Damnit all to hell.
(Note; this is a cry for help as much as it is a rant)


I just don't know anymore. I recently installed Ubuntu on my parents computer (much to my releif) and now...now I just don't know.

I'm having the human version of a kernal panic, but this time it's to do with my chosen desktop enviroment.

I LOVE KDE, I love it's glossiness, it's usabilty, it's friendliness, it's apps...but I also love GNOME, with it's stabilty, it's own suite of apps that can do a lot more (Amarok dosent do iPods, Banshee does) Apps, if any, are written for GNOME nowadays.

I hate the fact that my package manager is out of place...it can't be called upon by other programs, it dosent look the part...I HATE that Firefox is out of place, it won't use KDE's notification system, nor will it be able to navigate the system properly. I hate it that most software today that I want to use uses GNOME libs.

I hate the fact that Kubuntu feels cobbled toghter. I hate the fact that I don't wanna use a system outside of the Ubuntu family, simply because most of the time I'll find myself in the CLI or compiling software.

Then I look at GNOME 3.0

I start to think.


Here is the KDE Software I use:

Kopete, Kmail, Amarok, Digikam, Gwenview, Okular, BasKet.

It's that kind of software.

Yet everything else is...malformed.

I can pick GNOME, which might just make the grade when it reaches 3.0, or I can pick KDE...which, I imagine, will have it's current problems for quite some time.

So, tell me, what do I do?

Easy - install both?
I started out with Gnome but also had KDE (and some window managers) installed. I liked Gnome very much, but one day I decided to give that "KDE" a try. And I loved it.

Since then I used Gnome less and less, until I eventually didn't install it during a reinstallation (OK, truth to be told, it's because Slackware dropped Gnome).
As for Firefox, there are some tricks to make it more KDE friendly. E.g. notifications: https://addons.mozilla.org/sv-SE/firefox/addon/12196

Good luck with your choice - ultimately, everything's up to you.
Oh, and what's so bad about CLI and compiling software?

I have never understood why it hasnt been automated, to be honest. It always annoys me because I go on Sourceforge, and it's very rare to find a .deb file, rather just tar.gz files.


I have, however, come to a decision about my DE.

I wish to see KDE get better (it's brilliant now, but there is ALWAYS room for improvment). In particular I'll be waiting until VLC comes out with a Phonon friendly backend and Firefox goes native, Strigi can search my documents, rather then my apps and Dolphin can do a few more advancd things (to me, Dolphin is too basic for the tasks I give it, Konq is advanced, there's nothing inbetween)

Until the 4. series starts hitting it's swing (like it did in 3, and which I suspect will happen around 4.4) then I'll stay out of it until the dust from construction settles, Amarok can do more then just sit there and play music, PackageKit is stable (or there is a Synaptic version) and NEPOMUK has a function releveant to the end-user.

Very soon I will be going to College, at that time, I'll be taking this laptop with me. I need it to be fully dependable and not to fail me in the middle of a class. I'm not saying KDE will, and I fully expect the devs to get everything ironed out very soon (as they are in the process of doing) but I cannot be sure that it wont fall over (as it has done three times to me today)


Right now, I'm drawn to GNOME because;

1. GNOME-DO can access Google Maps
2. Pidgin (and Empathy) can store my conversational history.
3. Beagle (and Tracker) can go through my files.
4. Nautilus, for all it's little flaws, can handle large files without crashing, and provides previews of music, photos and videos.
5. Banshee can handle my music, cover-art and iPod.
6. Google Earth does not function in KDE.
7. pouetChess does not function in KDE.


I'll miss;

The system tray (especially the very useful notifications)
The 'devices recently plugged in' widget.
Kmail.
Kopete.
"Get hot new stuff!" downloaders
Digikam
Gwenview
Okular (which is the best PDF reader I've ever seen
.SVG icons

What I won't miss;

Dolphin crashing.
Needing to turn compositing on and off to run programs
The 'condensing' of tools. If it isnt KDE apps, there's a good chance it just won't work.
The inabilty of Firefox to find my home files.
Kwin crashing
Amarok crashing
KPackageKit crashing.


I will admit I didn't pick the best KDE distro out there (I will admit that I think Kubuntu deserves the title of WORST KDE distro...but then I've rambled on enough about it)


Both GNOME and KDE have a bright future...providing GNOME can settle this Mono buisness. I hope to see you all again soon, those of you who wish to kontact me about K.I.I.M (ha, infectious spelling!) can through my email;

mentalomega@googlemail.com

Personally, I use KDE (4.3) as my DE and the apps are a really mixed bag. Mostly KDE-apps, but some Gnome ones as well not to mention Qt, Gtk, Java, and the occassional windows app as well.

I once tried to keep a clean KDE-system but realized the futility of it. There are some areas where KDE does not provide the best solution, but that goes both ways.

