Our Best Podcast EVER!

The guys come to battle to the death over which is better: GNOME or KDE?
👇 PULL IT DOWN FOR THE GOOD STUFF 👇
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[show notes]
bit.ly/3tHZgqQ
[time stamps]
0:00 Intro
0:57 Our Week in FOSS
1:04 Tyler
3:50 Steve
5:59 Josh
7:34 Matt
16:05 Gnome VS KDE - FIGHT!
17:44 Which is Better for New Users?
37:29 Does Customization Matter?
45:25 Which Has the Better Apps?
1:02:09 Why You Should Use Gnome/KDE
1:06:55 Who Won?
1:07:27 Thingies of the Week
1:07:32 Tyler Thingie
1:09:26 Steve Thingie
1:12:01 Josh Thingie
1:13:34 Matt Thingie
1:15:51 Contact Info and Goodbyes

[@TheLinuxCast]

Help support the pod and get some merch! shop.thelinuxcast.org

[@TremereTT]

KDE is for the reasonable humanity. meanwhile gnome supports the magocracy. they have a professional shaman like Holly Million plotting to further the magocracy's gripp on linux.

[@WalrusHal]

Steve and Tyler won imo. Coming from Windows, I initially spent a while in System Settings making the KDE Plasma environment look how I want it to look, but when done it's done. Hence, in terms of appearance, I've tweaked little else since April 2021. KDE offers substantial versatility from the get-go which I made much use of. For this reason *and* because I *like* the MS Windows start menu/taskbar scheme, I rejected GNOME.

[@folksurvival]

2001?

[@WalrusHal]

@@folksurvival Oh, that should be April 2021. Will correct.

[@ddman7867]

idc about gnome'kde, Tyler was hands down the best and most enthusiastic defender this episode, and im a GNOME guy

[@MyAmazingUsername]

This was such a great episode. Loved the reverse trolling.

[@folksurvival]

This is peak funny, baked Tyler.

[@MarcoKretz]

I genuinely try to like Plasma as a daily driver. As much as I appreciate all the work that goes into it, the possible customizations and so on, it just feels bumpy. It's the small things like weird color borders on inactive windows, missing cursor themes on flatpaks when not using the default cursor theme, missing app icons for flatpak on Wayland, the buggy floating panels (sometimes it goes into fullscreen mode even if no window is in fullscreen on the active screen). The list goes on and on and you can EASILY mess the whole desktop up while playing with different themes and settings. On the other side GNOME just gets out of my way. Sure, less customization but at the end of the day I want to get work done and GNOME enables me to do that. It looks beautiful by default, has nicer default apps and encourages a very focused workflow. I will for sure revisit Plasma 6 in February!

[@pattabhinanduri7277]

I am using GNOME for a long time and now at a stage want to try KDE just because many of my extensions fall apart with GNOME upgrades. Also, themes are breaking or arent consistent with new gnome. Are you saying KDE has the same problem if not worse ?

[@Ig0r123]

Best episode so far 🤣

[@ahsanhabib3193]

To be honest I like how xfce maintains a plugin like ecosystem instead of extensions like gnome and KDE. I hate both for that..... Xfce has everything a user needs , nothing more , nothing less

[@terminallyonline5296]

Yeah I can't wait til xfce wm and the session gets wayland because xfce on wayland is my ideal desktop.

[@Paint2D_]

As a new linux user this was not only fun to watch but I also have to agree Gnome is for simple people like me, KDE (at least out of the box) feels like a worse version of windows, especially when it comes to window management.

[@zeocamo]

Tyler win here, he pull Steve out of the blackest of holes, just so he could win

[@Dennis-Earl-Smiley]

...and i like cinnamon, not either, in this modern age!

[@mohameda-taher1188]

The boys ❤

[@ghodawalamoamanzahirabbas8996]

It was indeed the best podcast :D

[@Tvirus12]

gnome doesnt name everything with a K

[@Sharp931]

Falkon vs the very creatively named browser, "Web".

[@marcostorres572]

Cool intro and video 👌🏼

[@Smittron]

My experience over the last five years has been: Kubuntu > Ubuntu and Debian with KDE > GNOME regarding installation on hardware as well as stability.

