Both KDE and GNOME to offer official distros KDE and GNOME have decided that because they're not big and complicated enough already, they might work better if they have their own custom distributions underneath. What's the worst that could happen? A talk from this year's KDE conference, Akademy 2024, looks like it's going to become real. The talk, by KDE developer Harald …
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Article, there's an article?
It's kind of really just a "first post" though, right?
Personally I've been using KDE (on Debian Sid) for 20 years... I really can't fathom why anyone would prefer GNOME, but each to their own. Such is the beauty of FOSS...
KDE certainly went through a rough patch with version 4, where they had a stable, polished and powerful KDE3.5 and completely rehashed it, got rid of DCOP which was great, moved to something more compatible with Gnome, which sucked
I used Trinity for a while, while they fixed it, but fix it they did and I am very happy with the current iteration of Plasma Desktop
I'm one of those people who Liam moans about who thinks it's perfectly fine to have four different text editors and two kinds of version number (see, I did read Liam's post!) although i'm not sure what three Web browsers he is on about (unless he means Konqueror, Firefox and Chromium which is what I have on my menu, but is not a fair criticism since two of those are not part of KDE)
As a Debian user, I also see absolutely nothing wrong with offering ISO images for Stable, Testing, Unstable and Develop
> although i'm not sure what three Web browsers he is on about
So you didn't try it, then?
Falkon icon
Falkon
Web Browser
Konqueror icon
Konqueror
Web Browser, File Manager and Viewer
Angelfish icon
Angelfish
Web Browser
Go to apps.kde.org, type "web browser" and see for yourself.
The problem is two fold, at least.
1. There's nothing wrong with having lots of options but they need to be functionally separated. The KDE ones mostly are not.
2. If 2+ apps or applets have non-overlapping functionality then it would be preferable to combine them into one. If this means that a project needs leadership to enforce grumpy prima donnas to talk and work together, then so be it. That's part of running a collaborative effort.
Supplementary:
3. If it is too hard to bring bits of 1 project into another one then this may well point to problems with the underlying tools. This should be easy. It should be straightforward. If it isn't then get some courage and MAKE it easy.
Example: there are about 3 different KDE start menu tools. I don't remember the names because I don't care.
Step 1 in reconciliation: make it possible to have all of them, side by side. This is necessary for comparing their functionality.
Step 2: if there are special APIs or roles that mean There Can Be Only One then FIX IT. Look at SteamOS and Btrfs. SteamOS has failover dual root partitions. That is good; ChromeOS does that too. But they are Btrfs. Btrfs did not allow >1 device with the same ID number. That stops failover working. So Valve fixed it.
Don't ask "why would you want that?" Don't say "oh we don't support that." Don't tell people "don't do it that way." FIX IT.
Then:
Step 3: One you can have 2 or 3 start buttons side by side, work out what functionality overlaps and what is unique and work out if they can be combined, so the user does not have to choose.
This is how grown ups manage projects and prevent feature creep. KDE does not do it. It never has.
It needs to. It's been 6 major versions over >25 years. It is time.
Step 4: Kaizen. Continuous improvement. You don't remove old stuff because it is hard. If something is hard but other comparable tools do it, that probably means your design is broken somewhere. So isolate that and find ways to make it easy.
If I must use a Windows like UI in 2024 I expect and demand the best one there has ever been. This isn't it.
It used to have an option to span the panel over 2+ screens. That was useful sometimes. Dev teams should not be allowed to remove stuff users are using because it's hard. Fix why it is hard.
It used to have vertical title bars, like wm2 and dwm and flwm. I like that. It's very space efficient on widescreens. Bring it back.
BeOS had tabbed title bars. I want that. It was an option. Now it's gone. Bring it back.
"It's too hard to maintain" is NEVER an excuse.
> So KDE is too hard for you
Don't be daft. I used it from v1 and I published an article on how to upgrade from KDE 1 to KDE 2 when the Register was barely past being an email newsletter.
As usual with KDE fans, you miss all the points.
1. I should not have to.
2, If there are 10 functions I want and they are spread across 3 apps that means no single app gives me the functions I want.
3. If there is an alternative app that delivers those 10 then I will go choose it instead. Even if it includes 500 others so long as they don't get in my way.
4. Therefore KDE weakens its value proposition by a failure to consolidate.
5. There are literally dozens of other desktop environments I can choose which do not do this, so I will pick one of them instead. I do.
6. KDE *does* get in my way because of this failure to consolidate. 2 help/about menus is a usability failure. 2 version numbering systems is a usability failure. 2 menu interfaces, one via menu bar one via hamburger menus, is a usability failure. Not giving the user of this allegedly customisable environment a choice of menu type is a usability failure.
There are so many usability failures that I am considering an article which just lists them all. The real problem is not compiling them; that's trivial. its compiling a list of examples of how this stuff *should* work and explaining how, with examples and screenshots.
> > although i'm not sure what three Web browsers he is on about
> So you didn't try it, then?
I tried it - on MY systems, which are KDE-full (debian) but not "KDE-OS"
Falkon: Never heard of it and don't have it on my (debian) desktop. I guess it's part of the KDE OS that you are talking about (which I have not tried, I have no need to) but is obviously NOT part of KDE - it's just a "lightweight web browser written in Qt" according to Apt, and it has no dependencies from or to KDE.
Angelfish: Ok, it's a KDE app by the looks of it, but again it is not installed on my system (even though I have kde-full) so it's not part of the desktop environment, it's an "app" for it, maintained by KDE. I don't have to have it, because I use Debian, and not some read-only blob for my /usr
Konqueror is indeed part of KDE and used to be its default file browser before Dolphin appeared.. It has its occasional uses e.g. its "fish" protocol (file access over SSH)
I don't like the idea of "grumpy prima donnas" telling open source authors/maintainers to remove functionality from their software just because it is "already covered" by someone else's (shit in their opinion, naturally) software
> Don't ask "why would you want that?" Don't say "oh we don't support that." Don't tell people "don't do it that way." FIX IT.
Absolutely - but GNOME does this ALL THE TIME. And so does Apple, and Microsoft. The reason I love KDE is BECAUSE I have the choice to do things how I want, because it is a 'powerful' desktop environment with lots and lots of configurable options for me.
