FW: Ubuntu KDE

[Bryan Pizzuti]

That's a good point.  However, the problem with the difference between the
two Des is that the average user doesn't care.  They want to install an app
that works. Period. They don't want to install a KDE app because they're
using KDE. Or a GNOME app because they're using GNOME. If they want to
install K3B, they want to install it, and make ot work, and mske it look
like it belongs. Same with GAIM. Or Pan. Etc. 

That's the other problem with the 2 separate desktop environments. You might
have 2 great apps that you want to use, but one is for one and the other is
for the other.

I'm telling you, the first organization to get the two to work together
seamlessly, like they're only one desktop environment, is going to take off.


Incidentally, a band-aid wouldn't be so hard.  First thing is to take one of
the control centers (Sorry, but KDE's is more feature-laden) and modify the
source so it writes all of it's modifications to look and feel to both KDE
and GNOME's config files. That covers the looking identical part. Fonts will
be the same whether they be in a KDE or GNOME app. Make a set of themes
that'll work with both and make them look identical, and use those for the
theme selections.  Figure out a way to apply those settings to root as well,
so anything run using "sudo" will ALSO look like everything else.  That
stuff is step 1. Step 2 is the menus and tray apps, but all that hads to be
is a band-aid. If the FreeDesktop initiative takes off, then any application
will be written to support a common menu heirarchy and tray format, and so
will show up in either KDE or GNOME in the same spot.  

Oh, WAIT! You mean, someone's ALREADY working on some of it?  Must be a good
idea then. ;)  Maybe I'm not the only one tired of the bickering, and
getting the idea that the whole GNOME/KDE war is hurting Linux more than
helping it. ;)


-----Original Message-----
From: Daniel Stone [mailto:daniel at fooishbar.org]
Sent: Monday, December 06, 2004 10:27 AM
To: Bryan Pizzuti
Cc: 'Ubuntu mailing list'
Subject: RE: Ubuntu KDE

On Mon, 2004-12-06 at 10:15 -0500, Bryan Pizzuti wrote:
> You know what point this whole debate brings up?  There is NO ONE who 
> is working on making GNOME and KDE interoperate so smoothly that no 
> one can tell the difference.

This is because there are such fundamental differences between the two that
you cannot just bandaid over them and hope for the best; two desktop
environments that looked alike but worked completely differently in every
way would be even more confusing.