[@skelebro9999]

This is not even a fight. Everyone knows Xfce is better than both.

[@folksurvival]

XFCE is the real winner.

[@damianateiro]

XDDDDDDDDDD

[@Tired_Night_Owl_in_the_Woods]

Gosh... I suddenly realised I behave exactly like Tyler during "debates"😅 it does not even matter what my actual opinion is, as soon as I am assigned a side I behave as a hardcore supporter😂

[@Nick_Lavigne]

When Gnome became tablet/win8 looking I started to drop it. I got tired of spending an hour making it like old gnome with some extras.

[@kringkingen]

KDE for Windows users and Gnome for Mac users. Gnome is usually more stable but with less customizability...

[@chrisMuc1966]

1:05:28 Really great plot twist!

[@MyAmazingUsername]

Next episode: Try to convince the Ancient Romans to use Linux. Use your best arguments. Otherwise they throw you in the Colosseum with the macOS Tigers.

[@zeocamo]

i am a dev, i dont use Gnome, as i need to change it for it to work for me, if i should pick it be KDE, only because you can form it after my needs. but it is still not good for me, so i am on hyprland and i got custom script on hotkey for any thing, it is there for me, but not in the way, i can make my programs without thinking about the computer or the control of the computer. i use Neovim and Arch btw.

[@anthonybeyond]

I am more of a fan of xfce [my current DE], MATE, & lxqt. Why? Because I do not need a desktop environment [DE] with too many dependencies like Gnome, Cinnamon, & KDE Plasma. But in fairness, at least KDE Plasma can been stripped down & customize to be almost as light as xfce if a user try hard enough. But no chance in hell in lightening up Gnome or Cinnamon.

[@dominicgdoyle5614]

Steve n Tyler by a country mile.

[@thecrow3461]

No mention of dolphin or okular which outclass anything gnome has to offer? I think gnome tries way too hard to immitate macOS and i just don't like the workflow and since you can't change it to your liking you either like gnome or you don't so i use plasma.

[@unklebonehead]

Matt kept bringing up kwin crashing. Maybe I'm lucky but not once has kwin ever crashed on me when using KDE. But then again I dont tend to try to force the desktop to do something it wasnt designed to do.

[@slackmaster1970]

KDE is easy to remove but gnome is not and if you try to remove gnome most likely breaks the system

[@ChaiBronz]

25:33 gnome tells you to use extensions, until they break. then they tell you that you shouldn't be using extensions.

[@ZombieJig]

Why the hate for Nano?

[@TheLinuxCast]

Being sarcastic.

[@folksurvival]

MATE is better than both.

[@ghodawalamoamanzahirabbas8996]

17:12 it's nome. not Gnome..................😴

[@reality-drift122]

i've tried to like gnome, it makes me wanta puke everytime i use it. kde has issues but it always felt better. although ive abandoned DE's for hyprland now

[@neotwenty-nineBzH]

So... In the teams... Who REALLY daily use kde or gnome? Nobody 😅 ( except Steve for kde)

[@TheLinuxCast]

Josh uses gnome.

[@neotwenty-nineBzH]

@@TheLinuxCast 😉 good point for him.

[@rossb2205]

Gnome is boring but I always go back to it as my daily driver. I routinely try to stick to another wm or de but end up always going back to gnome

[@wyfyj]

Gnome, best for new users hand down. Thanks for taking the time to edit and upload this.

[@dmitrii_cl]

But not in Ubuntu, because those 2 panels... meh

[@dmitrii_cl]

BTW, KDE looks more like Windows 10

[@thomasaquinas9550]

I like Gnome myself.

[@otrava88]

gnome is for people who doesnt give a f about customization, or for those who want smooth de for workstations, workflow on gnome oh man u just cant beat it. for home or out-of-work pc i think kde is better, coz u can spend shitton of time tweaking it with proper eye candies, but only if u dont want to mess up with tiling wm's

[@mrawther]

Ganom

[@TActually]

I'd also like to say that, personal opinion aside; Josh and Matt won the argument. They provided a lot more factual information to support their stance. I'm really surprised that neither side brought up speed and resource usage, which KDE would have won, despite it shear amount of dependencies.