You like vertical titlebars eh? Right-click on your existing titlebar -> Configure Window Manager -> Window Decorations -> Theme.. There is at least one theme that I think does what you want: "NoMansSky"
"If 2+ apps or applets have non-overlapping functionality then it would be preferable to combine them into one."
It may well be that these reflect different ideas users may have about how to do things. For instance I never used the Commander-style TUI file managers on MSDOS so have no interest in having that sort of thing ported to the GUI world. Others do and want one. Hence we have Dolphin, which I use and Krusader which I don't even have installed. It doesn't bother me in the least that there's an alternative file manager but it's very likely that some users or potential users might see its absence as an issue.
Likewise I have no problem in there being two ways to display the start menu that I don't use (in fact, I've just noticed that "Show alternatives..." doesn't find them for some reason) but I'd be very unhappy if my preference wasn't there and I have no doubt users of the others would feel the same about theirs going missing. It's considerably better than getting presented with a different version with each new version of Windows on a take it or take it version and having to find some third party product to fix it.
I suppose that, to put it into trendy jargon, I can kurate curate my own experience.
Oh noes three different web browsers!!!111!!
What are you smoking Liam? I can name more than three web browsers off the top of my head for Linux, Windows or Android. Obviously not iOS because whatever they're called they're all really Safari.
Hell I used more than three different browsers on Unix back in the 90s.
I can only assume that this article is intended to provoke an argument.
... try Slackware.
Yes, I know, Slackware offers all kinds of desktop environments (except GNOME), but it defaults to a bone-stock KDE (if you defy the gawd/ess(es) and set runlevel to 4 instead of 3 in inittab ...).
Personally, I prefer XFCE, but I've been using KDE quite a bit recently because it's easier for my Wife, several nieces and nephews and MeDearOldMum. KDE on Slack is actually pretty decent these days, as long as you turn off all the useless bells and whistles (takes a couple minutes on a fresh install, and then you're done ... Slackware never "helpfully" decides to reset them for you.)
No, of course not. See those words "might look like"?
Slackware is minimally intrusive when it comes to packages. Including things like KDE. What that means is that included code works and looks pretty much as the developers intended. It has nothing to do with overly complex/complicated choices of underlying architecture, much less the meme of the day (such as "immutable" filesystems, which clearly are not). Just the look and feel ... which, when you think about it for a minute, you'll realize that that is all probably around 98.5% of all users ever see. Or care about.
That stat, as with all online stats, was pulled out of my posterior. I'm willing to hear better estimates. Beer?
Two of the oldest Linux distributions still being developed (Slackware, Debian*) each ship a stable and solid operating system with a choice of desktop environments and of applications. Both have facilities for using more recent kernels/drivers for newer hardware.
However, both currently ship KDE Plasma 5.XX in the stable line (Slackware 15.0 and Debian Bookworm). I think that the distributions reported on in OA both aim to ship 'latest' (in various states of completion), hence the use of rolling distributions to underpin the desktop. What worries me about that is if these two large projects start to link against increasingly recent and rapidly changing library versions this will cause problems for the more stable and sedate distributions.
(*) The contrast in organisation between the two projects might be an interesting topic for discussion.
Criticism is part and parcel of the FOSS world.
Don't EVER let that stop you from doing your own thing with FOSS, no matter how ridiculous other people find it.
Example: I'm quite vocally anti the systemd-cancer. I have NEVER suggested they stop developing it ...
Example: I'm quite vocally anti the systemd-cancer. I have NEVER suggested they stop developing it ...
I would suggest that they go back to its original "stated" purpose as a reliable replacement for System V init, and expunge the rest of the stuff that has been shoved in :-)
> "...if you search the KDE Applications website for "text editor", you'll find three: Kate, KWrite, and Nota. If you search for "file manager", you'll find four; and "web browser", three. .....multiple start-menu tools, multiple app-switching panel-button bars, and so on."
On my decrepit Win7 machine I have at least four 'text editors' installed. MS-Notepad in there somewhere, UltraEdit always running, and a couple 'Note***' apps for special chores. At least as many more tried-and-deleted. (Not looking in Archives where I hide PC-Write, and the text-app from WordPerfect5.1, and a couple WordStars.) Taskbar has links to FireFox, Chrome, and WaterFox, and I have Lynx buried, and I may still have an MSIE lurking in a dark corner/coffin. I know I have installed/removed many file managers; nothing better than 1DIR+, but MS Explorer handles many tasks and is already linked, aside from many programs having their own file browse/manage tools. I -started- writing start-menus for DOS2.1 (in ASIC!), so am not inclined to revisit that wheel. And yes I did a TSR to hide a game-screen and put up a Lotus 1-2-3 screen.
But as you see I went out and hunted for many of my side-apps. I end up with multiples of a "same type" when there is a PROBLEM. App A does this but not that, App B does that but not this. In an ideal world, or under a benevolent dictator, A and B would hash their differences so one app does this AND that. MS kinda used to be that unifying force; I'd have to go to TuCows (or the cover of PCMag) to get anything non-MS.
> "search the KDE Applications website for 'text editor'"
Recall that in the day, SimTel, SunSite, TuCows might have dozens or hundreds of apps to do "same" jobs.
Distro curators should try to pick ONE tool for each job and default it. With a small side-trek "Maybe one of this small number of other apps would suit you better?" like Amazon does? ("Compare with similar items")
Digging a little deeper into that list in TFA, one each of the text editors, file managers and browsers are intended to be cross-platform for mobile and desktop/laptop devices. In practice I think that could read as being intended for mobile but you can use it elsewhere if you want consistency, where "elsewhere" includes Windows and Mac as well as FOSS. I think approach that fits your "small side-trek".
Of the remaining two browsers and three file managers one program, the venerable Konqueror is both. It dates from the days before there were separate applications*. This isn't Google so it hasn't been killed off and presumably there are a few users who like an all-in-one application. It definitely fits your small side-trek leaving Falkon as the main browser although Debian and Devuan don't include it.
That leaves two file managers, Dolphin and Kommander. Dolphin is what you might consider as the equivalent of the Windows file manager in the sense that i understand Windows to have finally caught up with Dolphin although the former still looks like a confused mess in the UI department. As to Kommander, the klue clue is in the name. There are users who simply want a clone of the original (was it Norton?) Commander. A quick DDG tells me there's still a cottage industry in developing those for Windows - there are even listicles of the things. So that's a side-trek for that particular audience - I don't grok it myself but it's a phenomenon to be recognised.
