[HLUG] What is the Gnome & KDE difference??

[Emon]

Julian Robbins wrote:
> Hi
> 
> Interesting question.
> 
> KDE was the first of the 'real' as we know it today desktop 
> environments, (although fans of window maker and enlightenment might 
> disagree) in about 1999. Gnome followed shortly after, but always lagged 
> a bit behind. Both these early versions at vers 1.0 were very different 
> to KDE and Gnome now. Although KDE was always ahead and integrated more 
> items into the desktop, ie kmail, konqueror etc, at around 2004, IMHO 
> KDE and Gnome to a lesser extent, integrated as much functionality as 
> was really required. At this point KDE suffered from a bit of overkill 
> in terms of so much stuff thrown in the pot. ie rightclicking on the 
> desktop would give you something like 12 options of things to do !!
> 
> Gnome always stuck to a 'less is more' mantra, and kept things simple. 
> Gnome also has much more tightly defined and adherence to its Human 
> Interface Guidelines which has kept a possibly smoother appearance and 
> sheen through the Desktop and Gnome programs, ie gnumeric, gimp, 
> abiword, gnomemeeting, etc.
> 
> I sensed a change in attitude in Gnome amongst some people, like Jono 
> Bacon, Linux format writer, and OpenAdvantage staff member and myself 
> where I felt that KDE was throwing more and more good stuff at the 
> desktop, but that IMHO it was getting just too much, and the knobs and 
> whistles were actually getting in the way of work.
> 
> So, in essence I wouldn't say that Gnome was/is for the old guard, (it 
> was actually started after KDE), actually I would say that Gnome seems 
> to be in the ascendency compared to KDE.
> 
> ie Ubuntu, Novell, Sun, Fedora use it by default leaving only Mandriva 
> and Suse to offer it, though Suse offers both options. Yes I know there 
> are many other distros that use one or the other, but my point is that 
> Gnome used to be really only used as a default in Redhat and KDE 
> favoured everywhere else, but this is not the case now.
> 
> Some apps have many gnome dependencies, true, but again many apps also 
> have quite a few KDE library requirements too. You can easily run gnome 
> apps on KDE, and vice versa with no problems at all, apart from the fact 
> that they don't always match with the desktop.
> 
> But the future looks bright with F-spot, Beagle and Tomboy, to name but 
> three excellent applications under heavy development by Novell, who also 
> are putting a lot of effort into Gnome too. These three, 
> photo-managemnt, Desktop metasearch (really must be tried!), and note 
> taking application are all innovative useful Gnome programs.
> 
> Julian
> 

Thanks for the detailed input Julian... really appreciate it

Emon