[CLUE-Talk] What's Gnome got?

[Collins Richey]

On Sun, 9 Dec 2001 09:36:16 -0700 "David Willson"
<DLWillson at thegeek.nu> wrote:

> Curiousity here, mostly... I've been using Linux (Red Hat 7.2) as my
> primary working and playing OS for a few weeks now. MAJOR switch for
> me... Every now and then I 'switchdesk' over and take a peek at KDE,
> even though Uncle Red Hat has chosen Gnome as the default, and I
> trust my Uncle, and everywhere I look, I read that Gnome is more
popular
> than KDE... From the few peeks I have taken, KDE looks more finished
than
> Gnome, more ... complete. What don't I understand here? Why is Gnome
> 'better' than KDE? What drove Red Hat to choose Gnome as the default
> and what caused Gnome to win the Readers' Choice Award for best
> WindowManager?

It's really simple.  When the KDE project started, it was based on the
QT widget set which was at the time a commercial product (Trolltech
have since released QT into the Open Software arena).  Uncle Red Hat
and others of the RMS contingent believe (and preach) that commercial
software is evil.  Now that QT is open, Red Hat does make KDE
available, but they certainly don't trust or prefer it.

<start of rant>
I personally don't have much use for KDE or GNOME.  Both are examples
of what I like to call bloatware.  I use XFCE instead.  Since I run
the gentoo distro, it's very easy (if time consuming on my 300MZ pc)
to install all the KDE and GNOME stuff.  I can use any of the KDE or
GNOME apps from XFCE.  I prefer the KDE setup because it more closely
resembles both Windows and earlier X windowing products.  I can't
stand the GNOME windows.

That being said, the one GNOME product that I use faithfully is
galeon, the very best browser currently available.  galeon is based on
the mozilla gecko engine (you must have mozilla installed to use it). 
"galeon is the browser that mozilla would like to be when it grows
up." (tm).  konqueror is a pretty nice browser, too - if you don't
have galeon.  

Koffice will be a decent product one of these days.  However, if
Abiword ever gets table support, I will use it.
</end of rant>

-- 
Collins Richey
Denver Area - WWTLRD?
gentoo_rc6 k2.4.17-pre6+ext3+xfce+sylpheed+galeon