Where does that leave us? Ah, yes, the two text editors, KWrite and Kate. AIUI KWrite was the original simple text editor and KA(advanced)T(ext)E(ditor) was the development with all the bells and whistles. Fire them up and the only obvious difference, if you look for it, is that Kate has a tab. I believe Kate also has a lot of other stuff such as plug-ins although they're built on the same editing engine. I agree, I don't see the point in having two. That sort of thing would never happen in the Windows world, would it, with a basic Notepad and somebody producing a Notepad++ with all the bells and whistles?
What I miss is an integrated PIM that includes a Usenet client like Thunderbird does. It just goes to show you can't have everything.
* Strictly speaking it replaced a file-manager.
> As to Kommander, the klue clue is in the name. There are users who simply want a clone of the original (was it Norton?) Commander.
I didn't go there. Of course I have NC or MC or other klone handy, but I don't even like it for most tasks. I liked navigation on 1dir+, which was 3 years before NC (and those were long years). Another, not its prime function, was Vern Buerg's LIST. Peak Windows file Explorer was XP or hand-tweaked Win7.
> Distro curators should try to pick ONE tool for each job and default it.
Precisely, that’s the whole point of having a distribution isn’t it, and I think is what Liam is getting at. Then if you don’t like a certain pick, you should also be able to choose an alternative that works better for you. Most distros I’ve tried do do this.
When an app has a very popular combination of features, it will become a very popular app, provided that it CAN be installed (easily, conveniently) by anybody on their desktop. That proviso is yet another can of worms...
Unfortunately leadership is a rare skill, and ego is an all-too-common trait amongst technically capable people, and leadership with ego isn’t generally a good combination IMHO - but occasionally it results in disruptive innovations (Steve Jobs...)
Mine’s the one with a Ventoy drive full of distros I’ve tried and rejected in the pocket...
Dr. Evil: OK people how do we tackle this non-problem?
Number 2: Let’s create another distribution, there are never too many.
Frau Fabrissa: ya, and give it a cutesie name like banana which will attract corporate clients.
Scott: If we pool all this time annd brainpower into creating an application layer compatibility for win32/64 and on improving some of the existing desktop applications, it can really make a dent in the desktop world!
All: [laughing hysterically]
Dr. Evil: Please forgive my son Scott, he obvious doesn’t know how things work around here.
Article: I would like to turn GNOME OS, GNOME's home-grown distro for testing and development of the GNOME Desktop, into a daily-drivable general purpose OS.
OK. Here ya GO:
* Stop forcing everyone top use ADWAITA (it SUCKS)
* Default to 3D skeuomorphic look, preferably "TraditionalOK"
* Put panel back the way it is in Mate (gnome 2 functionality)
* Fully support GTk2 and GTK3 existing simultaneously
* STOP IT with 'HAMBURGER' MENU ICON
* stop it with "moving targets" i.e. a STABLE API
* Screw Wayland, standardize on X11
* FULL SUPPORT of "NO SystemD" SYSTEMS!
Basically become Mate/Cinnamon, and especially default to 3D SKEUOMORPHIC and *NOT* that RIDICULOUS GOOGLE/MICROS~1 2D FLATSO FLATASS LOOK!!!
"Basically become Mate/Cinnamon, and especially default to 3D SKEUOMORPHIC and *NOT* that RIDICULOUS GOOGLE/MICROS~1 2D FLATSO FLATASS LOOK!!!"
@bombastic: Glad to see you back.
The problem is that MATE and Cinnamon are already doing the things you are asking Gnome to do.
> The problem is that MATE and Cinnamon are already doing the things you are asking Gnome to do.
No, that is not in fact the problem.
That is a symptom.
MATE has a simple justification: it's GNOME 2, continued. All they really need to do is sit down and work out a common set of overlapping functions, duties and roles with the other desktops that also came from Gtk 2 to Gtk 3 and determine how they can share the work.
No, the problem is that it is not just Cinnamon.
It is Cinnamon, plus the Zorin OS team with their extensions, plus the GNOME Fallback or Flashback session, plus a bunch of extensions in the extensions.gnome.org repo, and probably others too.
All trying to do this *separately*.
THAT is the real problem here.
Duplication of effort leading to partial half-done solutions.
As these are separate projects with their own plans, culture, technical arrangements and view of their purpose it is difficult to see how or why the kind of cooperative rationalisation you propose would occur spontaneously. Its like that thing in game theory where cooperating has a huge positive expected value to the system as a whole but it requires each player to give something they value up.
You should do a Raskin and write an ebook about the history of the menu system and desktop UI, and propose concrete steps. Starting from the 16:9 aspect ratio we seem stuck with.
> it is difficult to see how or why the kind of cooperative rationalisation you propose would occur
Nonsense.
Firstly, I have removed your self-inserted red herring. Who said it had to be spontaneous?
Secondly, all it means is the members of these projects TALKING. That is not so hard.
The kernel itself demonstrates very well that a large project will thousands of members all pulling in different directions CAN in fact be managed and controlled, so long as there is strong leadership which exerts control.
The problem is that some of these projects, notably including KDE, apparently lack even coherent leadership within a single project.
You don't need a single charismatic leader. All you need is communication, cohesion, cooperation, and consensus. Some kind of voting system might help.
The (illusion of) coordination in kernel development is handled by the single charismatic leader. All relevant discussions involve Him. It'll be entertaining to watch the holy war that will inevitably start when his mighty middle finger no longer moderates the discussions. Unless he appoints an heir to be the next benevolent dictator for life.
Sooner or later these conversations descend into some ridiculous day dreaming.
First stating that spontaneous organization doesn't cut it, which seem reasonable enough. Kick out of the front door!
> " ... self-inserted red herring. Who said it had to be spontaneous?"
But then promoting the definition of spontaneous organization, inviting it back through the back door.
> "All you need is communication, cohesion, cooperation, and consensus".
