TLDR: Maybe your names are bad if your (generally happy) users keep misnaming your thing.
Old neckbeards (like me) generally just think in two categories: window managers (paint windows) and more batteries-included (have a taskbar, and some other stuff). That’s it, it’s either a window manager or a desktop environment. If it’s really so unique it warrants a new name it better not look and feel like “just” like a DE.
I think of a desktop environment as a lot more than a window manager. It also includes a widget set and a coherent set of user interface guidelines, a set of core GUI tools (e.g. a file manager), and services to support these applications. This is why GNOME and KDE are desktop environments but AfterStep and WindowMaker are not.
KDE provides far more than a window manager and a taskbar, it provides a set of Qt views for things, a component architecture, and so on. Plasma will happily manage windows for GNOME applications or things that don’t target a specific DE, such as XMMS, but KDE applications will often not work without a bunch of the KDE infrastructure.
Plasma will happily manage windows for GNOME applications or things that don’t target a specific DE, such as XMMS, but KDE applications will often not work without a bunch of the KDE infrastructure.
Interesting distinction. I haven’t tried running it in a long time, but I remember I had to launch Nautilus with the --no-desktop flag, otherwise it would literally come with a GNOME desktop along! If this has changed, I’d say it’s because it’s better designed now, not because it went from being a not-DE to a DE.
Anyway, that’s just semantics. The meat of the article that gets lost in the provocative title is “look at how flexible KDE actually is!”, which is fun to see. Functionally, I’m not sure how much that matters, except in an alternate reality where something like Ubuntu Touch actually took off and we used our pocket computers like the powerful computers they actually are.
If this has changed, I’d say it’s because it’s better designed now, not because it went from being a not-DE to a DE.
That’s not what I mean as a DE. Nautilus is part of a DE, but the fact that GNOME has standardised file pickers, standardised dialogs for a bunch of other things, a consistent look and feel across applications, a set of services that applications can depend on (many of these are now exposed via XDG interfaces and so can be replaced with non-GNOME ones) is what makes GNOME a DE not just a window manager and a bunch of applications.
Look at the beautiful abstraction I just built! Imagine someone needs a new kind of X… Okay, nobody does and nobody will, but imagine… I’ll be ready!
I think about all that has been said about leaky abstractions. And when it comes to GUI, you knows what’s leaking: performances. And once you’ll see what Nicco is showing on the mobile device, you’ll see what I mean.
After reading this, my conclusion is: it’s a desktop environment, just like it’s always been. It’s a very customizable desktop environment, like it’s always been. Mixing and matching pieces was something you could do in KDE 1.x (which I used when it came out).
TLDR: Maybe your names are bad if your (generally happy) users keep misnaming your thing.
Old neckbeards (like me) generally just think in two categories: window managers (paint windows) and more batteries-included (have a taskbar, and some other stuff). That’s it, it’s either a window manager or a desktop environment. If it’s really so unique it warrants a new name it better not look and feel like “just” like a DE.
They could start by picking a name that doesn’t, you know, involve “DE”.
I propose a new name: KINDE. KINDE Is Not a Desktop Environment.
Came here to post something along these lines
I think of a desktop environment as a lot more than a window manager. It also includes a widget set and a coherent set of user interface guidelines, a set of core GUI tools (e.g. a file manager), and services to support these applications. This is why GNOME and KDE are desktop environments but AfterStep and WindowMaker are not.
KDE provides far more than a window manager and a taskbar, it provides a set of Qt views for things, a component architecture, and so on. Plasma will happily manage windows for GNOME applications or things that don’t target a specific DE, such as XMMS, but KDE applications will often not work without a bunch of the KDE infrastructure.
Interesting distinction. I haven’t tried running it in a long time, but I remember I had to launch Nautilus with the
--no-desktopflag, otherwise it would literally come with a GNOME desktop along! If this has changed, I’d say it’s because it’s better designed now, not because it went from being a not-DE to a DE.Anyway, that’s just semantics. The meat of the article that gets lost in the provocative title is “look at how flexible KDE actually is!”, which is fun to see. Functionally, I’m not sure how much that matters, except in an alternate reality where something like Ubuntu Touch actually took off and we used our pocket computers like the powerful computers they actually are.
That’s not what I mean as a DE. Nautilus is part of a DE, but the fact that GNOME has standardised file pickers, standardised dialogs for a bunch of other things, a consistent look and feel across applications, a set of services that applications can depend on (many of these are now exposed via XDG interfaces and so can be replaced with non-GNOME ones) is what makes GNOME a DE not just a window manager and a bunch of applications.
Maybe unpopular opinion here.
But whenever a programmer says:
I think about all that has been said about leaky abstractions. And when it comes to GUI, you knows what’s leaking: performances. And once you’ll see what Nicco is showing on the mobile device, you’ll see what I mean.
Well, maybe it should be.
After reading this, my conclusion is: it’s a desktop environment, just like it’s always been. It’s a very customizable desktop environment, like it’s always been. Mixing and matching pieces was something you could do in KDE 1.x (which I used when it came out).