5 ms·

Even if it's "bloated", I've found KDE to be a far more usable DE than Gnome. KDE provides you with more features than you need (or thought you might need), but

Even if it's "bloated", I've found KDE to be a far more usable DE than Gnome. KDE provides you with more features than you need (or thought you might need), but everything's made discoverable, so you don't mind. Gnome relies on extensions to meet the bare minimum, and they break after each update. Once you add the extensions, I think Gnome ends up more bloated than KDE. Don't know about Xfce and the other stuff. It's not an apples to apples comparison.

petepete 4y ago
What GNOME extensions do you need to provide 'the bare minimum'? I use none and it's fine for me.
- cerved 4y ago
  auto hide the toolbar
  - 3836293648 4y ago
    Autohide? The dock only available in the overview by default. Ubuntu is far from vanilla gnome
- lionkor 4y ago
  For my wife, coming from Windows, it was quite a few things. With KDE, there were only small changes in the settings ui (like alt+shift to switch language, which gnome doesnt allow, needs a plugin)
  - ho_schi 4y ago
    Use ReactOS or buy a license from Microsoft for Windows and accept it drawbacks. Or provide a well introduction into Linux and KDE and allow the user to excel :) GNOME is not an alternative to Windows. Linux is an operating-system for its own, building upon UNIX and Plan9. Especially Systemd is giving Linux a very own foundation. That said, we don't apply Emacs shortcuts on VIM because it degrades the provided features and make usage even harder. Humans are pretty good in adapting - one of our best features. An analogy - don't try to ride bicycle like a car. It won't work. PS: Best results with GNOME are with novice users. GNOME tends to be very keyboard centric and allows focus on your applications. These novice users don't try to apply usage patterns learned on Windows.
    - bacchusracine 4y ago
      >Best results with GNOME are with novice users. GNOME tends to be very keyboard centric and allows focus on your applications. These novice users don't try to apply usage patterns learned on Windows. Just out of curiosity, how many of these novices do you expect there to be? Also if you only target this group of people who have never used Windows, how do you expect to serve the massive number of people who started with Windows and made their way to Linux? Or do we not matter compared to that other group?
      - prmoustache 4y ago
        Not the parent poster but I would say kids. Most kids start their computing experience with tablets and mobile phones. Gnome has a very similar desktop metaphor being made to work as well on regular computers and tablets. My 9 and 12y/old daughters have never used windows and they are autonomous on the Fedora + Gnome laptop I lend them when needed for their homework or to watch streaming services.
        ho_schi 4y ago
        Yes. A lot of people don't work much with computers. It is just our bubble which assumes that. In my case it aren't kids but older persons which succeed well with GNOME (Fedora). I don't have to care a lot and their able to install major upgrades with one prompt. And I'm happy with GNOME as power-user because of the keyboard centric usage. PS: Most computer courses fail to teach usage of computers. We need to read the computers output, understand it and then input. And for interaction a very "high-level" of the concept how a program works is needed. Instead most computer courses merely teach "and now we click on the blue icon" which leave helpless users. Interestingly TUIs seem to a magnitude better then GUIs, only text and focus on the task. A lean GUI helps somewhat. And websites? Horrible. HN is a seldom exception, just text from left-to-right, top-to-bottom.
    - lionkor 4y ago
      We can't both say "linux has so much customization" and at the same time "you have to disregard everything you know".
- ogogmad 4y ago
  "Bare minimum" is certainly an exaggeration, so I apologise. Gnome is indeed perfectly usable out of the box. And KDE is not "far more usable", it's just more convenient in lots of small ways. I haven't used it for a while, but I found that for certain audio controls, or to allow certain window layouts, I've needed to install extensions. I also found the information it provides about wifi to be less than adequate, and I'd imagine that you'd need to install extensions to fix that. KDE provides a running graph of traffic to/from a Wifi endpoint, and other information that you might not have considered.