Because just talking among the teams and hoping on cohesion is what spontaneous in the real world means! Hoping for the best and the goodness and reasonableness of mankind. Or something. This is not how the world works. And insisting that it does work that way is not going to help anyone or anything. Apart from generating more and more comments. Which I suppose is a reasonable motive in itself.
Secondly, all it means is the members of these projects TALKING. That is not so hard.
Yes, it works in all other areas of life on this planet; everyone puts their egos aside and arrives at a consensus for finding the best evidence-based solutions for climate change, politics, health, war, etc... I see no reason why FOSS should be any different.
"Starting from the 16:9 aspect ratio we seem stuck with."
You can have any aspect ratio you want, just mask off whatever bits of the 16:9 hardware you don't want. Why 16:9 in hardware? That's easy. It's the TV format so display makers are going to have to produce displays in that format. For laptop makers it also folds nicely over a keyboard with a numeric keypad*. If you want them to produce a second (second, that's the key word) format you're going to have to persuade them to make all the necessary investments and that will put up the price even if you can find a sufficient market that agrees on any given alternative - 4:3 landscape? portrait?
* In the past I've had laptops with 4:3 aspect ratio but they didn't have a numeric keypad. Sure you could build one with 4:3 and a numeric keypad but you'd then have blank space beside the screen. It would look silly and everyone would wonder why they couldn't just make the screen wider.
> but you'd then have blank space beside the screen.
Shudder. Flashbacks to those Compaq/IBM/Olivetti/etc laptops in the early-mid 90s that had tiny little LCD screens with massive bezels all around, simply because larger screens were either unaffordable or simply not invented!
The photo on the Wikipedia page for the Compaq LTE is a good (by which I mean, horrific and triggering) example.
In general I agree but I've been having second thoughts about hamburger menus. It depends on aspect ratio. A hamburger menu works well, for instance, on a smartphone held, as it usually is, in portrait format where a CUA-inspired* menu would be useless. I'm pretty sure there are situations were a side-bar would be greatly improved by replacing whatever it uses for options with a hamburger menu.
So I have a radical suggestion: implement the menu structure - text and actions - as a separate entity and provide a number of display options and - the really radical bit - let the user choose. It could be CUA-style, hamburger, ribbon, single line of text as in UCSD Pascal or whatever. To some extent Firefox does this in that you can turn the CUA-style menu on although you can't, as far as I've been able to discover, turn the hamburger off.
* Pace Liam, I know they don't conform in sufficient detail for your liking but in absence of anything better it's a useful handle.
> A hamburger menu works well, for instance, on a smartphone
I think you're absolutely right.
The real problem, IMHO, is that people are building these apps and these interfaces without any real understanding of what the building block are, where they came from, or why.
The result is this appalling random mishmash of UI elements picked at random from other platforms and roles that the designers happened to like and are fond of, assembled with no plan and no direction except "I like this, I will put one of _those_ over _here_."
There's no over-arching functional design, no concept, no plan. Just a semi-random assembly thrown together and then skinned to look cosmetically cohesive.
Nobody planned it. Nobody thought "this will be easy to use" or "this will be accessible" or "this will scale well to multiscreen or a small display". They've forgotten that there are functional reasons why some things are where and how they are.
The reasons Windows is unlike classic MacOS are not functional: they are legal. Smart teams guided by smart legal advice to be different enough to avoid lawsuits but all the while delivering something functional and efficient.
Compare with DR GEM, or AmigaOS, which gave less thought to function but more to not getting sued.
You need to know about this stuff to understand why things are the way they are, and to know what it's fine to move and what it's not.
But without that, you end up with archways without a door or window underneath, steps leading to blank solid walls, a row of doorknobs sticking out of the top of a wall, a random bathtap half way up a door, a plughole on the ceiling. Things that don't work because the designers don't realise there is a function for the form.
And the KDE version, where there's a slider for adding up to 13 extra wheels to your bicycle, because the designers don't understand that one wheel, two, three and four all have discrete functions but more DO NOT.
A unicycle is for skill and fun, not practicality. Two is a local optimum. Three has severe costs but it's got payback for disabilities and things. Four is another very different local optimum. And you don't have more for good reasons.
But the KDE folks forgot that. They just see different vehicles have different numbers and they don't know that there's a reason why... so they let you choose a different number of wheels for no good reason, nothing else adapts to it, and you can have 15 wheels and they don't understand that there is no reason for this. It's CUSTOMISABLE, look! You wanted that!
Where did AmigaOS sacrifice functionality for not getting sued? If Apple tried to sue C= at the time all they would have been doing would have been highlighting their own deficiencies.
I know the straw that broke the camel's back was the XOR patent troll which C= apparently couldn't find a way to prove prior art or obviousness, probably because by that time it was on its last legs anyway, but until then I couldn't see any deliberately nobbled functionality.
> Where did AmigaOS sacrifice functionality for not getting sued?
I didn't say functionality, did I? What I was getting at was ease-of-use.
Apple sued DR over GEM 3 main things: pull-down menus at the top of the screen, drive icons on the desktop, and overlapping windows.
So PC GEM 2 had drop-down menus -- mouse over them and they open -- drive icons in a window, and it removed overlapping windows, in favour of tiling ones.
Windows 1, which came next, did much the same: drop-down menus but inside the windows; no overlapping windows; and drive icons in a toolbar in the MS-DOS Executive app.
AmigaDOS had a global menu bar but its default behaviour was a status bar and you had to right-click on it for it to become a menu bar.
I own an Amiga. It took me _bloody ages_ to find that.
It also kept drive icons on the desktop, and overlapping windows, but not all files have icons; the developer must assign them, or the user must pick "View -> show all files".
The point being that you don't have to make big changes to make something different enough to not get sued.
DR went too far and crippled PC GEM, but Atari ST GEM was not affected and continued for years with overlapping windows, drive icons on the desktop, and pull-down menus, while it gradually evolved into a small family of multitasking OSes with a limited degree of Unix compatibility and its own shell. (Mint/Freemint, TOS 4, MagiC, and others.)
I didn't say functionality, did I? What I was getting at was ease-of-use.
Ok, I read "function" as "functionality".
AmigaDOS had a global menu bar but its default behaviour was a status bar and you had to right-click on it for it to become a menu bar.
I own an Amiga. It took me _bloody ages_ to find that.