[@bartkerste2149]

Josh and Matt had the better discussion. They were able to make a good case for why GNOME is preferable. Tyler is better off going into politics, he mostly plays on sentiment and condemned people for using a desktop environment. Steve is the wise man, occasionally colouring outside the lines, but ultimately wise. But Josh and Matt won in my eyes. Loved this episode, thank you.

[@ZaneyOG]

Haha yeah they were actually making a logical case. I was just being ridiculous 🤣

[@tommyluco]

just pronounce it GNOME, duh ;)

[@esra_erimez]

🤣

[@iamghezali]

in my opinion linux in general should do things like gnome, i think the only think that works perfectly on linux is gnome... I'm not talking about esthetic, but more of the use experience in general buttons do the things you expect, the behavior is what you predict.

[@burningpho3nix]

KDE wins

[@wido1085]

I agree with Steve. KDE users are like the Sith. There are only two at a time.

[@MyAmazingUsername]

59:10 "What is the default desktop environment on openSUSE?" The answer is GNOME. It is the only one that SUSE ships. It is the only one that has hundreds of employees working on it. The others are community additions with far less polish due to the sheer scale and time difference compared to the official GNOME desktop. This is straight from the mouth of SUSE's CEO. SUSE stopped working on all other DEs almost 20 years ago.

[@Sharp931]

Richard Brown isn't the CEO of Suse. 😂 There is no default DE on OpenSuse, but Suse kiosks tend to run a well hidden Plasma. German system with German DE. Simple.

[@MyAmazingUsername]

​​Richard Brown was Chair of the openSUSE Board for 5 years. He uses SUSE/openSUSE since 2003. He is currently a Distributions Architect at SUSE, where he has worked in various roles since 2013, including QA Engineer, Technical Lead for openQA, and Linux Distribution Engineer. He has clearly said, multiple times, that SUSE only cares about GNOME. Everything I said is from him. He even explained exactly which year they stopped developing all other desktop environments (around 2007 or a bit earlier). I am aware that openSUSE doesn't force any choice on the user. But that does not change the huge imbalance between all employees working on GNOME and only a few volunteers trying to do the others. Because why would SUSE waste any time on something they don't even support? SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop has exactly one choice: GNOME. Nothing else.

[@Arek1125]

i do not like KDE but i hate gnome

[@ChristianParpartDev]

"if i change something in the settings and it breaks kwin for no reason, because we all no kwin always crashes whenever you change a setting, because it always does. We all know that" WTF ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? Are you guys serious in this conversation? I have heard so many arguments in this debate that are questionable, but this one made me actually pissed off at you. Why? Because I'm using KWin daily since many years, I remember it had its downs, but that was very long time ago. But what you said there is clearly a lie, you are clearly way too much overexagerrating there. Not everything is perfect on either side, however, I was hoping for a way more grown up debate between you four. Less religious talk, less FUD, more factual talk. And no, just because some of you said (quote): "that's a fact", doesn't make it a fact. Again, too much FUD, too little actual productive debate. Apart from that, well, decent. I hoped for a somewhat better content. Otherwise, keep it on going (or casting) ;)

[@mahtja1559]

I think Josh is right on the money. It's really frustrating watching him debate with a guy that can't put the weed cart and beer down for a legitimate discussion in a podcast.

[@John7No]

Josh, Gnome is not able to apply a theme on all gtk apps not to mention qt. come on man. This is not one of the things gnome at this moment is doing good and neither are extensions Matt you are complying about theme complexity and gnome does not have themes again being able to be applied on gtk apps. move to the next point Josh , Gnome used to work, now it is a mess, like a beta version the past few years. The job title also plays a role on how much is the ceiling of salary etc Josh again, customization on Gnome does not work , what version are you using that is not available anywhere else?

[@MyAmazingUsername]

Wrong.

[@John7No]

@@MyAmazingUsername not wrong

[@ZombieJig]

KDE guys lost the argument by first saying gnome is bad because one person associated with it likes mushrooms, and then saying KDE is better because it's like a bunch of stoners. Pick a lane.

