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krt
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Joined: 11 Jan 2005
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 Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2008 6:55 am Post subject: Linux desktop environments, namely Gnome/KDE |
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Does anyone else think that Gnome/KDE are no good? I know they can be customised, but doesn't it ring a bell when the initial set up is just so poor? Brown for a default colour scheme and KDE's wannabe corporate feel or whatever they are trying to achieve (and failing at it).
KDE4 is a prime example. I don't care who admits it's not ready, if it isn't, don't release it as a 4.0. And if the developers are admitting it is not ready, why bother with feature freezes? If it prevents people from customising the fat 56px taskbar that looks butt ugly, then what is the point of adhering to them?
I see so much more potential for Linux if it had a decent interface. Everything else, including hardware support, package management, security, performance, resource consumption, disk usage and anything else under the hood leaves Windows far behind.
I am tempted to contribute but see it being too time consuming. Also, it seems the number of developers is working against the system. Maybe it is just too much bureaucracy to get simple ideas across to fix up many broken and inconsistent aspects.
One particular thing I find perplexing is that they are incredibly hard to customise into something you see another Linux user using. I have seen screenshots and screencasts of people's computers with beautiful and clean desktops, layouts, icon sets, widgets however it seems impossible to work out how they do it and mimic something similar. The customisation features in kcontrol and other places do very little for example.
Umm... I just considered OSX seriously for the first time shortly after reading this, go figure. |
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ClickFanatic
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| Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2008 2:08 pm Post subject: |
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The default theme for Gnome is not the Human theme used by (and developed for) Ubuntu. It's used in Ubuntu because it matches the "Ubuntu feeling" which is so important to its founders.
However, it is dead easy to change the look to something completely different.
As for KDE, I never used it myself, but I suppose it has an easy theme manager of its own.
Actually, I don't think you have any reason to complain. Does the Windows' default theme look appealing to you? It doesn't to me. Same goes for OSX. Okay, they aren't bad, but neither is Ubuntu's default look.
The amount of control a Linux user gets over the desktop theme is much greater than in Windows or OSX.
I also don't agree with you that [the more popular distributions of] Linux have a less than decent default interface.
I actually think Ubuntu's default theme is very decent. It is consistent in all GTK compatible applications. The brown colour scheme and the relatively large, smooth text make people feel comfortable with the user interface. The default icon set looks very clean and consistent as well.
If this is not decent, then what are your criteria for a decent interface?
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krt
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| Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2008 6:40 pm Post subject: |
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| ClickFanatic wrote: | [...] However, it is dead easy to change the look to something completely different.
As for KDE, I never used it myself, but I suppose it has an easy theme manager of its own. |
Actually, the last paragraph of the first post mentioned how hard it is. The in built themes and styles are usually no good and anything third party is not much better, or hard to find, especially when you have to crawl through lousy Windows/OSX look alikes.
| ClickFanatic wrote: | | Actually, I don't think you have any reason to complain. Does the Windows' default theme look appealing to you? It doesn't to me. Same goes for OSX. Okay, they aren't bad, but neither is Ubuntu's default look. |
Of course not, but I found a nice theme for Windows and easily installed it through explorer's own display settings.
| ClickFanatic wrote: | | The amount of control a Linux user gets over the desktop theme is much greater than in Windows or OSX. |
I don't want this to turn into an effort/gain analysis so I'll leave that there.
| ClickFanatic wrote: | I also don't agree with you that [the more popular distributions of] Linux have a less than decent default interface.
I actually think Ubuntu's default theme is very decent. It is consistent in all GTK compatible applications. The brown colour scheme and the relatively large, smooth text make people feel comfortable with the user interface. The default icon set looks very clean and consistent as well. |
Yes, regarding aesthetics, my gripe was mainly with KDE. Gnome does have a nice looking and clean interface but the applications let it down. The file managers for one are no good, but maybe the default icon sets of Gnome/KDE are the cause.
| ClickFanatic wrote: | | If this is not decent, then what are your criteria for a decent interface? |
I believe you are seeing this differently as you are focusing on the looks, myabe that was my fault for emphasising the brown of Ubuntu and the taskbars of KDE. Anyway, a decent interface integrates well with its applications, is consistent, productive, responsive etc. If you want an idea of what I look for in terms of appearance, think this Windows theme: Soul Luna Remix (with some better fonts and minor adjustments) |
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ClickFanatic
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| Posted: Wed Feb 27, 2008 5:42 am Post subject: |
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As for customising Gnome, you can customise colourscheme, window layout, typography and icon theme independently (as you might know). Pick your resources from sites like http://www.gnome-look.org/ and you can start blending your own theme.
