With
all
the
fuss
surrounding recent Linus' rant about GNOME, a bunch of "KDE rulez, GNOME is for
idiots" (and vice-versa) arguments sprang again. Personally, I'm a satisfied GNOME
user, but I also understand why some of my friends choose KDE, and why they like it.
We have different preferences. This is good. Choice is good.
So this post isn't about that: it's about the history. The flamewars reminded me of my first contact with Linux GUI environments. 'twas in the time of fvwm1, xterms, when men were real men, women were real women, and small furry .. err, when NCSA Mosaic was still usable. Then, everyone agreed GUI on Linux sucked - bigtime. Smart people began
working on a solution, sometimes coming to an extreme.
Sometime after, I heard about a cool new project, which aimed to be a free alternative to CDE. For a lack of
a better name, and in spirit of CDE naming, it was named Kool Desktop Environment (they couldn't be Cool Desktop Environment, for obvious reasons :). I was excited to see
this project (I learnt about it at the time of the first release, I believe), and
if I knew more about C/C++/Linux programming I'd probably try to get involved...
but I did not, I stayed in the CLI.
As for GNOME, I haven't noticed it until it was already a popular environment.
I've used Linux oblivious to any GUI progress, until I replaced my old 15" CRT
with an LCD monitor a few years ago - the text mode sucked, so I switched to X.
I looked at what KDE and GNOME looked (& felt) at the time, decided I like GNOME
better, and I still haven't changed my mind.
Anyways, enough with the nostalgia. I've googled a bit, and came up with several
screenshots of early GNOME (from here,
the official GNOME site, O'Reilly and Wikipedia)
and KDE (from the screenshots page
on the official KDE web):
KDE had a head start in 1996. This dates from 1998, I believe before the first release. Compare with its model.
A bit after KDE 1.1 release, GNOME shows off its 1.0, in 1999. KDE 1.1 looks
polished here (already better than the original CDE, IMHO):
In 2000, KDE 2 adds more applications and features and shiny stuff. GNOME 1.2
improves a lot, but is clearly a KDE lookalike:
2002 brings improvements in toolkits, KDE 3 looks more shiny & polished than
ever, with lots of applications. GNOME upgrades to GTK+ 2 and gets more apps:
In 2003 the paths diverge. KDE 3.1 and GNOME 2.4 have different visions and
different goals, and that shows. The default icon teme as we know it today
is set around this time (at least the screenshots would suggest that):
The present: KDE 3.5 with the "Conquer your Desktop" slogan, and GNOME 2.12
with the goal "Just Works[tm]". Both desktops are very mature, a lot of hard
work has gone into them, and both are pleasure to use - just, to different
user bases:
If you're still reading this, congratulations! As a small easter egg, I present
you with a proof of how great open source community is: there's
a scratch
for every itch ;-)