I just seemed to pick it up, or at least someone pointed me in the right direction. But it wasn't that bad, was it? You could hold right-click at any time no matter what you were doing, move to the menu title which you knew was going to always be in the same place, then move to menu option which again was always in the same place, and finally then release right-click. Windows and Mac seemed fiddly by comparison.
I'll tell you want did have me sitting in front of the Mac like a drooling idiot in the early 90s - dragging the floppy disk icon to the trash to eject it.
It also kept drive icons on the desktop, and overlapping windows, but not all files have icons; the developer must assign them, or the user must pick "View -> show all files".
That was a Workbench 2+ invention, until then you needed a .info to go with your file. I guess it was the .DS_Store file of the day. At least you got an icon editor to do that if the application for some reason didn't save files with a corresponding .info file, but most applications apart from simple text/programmers editors should have done this.
Still at least both quirks were fully explained in the manual. Finding what these .DS_Store files littered about everywhere were and the terminal command to disable them on network drives (but not on internal or removable storage) in the 2000s required an internet search...
I've just spent an amusing couple of weeks on and off playing with modern Linux distros. I've used a few but for day to day use over the last few years I've been on an early verios of Mint, crammed into a corner of the disk because the original Windows just refued to budge or resize (fixed cylinders). So I think "Why dont I just Mint on the whole disk, I never use Win10 and more?" and, anyway, what could possibly go wrong? So Wilma is put on the disk. Between occasional (actually quite frequent) lockups and a complete CUPS shambles its a bit of a bust. So partition the disk again and stick Ubuntu on in. CUPS at least works (eventually) but the screen freezes. GNOME, KDE, you name it, it freezes it. The threads aren't very helpful -- all Voodoo with the general consensus being "Buy another computer".
I was thinking of dumping it but then I put "Last Year's Model" Mint on the system. Works perfectly, just like its supposed to. No fuss, no muss, just works. I don't have the tools to hand to debug GUIs (or the patience -- this is all unnecessary 'after the fact' timewasting work) but my (educated) guess is that, based on resource usage, the GUIs absolutely have to have resources the eyems doesn't have or it goes into a classic deadly embrace. ("Certain" (ahem!) web browsers don't help here.....).
There's a bit of a knack to gettitng this stuff right. Here's a ip -- "Adding yet more crap to something that's 'almost working' won't fix anything".
Sounds like something to do with your particular setup (or even something you are doing) rather than anything fundamentally awry with Mint, which is one of the distros that generally really does 'just work'.
Having just updated my desktop hardware after eleven years, plus running several other boxes for backups, servers, laptops, etc. I can't say Mint has ever failed to install and run properly. That would appear to be the general experience of others.
Its my experience, too -- except for "Wilma". Which is the whole point. People keep on adding stuff to software, "improving" or "enhancing" it, until it stops working, then they start looking for some other reason. Its not just Linux distros. I've been working with PC type systems since literally the time they became available and its no matter the software, no matter the system, this treadmill becomes inescapable. They then thrash around trying to find some improved hardware or programming technique that will fix everything. (...and if it can't it will obviously be the platform that's at fault.....I've spent literally decades interacting with software people so know pretty much exactly what they're going to say in any fault situation.....and why)
Functionally things haven't really changed much for decades. Sure, early versions of systems and protocols were rather naive about security but this was understandable given their original use cases and often those problems are very easy to fix. Code bloat is especially bad in what you could call 'developer facing' applications like GUIs where the number of potential -- and often pointless -- modifications is effectively infinite. (Its what I think of as "Idle hands / Devil's work"!)
Had it's own distro once didn't it?
I remember there being a distro that the KDE team was heavily part of that was based on Debian that was considered to be a "reference" kind of distro...it was specifically designed to try out KDE.
It's probably not a bad idea for these DEs to have "reference" distros. We can at least see how the respective developers intend for their environments to be set up that way. Especially important for KDE because KDE is usually heavily customised to the point where it's shit. I can see that KDE has the potential to be a polished experience, but usually it isn't. There are quirks in KDE that make my teeth itch. Some are quirks that exist regardless of distro...for example, opening up the network settings dialog the pane with the actual network settings in is always cut off to some degree and when you expand the window, instead of making that pane bigger, the window pops in a side bar...it's full of visual inconsistencies like this...it'd be nice to know if these are because of how various distros setup their KDE environment or whether they are just KDE weirdness.
I quite like KDE and I would use it if it was a bit more polished...but quite a few of the visual inconsistencies really wind me up because they really shouldn't be there and they crop in places that you regularly use...it wouldn't bother me if these were in places like "help" dialogs etc...places I rarely visit.
Gnome on the other hand...love it or hate it...is the more consistent experience it feels a lot more polished and also using QT based apps on Gnome works a lot better than using GTK based apps on KDE....GTK apps on KDE stick out like a sore dick, but QT apps on Gnome seem to blend in a lot better...it's not perfect and occasionally there are "dark mode" bugs where an app forces it's font colour and doesn't follow the theme but there is nothing Gnome can do about that.
"opening up the network settings dialog the pane with the actual network settings in is always cut off to some degree and when you expand the window, instead of making that pane bigger, the window pops in a side bar"
I don't see that at all. If I left click the Wifi connection icon in the system tray I get a view of the visible access points and a few buttons to disable it altogether or switch airplaine mode (I don't have a wired connection) I also have an option to configure network connections which is also available, along with airplane mode, by right-clicking.
Either configuration option brings up KSettings>Network>Connections>Wi-Fi>current access point with the pane for the access point showing the name and below it General configuration Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi Security, IPv4 and Ipv6 tabs showing, the second bing selected. Nothing seems to be cut off.
The alternative KSettings>Network>Settings has a secondary menu for Proxy, Connection prefereces, SSL Preferences, Cookies and Windows Shares, each bringing up various panes which don't seem to be cut off. This is KSetings 5.27.5 on Devuan The network-manager package is installed but none of the other module packages are. I wonder if you've got something else installed that's conflicting because what you describe just doesn't sound like KDE at all.
I'm sure it is fine for you, you're a Devuan user...so I'd imagine you have very opinionated views on things and you have heavily customised your KDE experience...or you just don't care about minor quirks and attention to detail.