As far as looks goes, Qt apps blends in the best (apart from the KDE apps themselves of course) but Gnome and Gtk apps are not far behind. Not perfectly mind, but I'm willing to bet that most people who would take a look at my desktop with say Dolphin and Easytag (KDE versus Gnome) side by side would not immediately, if at all, realize they were written using different toolkits unless they know what to look for. They can be made to look that similar. kde4-gtk-qt-engine (or whatever kubuntu calls it) goes a long way towards that.

My main pet peeve is the file-selector of gnome-apps. It's not _too_ different from the KDE-one but enough to drive me crazy.

Oh, and it would be _really_ nice if the KDE notification system could use libnotify (IIRC. The lib responsible for Gnome's notifications at any rate) if it's present. I'm probably clueless of how things work in the background but to me it sounds like if knotify had that ability, the extension Hans linked to wouldn't even be necessary.

libnotify is likely based on GObject, and very hard to integrate into KDE. Instead of using libnotify they should agree on a universal notifications specification which uses DBus.

This is a growing trend with GNOME projects to use abstract, general names ( they used libwebkit for their port of WebKit, where KDE/Qt uses KDEWebKit and QtWebKit ) which confuses both users and distributors, and annoys everyone.

Well...rather annoyingly, I ended up back in KDE (annoyingly as transferring 160gb of files over a USB 1.0 connection takes a VERY long time)

What I found really odd, was that my system was notically slower when I was back on GNOME. Which brings me back to a comparison I did when I first joined the forum, I would like to make an amendment;

GNOME-DO is unable to do mathmatics without connecting to Google(!)
Very few apps sit in the system tray.
I've finally been able to get Strigi behaving as I want. I don't know exactly HOW I did it, but it went over the 12mb limit to a rather large 287mb now (which I'm thankful for)


I'm now gonna spend the next three hours tagging my data so Strigi can read it properly.

Toodles

-Dante

bcooksley wrote:libnotify is likely based on GObject, and very hard to integrate into KDE. Instead of using libnotify they should agree on a universal notifications specification which uses DBus.

Really? I thought libnotify was supposed to be cross-DE? Or maybe that was the od.org specification rather than the specific implementation? I can't remember right now, but if it is as you say: how hard would it be to make knotify API-compatible with libnotify even if not using the specific lib? I have really no idea of how hard that would be, I'm just curious. Would it be doable?

If there was a D-Bus interface for libnotify then it is likely very easy to get KNotify to relay or handle notifications, since it would just be a case of adding the needed slots and registering on the appropriate interface.

Kryten2X4B wrote:Really? I thought libnotify was supposed to be cross-DE? Or maybe that was the od.org specification rather than the specific implementation?

Neither.
libnotify is the client library implementation of the Galago notification spec, for whatever reason not appropriately named (e.g. libgalagonotify).
The Galago notification spec itself basically only covers a subset of the KNotify capabilitites, however I think there is now code in KDE4.3 which makes Plasma a service implementation of that spec.

There is currently work going on which should allow KNotify to delegate visual notifications to a Galago service daemon when being run outside of KDE.

There is also some discussion going on about how to avoid a libnotify like misunderstanding in the future, i.e. developers being tricked into believing they are using some form of standard implementation or spec.

@Dante Ashton:
I didn't get the part about Pidgin or Empathy saving the conversation history. Kopete does that as well, doesn't it?
As for ipod support in Amarok: I don't have such a device, but I thought they were supported by the very same library other players use as well http://amarok.kde.org/wiki/Media_Device:IPod

Cheers,
_

Kopete seems to save only my last conversation, rather then every such conversation I've had with Person A


When the Media Devices applet comes up in Amarok, it just sits there looking pretty, it has no function.

Dante Ashton wrote:Kopete seems to save only my last conversation, rather then every such conversation I've had with Person A

Weird, it does work here. Check if you have the history plugin enabled.

Dante Ashton wrote:When the Media Devices applet comes up in Amarok, it just sits there looking pretty, it has no function.

Maybe it is in an incomplete installation or the config isn't correct.
Probably ask in the multimedia section or on the Amarok IRC channel.

Cheers,
_

Dante Ashton wrote:Kopete seems to save only my last conversation, rather then every such conversation I've had with Person A

I use Kmess, it has recently reached 2.0 version, it has powerful options for chat history, and for browsing it without opening actual files in file manager.

I know that it only supports MSN, but the path that they are taking is to have full feature set for MSN protocol.


Considering your only KDE philosophy, I don't think that anyone should go blindly using only KDE apps. Take the best of both worlds.

I have friends on the Google Talk, MSN and Yahoo! networks, so a multi-protocol client keeps things simple for me.

My KDE only philosophy is not universal, if I find an app that does a better job at a certain task, I'll use that instead. The thing I love about KDE, however, is that the apps provided do an excellent job, whereas my experience with such 'default' apps has been they only provide the basic service.