Some Gnome applications are indeed not as great as they could have been. Nautilus is such an example. It has a Windows-like overview of mounted drives and network capabilities, which is all truly awesome, but the interface is less nice in comparison. Thunar is a nice file manager, but it lacks in features.
Perhaps you could show some specific examples (screenshots) of what you don't consider decent interfaces, because in my opinion (at least as far as GTK goes) the look of the UI is as consistent as it can get.
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Scar
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| Posted: Fri Feb 29, 2008 1:58 am Post subject: |
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What about "Enlightenment"? I'm new to linux so i don't know exactly what gnome and everything is, but aren't they desktop environments? isn't that what enlightenment is?
http://www.enlightenment.org/
gOs is very pretty and i like it. I actually was able to get it running on my pc which is nice (have a topic about it  ). it uses Enlightenment.
http://www.thinkgos.com/
I've seen screenshots of other linux desktops and they seemed ugly as you described which is why I never wanted to touch them, but then i saw gOS and its pretty.
DreamLinux doesn't look that bad in the screen shots (downloading the v3 rc 1 now) and it uses GNOME and XFCE it says.
I like how these distribution's of linux are finally starting to look very stylish and pretty. it's what they've been needing.
http://www.dreamlinux.com.br/
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ClickFanatic
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| Posted: Fri Feb 29, 2008 3:53 am Post subject: |
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Since the introduction of Ubuntu, so many new niche-distros have emerged that it is hard to keep track of them. I didn't know gOS, but it looks like an awesome implementation of Enlightenment (you know, with a cool theme and all that).
I already knew DreamLinux, it sure looks great.
I wonder whether they support Ubuntu's new useful features such as the proprietary driver manager (which is extremely handy for installing ATI or nVidia drivers without the manual configuration hassle), the update manager, and the frontend tool for changing the x.org config file.
That's what is making Ubuntu so popular: the increasingly easier configuration, no more fiddling in the config files.
Anyway, gOS looks promising because it combines lightweight applications with cool looks. 
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Scar
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| Posted: Fri Feb 29, 2008 4:00 am Post subject: |
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| ClickFanatic wrote: | Since the introduction of Ubuntu, so many new niche-distros have emerged that it is hard to keep track of them. I didn't know gOS, but it looks like an awesome implementation of Enlightenment (you know, with a cool theme and all that).
I already knew DreamLinux, it sure looks great.
I wonder whether they support Ubuntu's new useful features such as the proprietary driver manager (which is extremely handy for installing ATI or nVidia drivers without the manual configuration hassle), the update manager, and the frontend tool for changing the x.org config file.
That's what is making Ubuntu so popular: the increasingly easier configuration, no more fiddling in the config files.
Anyway, gOS looks promising because it combines lightweight applications with cool looks. |
As soon as I installed gOS a update manager popped up with a list of updates and i clicked install all, and it did. didn't really have to do anything so maybe thats the feature that you're talkin about. Seems pretty simple so far.
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krt
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| Posted: Fri Feb 29, 2008 4:21 am Post subject: |
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| Scar wrote: | | What about "Enlightenment"? I'm new to linux so i don't know exactly what gnome and everything is, but aren't they desktop environments? isn't that what enlightenment is? |
I remember having a look but there was nothing special. I'd rather not take the time to try all of these less known ones such as BlackBox, IceWM etc. And as for what they are, I am not really sure with the terminology. I believe they fall under categories of window managers, window decorators and something else and that desktop environments are a package (e.g. KDE is a desktop environment with the KWin window manager/decorator, or something like that!)
| ClickFanatic wrote: | I wonder whether they support Ubuntu's new useful features such as the proprietary driver manager (which is extremely handy for installing ATI or nVidia drivers without the manual configuration hassle), the update manager, and the frontend tool for changing the x.org config file.
