Gnome vs. KDE and Joel on Software

Since I converted to Ubuntu a few months ago, I have wrestled with the decision of KDE vs. Gnome.  KDE has infinite configurability, while Gnome tries to be much more simplistic.  I like many of the KDE applications, like Amarok, Krdc, and Kaffiene, so I thought I would try to switch from Gnome to KDE.

This lasted about 3 hours.  I spent all 3 hours trying to configure KDE to my liking, to basically mimic Gnome.  After frustation set in, I quickly uninstalled and still use Gnome with a few of the KDE apps as well.

Today I started reading Joel Spolsky’s _User Interface Design for Programmers _and the first 3 chapters explained exactly why switching was so hard.

  1. Choices - KDE has so many it becomes daunting to try and configure
  2. Expectations - I expect KDE to behave like Gnome, because that is what I am used to.  This isn’t the case though.

I’m sorry Linus, but I don’t foresee converting to KDE anytime soon.  Not because I dislike it, but because its not what I know.