[@siljrath]

[some rambled notes/reactions as i listened along...] XD several times, the arguments offered were counter-productive. like the shaman thing. ... psilocybe mushrooms ar neurogenic. that's a boon for gnome. how many computing innovators have favoured lsd? would we even have computers if we didnt have lsd? or would we merely have looms with vacuum tubes? n_n though also, or even because of the counter-productive arguments, i realised, after at first being aboard with kde over gnome (largely from the obvious indefensibles of gnome's anti-user-freedom aspects around customisation), i'm in favour of neither. lol. would be cool to see how trinity, mate, xfce, lxde, lxqt, etc fare in a free-for all discussion exploring eachs advantages for different prefernces/usecases. anarchy is good. anarchy is no archon. no ruler. freedom. to opose anarchy is to favor tyranny. to oppose anarchy is to opose free software. to favour gnome's hobbling of user freedom, constricting facilities, disempowering users, is to be inviting the trojan horse of proprietary's user abuses into free software. and wtf steve. that was an easy goal. better applications. XD idk what steve's talking about. no ecosyste? lmfao. just heard pitivi and then josh says sensible names. XD lol at the praising community maintained after promoting the contrary too. neither gnome or kde seem defensible, but especially gnome falling on its face. and steve makes the point of kde's editor's superiority being for everybody, ... why couldnt have used that as example of better applications. ... idk, maybe he was using some other metric, like numbers of applications? XD but idk, is that even where gnome would win? i'm struggling to see gnome ahead anywhere, even through all the spray of arguments that dont land with me. lol. XD decorative. oh steve. weak, not even anywhere, lol.. XD "already had" and the multi-desktops. lol, matt cant keep defending the indefensible. lol. but yeah, this is like all the duopoly crap in the world. two teams creating a sensation to keep all eyes on them, when really they're the same team, preserving their paradigm, distracting from the freedom of all other ways. heh. dyslexic here, and yeah, takes a day to play with kde's settings. n_n steve, gnome wins what? lol. matt and steve cant keep on the team they set out on, lol. not even just minor concessions to impartiality, actually showing their real preference. lol. this is better than professional comedy. heheheh. good stuff guys. XD i was just tihnking josh was the least bad for making arguments intended one way that pushes me the other, but then came the argument not to because it looks like windows... lol, but, this is for new users, that's what will be the best transition for most of them. XD tyler did do the best job. that he could defend it so well, when he doesnt use it and doesnt have a high opinion of it, adds to the credence of the kde defensibility. matt's productivity argument falls on its face for me. gnome's INFUUUUUUUURIATING. so clunky, so hobbled, so unintuitive, so poorly designed in terms of the interface communicating what it does. it's like it's intentionally seeking every badness. "very customiseable if you choose to do so" utter bulderdash. XD gnome's like "YOU ARE FREE, TO DO WHAT WE TELL YOU!" (a line from the great bill hicks). but, yeah, the interjection highlight's kde's folly too... all the crashing... nice that it has a crash handler, but, why all the crashing at all? XD when i run my stuff in whatever wm, i never experience any such crashes and lockups. what is the point of the bloat of the likes of kde or gnome? it just makes things worse. glad i've been away from gnome and kde for ages. ... tho having said that... i do have kde from studio distros on my other laptop just now (using openbox wm at least)... but, been itching to ditch kde entirely. such absurd bloat, for what? for what? why am i pissing away half a gig to idle? how many more pages and videos and images and layers could i open, if i were not running the kde overhead?

[@zeocamo]

who think Steve is funny?, is it for the young people ?? i don't understand, am i getting to old ?? but i feel sick when he think he is funny? sorry for being real here

[@MyAmazingUsername]

I think he is funny. Stevephobia is curable.

[@ghodawalamoamanzahirabbas8996]

Nah, he is funny bro

[@somegeezer4058]

Why so rude? Save your trolls for people that deserve it.

[@zeocamo]

@@somegeezer4058 not trying to be rude, just real, i love the podcast but Steve just make it feel like Kindergarten.

[@skelebro9999]

then skip whatever he says lol

[@BytebroUK]

Sorry our kid, I don't watch vids over about 20 mins, or maybe 30 mins if it's *really* interesting. That's obvs me, not you!

[@TheLinuxCast]

It's a podcast.