Here is how it looks for me, using Fedora and it's default theme settings...I'm not really that interested in heavy customisation, I jump around a lot of machines and displays and I just can't be bothered.
https://imgur.com/a/f78Y6hq
First screenshot, you see the dialog in a smaller state (it's initial state), the Wired Connection 1 tab on the right is too big to fit in the window...no problem...I'll expand the window a little bit to make some room.
Second screenshot, oh dear, instead of expanding to make room for the stuff that is slightly out of view, KDE pops in another sidebar with a list of other settings applets. The whole window now takes up more space and is somehow worse. That is nothing short of rubbish. It's not even obscured that much...it's like 10-15 pixels in either direction...and given the amount of dead space, it's not like they can't find 15 pixels...whats even more egregious is the vertical scrollbar in that pane, you can see the immense area of vertical open space in that pane, and yet there is still a vertical scroll bar...wtf...
This is KDE, as configured by Fedora using their theme...which is regarded as one of the better KDE experiences.
I have personally customised nothing on this install...it's a baremetal install on a spare "test" box that I use for evaluating distros.
Fedora is not alone here...these sorts of quirks exist across many KDE based distros and it gets worse depending on the themes they ship with. It's not really the quirk itself that bothers me, it's that there is so much dead horizontal space, there is no reason that pane cannot fit...and it's shitty little things like this that make me believe that KDE die hards have their heads up their arses or they just don't spend a lot of time away from the desktop and in the deeper areas of the DE...it's not just limited to the network panel either, it's all over the place...to me, KDE feels like a house made out of toothpicks. It doesn't feel solid. Every time I spin up a distro with it, I get transported back 15-20 years...I get a brief wave of nostalgia from it, which is soon replaced by a wave of frustration...I really wish KDE would spend some time polishing things and defining a definitive KDE experience, which a KDE distro might achieve...so I'm hopeful there...if KDE was as polished and solid feeling as Gnome, I'd switch to it...there are features in KDE that just don't exist under Gnome and I do like some of the desktop configuration options, like the panel customisation tools etc...Gnome has nothing like that...but unfortunately, under the surface, KDE is shit...doesn't matter if I can do loads of stuff with the panel that I can't on Gnome, if the rest of the experience is inconsistent and slowly drives me mad, I don't want it.
KDE, whilst probably the best looking DE for making screenshots for /r/unixporn, is death by a thousand cuts when it comes to everyday use. There is no quality of life or consistency under KDE. It's not a DE designed by people mindful of day to day usage...it's a screenshot staging nostalgia trip.
In the interest of fairness...here is Gnome on it's network panel in it's settings app.
https://imgur.com/a/BP5edxO
I am running a custom theme here (but no heavy customisation, it's basically a pallete swap), it's my daily driver machine, but regardless no matter what theme you use, those screenshots would have exactly the same layout...no superfluous scroll bars, no weird shit popping in when you expand a window...it's just thoughtful design which adds to quality of life...this is why some people pick Gnome...quality, consistency, thoughtful design...you can see and feel the attention to detail in Gnome...sure it's not for everyone, and that's fine, if you hate it you hate it, and some people prefer KDE and that is also fine...objectively though, KDE is far less polished and consistent than a lot of people might lead you to believe.
> objectively though, KDE is far less polished and consistent than a lot of people might lead you to believe.
Just FWIW: I agree with you, and this is a good, well-executed response.
My impression is that a lot of people simply _do not notice_ stuff like this. When someone takes the time, as you did, the way it seems to go is:
1. "That does not happen! That is not true!
2. (When it is clearly demonstrated to them)
3. "Oh. I never noticed that."
4. "That stuff does not bother me."
At each step on the way, at least half the defenders drop out, of course. So the ones who dropped out will later protest that they never saw that, they weren't there, how were they meant to know that, it's not their fault, etc.
Totally agree. This is very much my experience with Linux opinions over the last 25 something years. There has always been a contrarian element in the Linux world and likely always will be...which is sort of a shame because it spreads resources out and we end up with a miasma of conflicting information out there.
"The GNOME project was created in response to KDE, and in important ways they continue to influence one another still, after more than a quarter of a century."
I am currently sitting looking at a computer screen with OpenSUSE Leap 15.6 running KDE 5.115.0 with a miriade of other components required to make the various applications I use work. Just which version of Python is running I am not sure, but elements like Calibre need a different version to that shipped with OpenSUSE and by some magic I now have it working again.
BUT the main problem I am finding is that using a nice high resolution monitor, in many cases the icons being used by applications are NOT being scaled properly so that, for example, the copy of Firefox I am writing this in has three incredibly small icons in the top right-hand corner as do many of my main goto apps. Not a problem in this case as I know which is which, but on applications like eclipse there are whole rows of icons that are even difficult to hover over to see any toolhelp to find the right one.
After quarter of a century one would have hoped that the simple basics actually worked properly? I did try a switch to Gnome at one time, but that just adds more new stuff to learn ...
Well they're two sides of the same coin.
Gnome is boring, but it is comfortable and consistent. It is well thought out and polished. You just have to orient yourself when you first use it, because a lot of the knobs and levels cannot be adjusted, but they are placed where they are for a reason...quality of life is the name of the game here.
KDE is the dodgy hatchback body kit of DE's...it's awesome and you can do what you want with it...but 99% of the time the customisations done to it are pure garbage. The person using it thinks like they look like Tom Cruise in a Fighter Jet...but really they look like Mr Bean sat on a recliner strapped to the top of a mini controlling it with a mop and a broom because none of the customisation was thought out, it was just added because "it's fucking AWESOME!".
If all you want is to customise shit and have your desktop look subjectively awesome and you think learning is something you stopped needing to do when you left school...use KDE...go for it...it's easy to use and all your wildest dreams will come true...get the weeb wallpaper, install the candyfloss icons and dark mode theme that only works with 50% of your apps...let er rip...your friends will tell you it's awesome to your face, but no behind your back and the other loonies on /r/unixporn will queue up for your "dots".
If you need to get shit done and none of that matters...use Gnome.
It's that simple.
"If all you want is to customise shit and have your desktop look subjectively awesome"
This is the exact reason why KDE is my favorite DE of all time. LoL
I mean at core, all desktop environments are just there to launch applications. I've no problem using any of them, but I likes my pretties and KDE is where it's at.
