I love Gnome and its simplicity and use it regularly. I loathe KDE and its complexity. Although I used KDE about 5 years back, ever since Ubuntu was released, I’ve been using Gnome. However, when KDE4 was announced, I decided to check it out with an open-mind and re-evaluate.
Click to see gallery
- Visually looks a little better than KDE3
- KDE4 is still quite rough.
- The UI needs more polish.
- Usability has increased and still needs work.
- Complexity has reduced but more work required.
- The widgets in Oxygen theme are more bearable.
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One corner of the screen is reserved for adding widgets, really required?
I like the menu because I can search but consider the menu less functional than the one before. I do not use the search much because I use the “Run” command (Alt + F2) instead. I tend to loose orientation while navigating applications in the new menu,
Black is good. The time display looks great. The gradient requires work as it does throughout the theme. The white border on the upper half of windows is annoying.
Overall, this feels unfinished but is a step in the right direction. It won’t be replacing Gnome for me yet. Will have to wait for 4.1 too see if it can.
Links
Tags: gnome, kde, linux, window manager
Ubuntu For Free wrote,
hey! thanks for the excellent KDE 4 screenshots and more details on the widgets.
Link | January 14th, 2008 at 10:20 am
J.Naveen wrote,
hey suggest me some Gnome linux versions to install in my pc, it should support all programming langueges….just tell me, gnome is specilized for GUI? now I have ubantu some 7.* version.
Link | January 15th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
Prashanth Ellina wrote,
Naveen, I use Ubuntu which has Gnome as the default window manager. I’ve tried Fedora core (Red Hat Linux earlier), SUSE Linux, Mandriva, Slackware, Debian and found Ubuntu to best suit me needs (Note that Ubuntu is derived from Debian). Gnome does not enable or restrict “programming languages” (compilers/interpreters/VM’s). So any Linux distro should be fine. However, Gnome is simple to use and is highly usable and I’ve found that it boosts my productivity by getting out of my way.
All in all, I recommend Ubuntu. Gutsy Gibbon is the latest release also referred to as Ubuntu 7.10.
Link | January 15th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
Manish Chakravarty wrote,
KDE4 is _not_ meant for general usage.
KDE 4.1 which comes out is meant to be used by end-users.
Link | February 27th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
prashanthellina wrote,
Yup. I found KDE4 a bit rough around the edges.
Link | March 1st, 2008 at 8:37 pm
Andrew wrote,
That’s it? That’s you’re whole review? You watched it boot up, then clicked on the “K” menu? You didn’t run it for more than 10 minutes?? Pretty lame review if you ask me!
Link | May 20th, 2008 at 1:29 am
prashanthellina wrote,
These are my “impressions”. If you are looking for a detailed review, you should consider visiting the “Ars” link I posted at the end of the article!
Link | May 20th, 2008 at 9:39 am