That's what is making Ubuntu so popular: the increasingly easier configuration, no more fiddling in the config files. |
I don't see why any Ubuntu variant would not support the restricted/proprietary driver managers. However, I would not call them extremely handy, but that is probably for personal reasons... it didn't work for my 8600M GT graphics card and rendered my GUI as horizontal lines (no actual GUI elements visible). But then, manually doing it (nvidia-glx-* or downloading the binaries from the NVidia site resulted in the same without some extra intervention)
| ClickFanatic wrote: | | Anyway, gOS looks promising because it combines lightweight applications with cool looks. |
Yes... (wishes I saw this before downloading and installing Fluxbuntu, a similar distro but with the very "simple" fluxbox desktop environment) |
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ClickFanatic
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| Posted: Fri Feb 29, 2008 5:20 am Post subject: |
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| krt wrote: | | ClickFanatic wrote: | I wonder whether they support Ubuntu's new useful features such as the proprietary driver manager (which is extremely handy for installing ATI or nVidia drivers without the manual configuration hassle), the update manager, and the frontend tool for changing the x.org config file.
That's what is making Ubuntu so popular: the increasingly easier configuration, no more fiddling in the config files. |
I don't see why any Ubuntu variant would not support the restricted/proprietary driver managers. However, I would not call them extremely handy, but that is probably for personal reasons... it didn't work for my 8600M GT graphics card and rendered my GUI as horizontal lines (no actual GUI elements visible). But then, manually doing it (nvidia-glx-* or downloading the binaries from the NVidia site resulted in the same without some extra intervention) |
There is no reason why the restricted drivers wouldn't be supported. But Ubuntu has a graphical tool that makes installing the drivers correctly a breeze. Many small Ubuntu derivates may lack such tools, which can be inconvenient.
On the other hand, if you don't mind some tweaking and reading it's not a big deal.
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LP-SolidRaven
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| Posted: Fri Feb 29, 2008 11:49 am Post subject: |
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Best desktop is still Windowmaker + GNUStep in my opinion.
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krt
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| Posted: Sat Mar 01, 2008 12:20 am Post subject: |
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| SolidRaven wrote: | | Best desktop is still Windowmaker + GNUStep in my opinion. |
You actually sound serious about that... I had a quick look at the WindowMaker gallery and before clicking any thumbnails, all I thought was "not a chance". But maybe there is more to it than the appearance, however, I'm not the type to find out. |
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ClickFanatic
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Scar
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| Posted: Sat Mar 01, 2008 9:05 pm Post subject: |
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i don't see why it appears to be complicated to put a nice interface on linux. Im sure some are nice enough ,but not smooth and clean like on Windows XP - Vista, or even Mac.
I liked the GUI and everything in gOS, but it doesn't have a taskbar or anything so can't really rate it (everything is controlled by and in the dock).
Only lately it seems that some distros are trying to make it actually attractive. I'm sure once they make it pretty, and fix some crap like having to read code (visual interface is much better) it'll take off.
gOS is made for non computer savy people, but even it requires reading text code and applying sources for whatever ( i dont even know how to do that crap ha) so we don't seem to be there yet.
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krt
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| Posted: Sun Mar 02, 2008 12:58 am Post subject: |
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| Scar wrote: | | but even it requires reading text code and applying sources for whatever |
For almost all essential tasks, anything involving the command line or text files is usually just a shortcut for an available GUI method of doing the same thing and are usually provided by how-to writers to save both the writer and the end user time. Most of the time, it is just copy pasting commands or being told exactly what to edit. It's not like as if you have to learn any commands. |
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mcwkm
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| Posted: Sun Mar 02, 2008 12:17 pm Post subject: |
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| krt wrote: | | Scar wrote: | | but even it requires reading text code and applying sources for whatever |
For almost all essential tasks, anything involving the command line or text files is usually just a shortcut for an available GUI method of doing the same thing and are usually provided by how-to writers to save both the writer and the end user time. Most of the time, it is just copy pasting commands or being told exactly what to edit. It's not like as if you have to learn any commands. |
learning commands always helps though but it isn't necessary. how many windows users remember dos commands nowadays |
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