  - prmoustache 4y ago
    I do most of my audio controls with pavucontrol (which is not a gnome extension) regardless of the DE and I don't think that running graphs to/from a wifi endpoint is something many people do on a regular basis. And if I want graph for any kind of metrics I usually use netdata. I think gnome defaults works for anyone that subscribe to their desktop metaphor. I like it, some don't, but I don't think that is because it is not complete. It is certainly less configurable out of the box than KDE though and I understand why some people would prefer KDE.
    - cassepipe 4y ago
      I agree the graph thing is not very a "basic" example. I have another one : Someone asked me recently how to change the luminosity on GNOME. I looked at the keyboard but saw no sun icon so I turned to the system tray... No icon either. I, in turn, asked someone else "Oh, just click the volume icon" Turns out there is a whole panel of unrelated settings hidden you can see either clicking on the logout button or volume button... It's actually the same button. I am generally against hiding settings in menus and submenus but if you're going to, can it at least be a universal cog icon? Seems more like the product of an artist-architect willing to sacrifice everyday usability to commit to his "vision". In our case the system tray must look symmetric and bare. I do want tools not get in my way but not out of the picture.
      - prmoustache 4y ago
- silisili 4y ago
  Dash to panel/Dash to dock and Tray Icons Reloaded/TopIcons, I'd say at a minimum. I also added Openweather and Wobbly Windows, just because :).
- 3836293648 4y ago
  Just Perfection. GNOME Animation speed is crazy slow. It takes almost a second to enter the overview. Just Perfection's Fastest option is also a bit too slow, but disabling animation entirely is too jarring Then for comfort I have Pop shell and hot edge.
ChuckNorris89 4y ago
KDE is definitely not bloated in any way for the amount of features and capabilities it brings out of the box. Everything you need to get to work is already built in, no extra add-ons or extensions are needed, even for power users. My Opensuse Tumbleweed KDE idles at ~700MB RAM usage so I have no idea what the author's Fedora does with KDE that it idles at 1.4GB RAM. I mean, I definitely expect differences between distros, but 2x the RAM usage feels really strange. There's either a bug/memory leak, or several apps are cached or running in the background. I feel for such comparisons, it would be also fair to list the "ps -aux" for each DE somewhere so that readers can dig a bit deeper into the results if they want and see what exaclty is running
- Vogtinator 4y ago
  Maybe Fedora starts akonadi by default or something...
- tmtvl 4y ago
  I think OpenSUSE does something with KDE, because the author also mentions the Wayland session crashing every other time and I'm just using Plasma Wayland as my daily driver now as it has reached a point where it's perfectly usable, even with 2 monitors.
  - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    Exactly and that's my main beef with these DE comparisons. DEs don't exist in a vacuum but depend on which bistro they run on, and how well they're integrated in that particular distro as this affects stability and resources consumption. I suspect if we were to tests all these DEs on Arch or OpenSUSE, some of these results would look completely different, at least for the major "gass-guzzers" like GNOME and KDE, so IMHO, the jury is still out on them. Still, I appreciate that the author has gone through this effort for these tests.
allisdust 4y ago
Don't know why most of the distros default to gnome. It's an absolute nightmare for usability. Without extensions even bare minimum things can't be done. If you are a windows user switching to Linux, should definitely stay away from this steaming mess of a wannabe osx clone.
The_Colonel 4y ago
Agreed. I was a GNOME user for close to 20 years, but the version 40 did it for me - I migrated to KDE and haven't looked back. It's slightly less pretty than GNOME and has a few usability rough edges, but overall it's just a much nicer experience.
- galangalalgol 4y ago
  Why isn't unity on the list? Edit: they used fedora, I see it now.
chakkepolja 4y ago
Anyone knows how to remove many services (like akonadi) in KDE? Also, LXQT starts up instantly from login screen, KDE takes 2-10 seconds even if I disable as many things as possible from settings. Apart from that, I have a generally high opinion of KDE.