> running KDE 5.115.0
Hang on, what?
KDE 5 got up to 5.27.something and then it went to 6.
I don't know what 5.115 could be.
5 point 11 point 5? Then where did this trailing zero come from?
As for not everything scaling equally, this is a real issue. I have mentioned it:
https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/10/thinkpad_x1c_g10_linux/
It shouldn't be, but it is. I found scaling only worked throughout KDE if I logged in using Wayland, not X.org.
You forgot one of the key things which differentiates GNOME - arrogance.
Example: They wrote GTK4 without a single thought about backward compatibility with GTK3. Yes....really. (See the Glade project for some comments.)
Example: They ditched GNOME2 without a backward glance. Some of us (most of of us) hate GNOME3 and GNOME4 with a passion.
Yes....I'm opinionated!! And Fedora/XFCE seems like it should be good enough for most folk!
I can hear Liam rolling his eyes. Yet another project expanding past its usefulness and yet another distro. Ghha.
The Linux desktop experience STILL hasn’t matched Windows 7 level of ‘this is fine’. I wonder if people who work on these enjoy the lower levels and GUI and UI layer exposure to the human eyeball are sort of ‘boring’?
What was the last Linux you used and when? Or have you just read things written about Linux by other people who've read things written about Linux by other people who...
For reference I have an Asus laptop which came with W10 on it and is now dual boot with Linux. The Linux part Just Works. The W10 Just Doesn't Really Work; it hasn't succeeded in a clean update for about a year. Even before that debacle there was a display update -as far as the can be told from the number the same updae - that installed itself every month. When it boots up it's extremely sluggish, partly because its trying and failing to update but I can hear the disk chiuntering away doing something which I presume is what's eating up the entire throughput of the beast.
I have another, even more ancient MSI net-top era device dual boot with W7. That, of course has now stopped updating so that as much as can be done with W7 Home (bugger all) plus an Office 97 found in a cupboard somewhere can be done with it. That also is dual boot and comes with all the goodies you - or rather I - would expect to find an a good Linux distro. W10, of course, wanted to sell me a whole lot of stuf to do something useful. When it was in support, of course, updates took and age and many reboots, as does W10 when it's not falling over.
BTW, Boring is good. It's the eye-rattling look-at-me GUI stuff which is a pain in the arse. And on the occasions that I drop down to the CLI it's do do stuff that you probably wouldn't know enough to even dream about.
Linux doesn't have this mammoth monthly update-fest. If you saw a typical Linux update happening you'd probably thing it had failed because of the speed and the absence of reboots; even a new kernel just sits there until you reboot in the normal course of events while update services are just restarted on the fly.
So to re-write your contention, Linux desktop experience doesn't even match Windows 7 (let alone 10!) THANK GOODNESS.
Well, I’ve just had two weeks off work. So… two weeks ago. For example, most recently, I installed XFCE 4 on a nice new Ubuntu and I thought it was comedically poor - lots of rough edges.
Not talking about Windows update (broken forever), talking about the UI and the experience of using the UI. I abandoned Windows about a year ago and replaced my well specified work laptop (running Windows 10 pro) for a much cheaper and far better (imo) Mac Mini - from my own pocket. BTW - Windows desktop has got worse in many respects since Windows 7 in my opinion. Lots about Windows 7 (file copy/paste over network shares for example) wasn’t perfect. But it was generally a consistent WIMP experience with consistent idioms and design language - the windowing worked, subsample rendering worked, monitor/resolution worked well.
I think ElementaryOS and Mate are nearly there, as they have been for ages!!
> I installed XFCE 4 on a nice new Ubuntu
Just curious -- how? That's not the normal and suggested way to install.
You can do it in stages:
1. Install Ubuntu
2. Install Xfce on that
... but the result will be a mess because you're starting with GNOME and then replacing some of it.
Or you could use Ubuntu Server, but then the result will be a bit of a mishmash.
The recommended way is:
1. Download Xubuntu. Install it.
And you have a single integrated thing. Enjoy, explore, tweak.
I have used Linux (Mint, Cinnamon these days) for (most of) my daily needs for many years now. I'd rate the UI as mostly adequate but, leaving aside the sometimes clunky visual design, there are still functional weirdnesses where an icon doesn't show up where you expect, or the pointing device stops working or some foreground process and background process stop communicating meaning perhaps some applications can't authenticate properly any more, or, worse, the entire desktop hangs. And, of course, you can't necessarily point the finger at "the desktop", there are all sorts of subprojects and dependencies that may or may not be involved and, if you encounter such problems, noone is likely to care. And that, for end users, is an issue.
I think we have to be honest about the fact that the development model means developers are more interested in the fancy new stuff than bothering about the minutiae of usability details. This wasn't in the past an issue with Windows, though it arguably is now (e.g. news of the death of the Control Panel being greatly exaggerated while its replacement has been oddly incomplete for years). It may no longer be the case that the Windows desktop is developed for users to use and the Linux desktop is used for developers to develop, but the archaeological traces are still very visible in the ground.
We're in a new world in which "application stuff" is basically just expected to kinda, sorta, mostly work and if it doesn't, it will at least work kinda, sorta, differently tomorrow (at present, at least, we still expect rather more predictability of the underlying operating systems), so I don't think a desktop with rough edges is out of step with the way the industry is heading. But we need to be clear that we're fooling ourselves if we imagine that the absence of a rapacious commercial sponsor means that the user experience is taken more seriously.
"Haters gonna hate, forkers gonna fork"
"Total rewrites are famously one of the Things You Should Never Do."
"One of the single most-heard complaints outsiders have about the world of Linux distributions is that there are too many of them."
>COUGH!< SystemD >COUGH!<
Interesting parallel case, here. SystemD hijacked Debian OS for its own (among others), so the SysV et al. crowd forked off Devuan for their own. Distrowatch currently rates it at No. 42, just below slackware.
The Devuan developers put a lot of effort into maintaining compatibiltiy with the Debian stack, but inevitably some tool and app developers take sides and the SystemD Total Rewrite refuses to die. Devuan has to fork some of them, just to maintain itself.
Whatever way this goes, it is an object lesson for all to study before hastily ignoring Treebeard's advice. Unless, as in Devuan's case, somebody has already been cutting down your forest.
