but pure chaos.
It looks fine to me. Everything is categorized nicely and you know where to find something you look for. I am not sure about GNOME Settings, because I have never used GNOME more than 30 minutes (because of annoyingly shitty UX), but it’s at least much better than what Windows does.
Just came across this issue today. I need to install a font. The dir is not accessible through gnome Files. Actually, nothing but mmom ounted drives and my Home dir is. So if I to work in dirs outside my Home, I HAVE to use the terminal. Just to copy a font to a dir outside my Home.
XDG
Gnome is made by designers, kde is made by devs.