petepete 4y ago

What GNOME extensions do you need to provide 'the bare minimum'? I use none and it's fine for me.

cerved 4y ago
auto hide the toolbar
- 3836293648 4y ago
  Autohide? The dock only available in the overview by default. Ubuntu is far from vanilla gnome
lionkor 4y ago
For my wife, coming from Windows, it was quite a few things. With KDE, there were only small changes in the settings ui (like alt+shift to switch language, which gnome doesnt allow, needs a plugin)
- ho_schi 4y ago
  Use ReactOS or buy a license from Microsoft for Windows and accept it drawbacks. Or provide a well introduction into Linux and KDE and allow the user to excel :) GNOME is not an alternative to Windows. Linux is an operating-system for its own, building upon UNIX and Plan9. Especially Systemd is giving Linux a very own foundation. That said, we don't apply Emacs shortcuts on VIM because it degrades the provided features and make usage even harder. Humans are pretty good in adapting - one of our best features. An analogy - don't try to ride bicycle like a car. It won't work. PS: Best results with GNOME are with novice users. GNOME tends to be very keyboard centric and allows focus on your applications. These novice users don't try to apply usage patterns learned on Windows.
  - bacchusracine 4y ago
    >Best results with GNOME are with novice users. GNOME tends to be very keyboard centric and allows focus on your applications. These novice users don't try to apply usage patterns learned on Windows. Just out of curiosity, how many of these novices do you expect there to be? Also if you only target this group of people who have never used Windows, how do you expect to serve the massive number of people who started with Windows and made their way to Linux? Or do we not matter compared to that other group?
    - prmoustache 4y ago
      Not the parent poster but I would say kids. Most kids start their computing experience with tablets and mobile phones. Gnome has a very similar desktop metaphor being made to work as well on regular computers and tablets. My 9 and 12y/old daughters have never used windows and they are autonomous on the Fedora + Gnome laptop I lend them when needed for their homework or to watch streaming services.
      - ho_schi 4y ago
        Yes. A lot of people don't work much with computers. It is just our bubble which assumes that. In my case it aren't kids but older persons which succeed well with GNOME (Fedora). I don't have to care a lot and their able to install major upgrades with one prompt. And I'm happy with GNOME as power-user because of the keyboard centric usage. PS: Most computer courses fail to teach usage of computers. We need to read the computers output, understand it and then input. And for interaction a very "high-level" of the concept how a program works is needed. Instead most computer courses merely teach "and now we click on the blue icon" which leave helpless users. Interestingly TUIs seem to a magnitude better then GUIs, only text and focus on the task. A lean GUI helps somewhat. And websites? Horrible. HN is a seldom exception, just text from left-to-right, top-to-bottom.
  - lionkor 4y ago
    We can't both say "linux has so much customization" and at the same time "you have to disregard everything you know".
ogogmad 4y ago
"Bare minimum" is certainly an exaggeration, so I apologise. Gnome is indeed perfectly usable out of the box. And KDE is not "far more usable", it's just more convenient in lots of small ways. I haven't used it for a while, but I found that for certain audio controls, or to allow certain window layouts, I've needed to install extensions. I also found the information it provides about wifi to be less than adequate, and I'd imagine that you'd need to install extensions to fix that. KDE provides a running graph of traffic to/from a Wifi endpoint, and other information that you might not have considered.
- prmoustache 4y ago
  I do most of my audio controls with pavucontrol (which is not a gnome extension) regardless of the DE and I don't think that running graphs to/from a wifi endpoint is something many people do on a regular basis. And if I want graph for any kind of metrics I usually use netdata. I think gnome defaults works for anyone that subscribe to their desktop metaphor. I like it, some don't, but I don't think that is because it is not complete. It is certainly less configurable out of the box than KDE though and I understand why some people would prefer KDE.
  - cassepipe 4y ago
    I agree the graph thing is not very a "basic" example. I have another one : Someone asked me recently how to change the luminosity on GNOME. I looked at the keyboard but saw no sun icon so I turned to the system tray... No icon either. I, in turn, asked someone else "Oh, just click the volume icon" Turns out there is a whole panel of unrelated settings hidden you can see either clicking on the logout button or volume button... It's actually the same button. I am generally against hiding settings in menus and submenus but if you're going to, can it at least be a universal cog icon? Seems more like the product of an artist-architect willing to sacrifice everyday usability to commit to his "vision". In our case the system tray must look symmetric and bare. I do want tools not get in my way but not out of the picture.
    - prmoustache 4y ago
silisili 4y ago
Dash to panel/Dash to dock and Tray Icons Reloaded/TopIcons, I'd say at a minimum. I also added Openweather and Wobbly Windows, just because :).
3836293648 4y ago
Just Perfection. GNOME Animation speed is crazy slow. It takes almost a second to enter the overview. Just Perfection's Fastest option is also a bit too slow, but disabling animation entirely is too jarring Then for comfort I have Pop shell and hot edge.

ChuckNorris89 4y ago

KDE is definitely not bloated in any way for the amount of features and capabilities it brings out of the box. Everything you need to get to work is already built in, no extra add-ons or extensions are needed, even for power users. My Opensuse Tumbleweed KDE idles at ~700MB RAM usage so I have no idea what the author's Fedora does with KDE that it idles at 1.4GB RAM. I mean, I definitely expect differences between distros, but 2x the RAM usage feels really strange. There's either a bug/memory leak, or several apps are cached or running in the background. I feel for such comparisons, it would be also fair to list the "ps -aux" for each DE somewhere so that readers can dig a bit deeper into the results if they want and see what exaclty is running

Vogtinator 4y ago
Maybe Fedora starts akonadi by default or something...
tmtvl 4y ago
I think OpenSUSE does something with KDE, because the author also mentions the Wayland session crashing every other time and I'm just using Plasma Wayland as my daily driver now as it has reached a point where it's perfectly usable, even with 2 monitors.
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  Exactly and that's my main beef with these DE comparisons. DEs don't exist in a vacuum but depend on which bistro they run on, and how well they're integrated in that particular distro as this affects stability and resources consumption. I suspect if we were to tests all these DEs on Arch or OpenSUSE, some of these results would look completely different, at least for the major "gass-guzzers" like GNOME and KDE, so IMHO, the jury is still out on them. Still, I appreciate that the author has gone through this effort for these tests.

allisdust 4y ago

Don't know why most of the distros default to gnome. It's an absolute nightmare for usability. Without extensions even bare minimum things can't be done. If you are a windows user switching to Linux, should definitely stay away from this steaming mess of a wannabe osx clone.

The_Colonel 4y ago

Agreed. I was a GNOME user for close to 20 years, but the version 40 did it for me - I migrated to KDE and haven't looked back. It's slightly less pretty than GNOME and has a few usability rough edges, but overall it's just a much nicer experience.

galangalalgol 4y ago
Why isn't unity on the list? Edit: they used fedora, I see it now.

chakkepolja 4y ago

Anyone knows how to remove many services (like akonadi) in KDE? Also, LXQT starts up instantly from login screen, KDE takes 2-10 seconds even if I disable as many things as possible from settings. Apart from that, I have a generally high opinion of KDE.