> "Spin me up a Linux distro
That is what I suggested here:
https://www.theregister.com/2024/11/14/fedora_41_a_vast_assortment/
It seems like a good idea to me. I spoke with one Fedora person about it; they did not see the appeal and said it'd be really hard.
Which is sort of the point: show that this works, and Fedora could show that it does possess the sort of technological lead over the rest of the Linux industry that in my personal experience Fedora people _think_ it has, but which it's my impression it really does not.
(And in fact, Ubuntu is if anything closer. Especially if it can make Core Desktop work.)
"The Linux desktop(s) that got it right, and why/how"
I'm not much of a GUI designer, but I know what I like and xfce is the only one that I've come across that doesn't make me crazy with aggravation.
That includes Windows, but not Android because that's not a general work platform for me.
This is valid or at least I think it is…
In the classic car world you would have Ford owners club.
Some people in the Ford owners club think it is to general and decide to start a Ford Escort club.
The same happens (usually someone has an argument with the other organisers) and you now have a Ford Escort Mk1 club.
But then again it splits and you now have the Ford Escort Mk1 Mexico club
And agin from the escort mk1 you end up with an Escort mk1 1300 club
Each time in order to deal with an even more niche group you fragment the audience, this to an outsider (Mac user here) is how the Linux world looks, 10s (100s?) or slightly different versions catering to specialist markets, and they wonder why desktop Linux is not widely adopted the same as the clubs above all suffering from dwindling numbers where if they were consolidated it would be better for all.
.....and in 2024 it has NO MEMBERS AT ALL!
Unfortunately this "car club" logic is completely misleading, and for a couple of reasons:
(1) There are HUGE numbers of companies with huge numbers of Linux (server) instances....running nicely, thank you. (E.G. Red Hat customers)
(2) There are HUGE numbers of individuals using mainstream Linux distributions (E.G. Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, Mint....)
...and yes, the distribution curve has a VERY long tail! So what?
A guy walks into a Ford showroom.
"I want a new car"
"Certainly Sir, what model?"
"Shit, I dunno, you tell me, you're the salesman!"
"You look like a cool dude, Sir. We have the latest Focus ST just in with all the coolest updates."
"Uh... If you say so."
"Okay, now what colour would you like? We have total red, green metalflake and silver bullet in stock."
"Oh, F*** you! Ford offer just too much choice!!!!!!"
I guess your local supermarket has far too many types of soup on the shelves. Shirley the world only needs on type of soup.
Likewise, all radios and televisions should be identical. Having a choice is just too complicated.
As for boots ...
Clearly, the entire "there are too many kinds of <x>" is a bullshit argument, only serving to drive up clicks. Ignore it. Not even Liam believes it.
> In the classic car world you would have Ford owners club.
Emo Philips said it best...
Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump.
I said, "Don't do it!"
He said, "Nobody loves me." I said, "God loves you. Do you believe in God?"
He said, "Yes."
I said, "Are you a Christian or a Jew?"
He said, "A Christian."
I said, "Me, too! Protestant or Catholic?"
He said, "Protestant." I said, "Me, too! What franchise?"
He said, "Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?"
He said, "Northern Baptist."
I said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?"
He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist."
I said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region, or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?"
He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region."
I said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative†Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?"
He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912."
I said, "Die, heretic!" And I pushed him over.
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2005/sep/29/comedy.religion
This could be the place to say it. Anytime you suffer windowz11 you get told to install linux mint. I did this a while back and its seemed relatively quiet and functional.
Now it seems gripped on being the next windows11 and is always downloading huge updates. Is this what being a big time OS means?
I just want something that doesnt cause my pc to develop a an extra lag step with everything I do.
Do goggle/amazo/mucrosoft and co have a vested interest to fund and screw up everything.
I've said a few times and again now. If only the top Linux guys acknowledge that they need to come together with the hardware guys and design the One Linux from the ground, with all the best bits we have now, all the bits on the wish list, like isolated bits and bobs of the OS, standard interface, drivers, everything 100% open so all can see the oily bits but can't fork. if you want a fork, go get one of the others builds. A direct free competitor to Windows for consumers/business to get behind, then you may see a real shift of Linux in consumer and business environments. Linux has the resources and talent in buckets, but it's spread too thinly across too many flavours.
As a small aside... I was around when GNOME was being built, and ran very early 0.x prereleases (I was on a small private network where many of the early GNOME folk were chatting)... GNOME was great until 3.x. KDE was indeed horrible, until Plasma 5. If you had asked me in 2001 if I would ever run KDE, I would have said "Heck no"... GNOME was much better. It's a strange thing that once GNOME 3 hit, I switched to KDE and have never looked back.
I was around then as well. I watch the GNOME people march onto the KDE mailing list and proudly proclaim they were "taking their code" and creating their own desktop. This arrogance created the whole "desktop war" which has ruined the Linux experience ever since. I played around with the early 0.33 version of GNOME and watched it crash, then I watched it jump magically to version 0.9 overnight because Redhat decided to became involved. It still sucked. It sucked even more when Enlightenment was drawn into GNOME's singularity of suck. Redhat 5.1 was the convergence of all of these things, and was the point where I gave the middle finger to all of it.
It was amusing in those days, attempting to compile both GNOME and KDE. GNOME's code caused endless compiler warnings as it built, courtesy of the slop that went into it. KDE's code was written so it wouldn't trigger bazillions of compiler warnings. Remember CORBA? Miguel was all about CORBA and how it was going to change everything, hence the "OM" in GNOME. Oh wait, Miguel's A-D-D didn't allow for that so they dumped CORBA really fast and created Orbit. Is that still a a thing or did they dump that as well? I don't know. And don't care. There isn't much of an "object model" in anything GNOME has done.
KDE was nice and clean. The original developers of the project weren't dickheads. The project reached virtual perfection at 3.5 and then they decided to flush it all down the toilet with 4.0 and "Plasma." GNOME actually became usable after Miguel's A-D-D sent him off to create a bunch of other unfinished projects before returning to the first love of his life at Microsoft. And then GNOME decided to flush it all down the toilet with the "GNOME Shell" after too much time spent at the School of Raskin.
And for the record, nowadays I use WindowMaker. A pox on all your houses.
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