Gnome or KDE?

["Chris Bailey" <chris codeintensity com>]

I'm looking for information (biased or not) comparing the latest versions of
Ximian Gnome and KDE on Linux (I use RedHat 7.2 in case that matters).  I am
a software developer, and my primary use will be for my work environment.
My daily tools include Visual SlickEdit (editor), Mozilla, occasionally
Opera, some minor use of The Gimp, and lots of command line development and
related tools (e.g. make, ant, compilers, Apache, PostgreSQL and MySQL,
etc.), sometimes GUI frontends to databases (rarely, but handy at times).

Taking the above into account, here are some things I'm looking for, or have
noticed.  I should preface all this with the fact that I've been using
Ximian Gnome (with Sawfish) for about the last year, and have never used
KDE.  I do not want to start yet another Gnome vs. KDE war (I know that will
be quite difficult in such a discussion), but simply gather info to help me
compare the two for my needs.  I hear it is quite difficult these days to
successfully switch between the latest versions of the two, otherwise I'd
just have both and try each for a while (please let me know if this is
incorrect).  I unfortunately only have one Linux box right now, so can't
have two to test side by side.  So, here are my points of
interest/questions.  I appreciate any and all feedback people have:

- Links to any fairly current articles comparing the two, or similar
resources.

- Screen/font/display quality.  I know this may also depend on the app, but
quality of font rendering, "clean-ness", whether anti-aliasing is supported,
etc.  I look at a monitor for hours and hours a day (as I'm sure most of us
do), I want a really clear and clean display (I'm not referring to how
cluttered my desktop may be with icons and apps, etc., but the quality of
what happens to be on the display).

- Desktop configuration.  I tend to go for one small panel at the top, and
generally don't use a task list  (I setup 4 virtual desktops and tend to run
specific stuff in each, and just switch between them).  So, accelerator-key
configuration for switching between workspaces/desktops is important.  Any
conflicts with apps with this is a problem.  I've found I like the default
top panel that Ximian uses with menus and then launcher icons for my most
used stuff.  I also use the pager, clock, perf monitors, etc., and a panel
applet of my own for some configuration stuff.

- Any general commentary about your experience and why you prefer it.  I see
lots of comments that say "this one is better", but honestly, I rarely see
meaty reasons, if much of a reason at all.

- Good configuration/control panel.

- I stay up to date, and don't have issues of corporate control/what I
can/can't install, etc.

- Easy to update.  I dig Red Carpet, is there an equivalent for KDE?  If
not, is it as simple as installing updated RPM's for updated components?

- Themes.  I like them :)  But, one thing I don't much like (maybe I'm just
lazy) is the issue of having two themes under Gnome, one for GTK and one for
Sawfish.  It's cool to be able to choose different ones, but I don't
usually, and would probably just like it to be a simple single choice.

- Easy to customize menus, and to do it as a regular user, integrating your
additions into existing categories, etc.

- File browsers: I use them on Windows (e.g. Windows Explorer or "My
Computer"), but haven't found that I do on Linux.  This may be because I
think Nautilus is slow and doesn't work very well.  If Konqueror is very
fast and works nicely I may be interested.  Also, a real small extra bonus
is if it views Windows (via Samba) shares.

- Development of panel applets and GUI apps.  This is probably a serious
religious war, and I'm not interested in the issue of QT being non-GPL
(regardless of the free version) and all that stuff.  I use these for
personal things, and as long as I can use one or the other, it's not
something I factor in right now.  The issue here for me is that I prefer an
OO design to the toolkit, and want solid language bindings for Python and
maybe Java, including the more edge parts like panel applets.  Also, not
only solid/quality bindings, but ones that are kept up to date with
QT/KDE/GTK/Gnome itself.  And even better, ones that have documentation
besides saying "read the C/C++ docs".  I've read a bit about Qt and what
appears to be solid cross platform support is somewhat interesting (I also
use Windows and MacOS for some things).  Note, I'm not looking for a
comparison of Bonobo or KParts, or all these things.  Mostly just whether
the non-C/C++ language support is solid, whether the toolkit is relatively
decent and can be used easily (in non-C/C++ languages) for panel applets and
small GUI apps, etc.  I've done a tiny bit of work on Gnome panel applets
with Python.

- Browsers.  I will probably use one browser for 95% of my work, and that
will likely need to be Mozilla for various compatibility/consistancy issues
in my work.  But, I'm curious about Konqueror, I hear it's fast and good.

- Email apps: I used Evolution back around the 0.8 days when I was doing
email on Linux.  I'm an Outlook person (say whatever you want), so I like it
a lot.  If I go back to doing email on Linux, can I use Evolution nicely
under KDE, or what is the K alternative?

- Anything else people want to add.

I apologize for such a long post, but hope this can frame the discussion to
be most useful.  Thanks in advance.

____
Chris Bailey        mailto:chris codeintensity com
Code Intensity      http://www.codeintensity.com