The 2004 debut and subsequent rise of Ubuntu’s popularity among the linux users is cause for celebration indeed. Over the last two years, the new distro managed to upstage entrenched (in user base terms) offerings like OpenSuse and Fedora and has provided a rallying point for the cause of adoption of free and open-source software. That over time, there’s been an (alarming?) drift in Ubuntu in terms of complacency towards using closed-source components (such as the Compiz-Fusion powering video card drivers) is a topic for another post.
Still, with all the good news, something is rotten in the state of…Ubuntu. You see, by default, Ubuntu has always shipped with GNOME as the default desktop. Shuttleworth explains that the absence of a regular release schedule on part of KDE made him choose GNOME as the default desktop environment for Ubuntu. Fine. But, the very idea of starting offshoots like Kubuntu and Xubuntu must surely indicate that all these distributions are considered equal? This in short, is the biggest peeve I have with Ubuntu.
The most tangible of this less-than-equal treatment meeted out towards KDE and the “lesser” desktop environments is in the predictable one-release lag before a “cool” new feature made its way down the hierarchy, from the GNOME version to Kubuntu and the even lesser known variant, Xubuntu (and in Edubuntu’s memory, we’ll hold a minute’s silence). That there is a different feature set because of different desktop environments is a given, even welcome state of affairs. But why should there be a noticeable lag in the introduction of features that can clearly be common to all flavors? Like the restricted package manager (debut: GNOME: 7.04, KDE: 7.10?), the windows settings import capability for the ubiquity installer (debut: GNOME: 7.04, KDE: 7.10?) or compiz (debut: GNOME: 7.04, KDE: 7.10?)?
Also, there’s a trend in PC manufacturers to offer Ubuntu preinstalled on their machines. Hailed as the coming of the linux desktop, these trends inevitably looked to Ubuntu for a solid, noob-friendly linux experience. But here’s the catch: Ubuntu here doesn’t refer to Ubuntu, the umbrella under which the GNOME, KDE, XfCE and Edubuntu are covered. It refers to the GNOME version only. Because of this biased marketing, Ubuntu has come to be synonymous with a GNOME desktop. People I meet don’t even know about Kubuntu or Xubuntu (one more minute’s silence in memory of Edubuntu should be in order here, but in the interest of time, we’ll move on) and worse, eye them with a sense of xenophobic dread. As a result, KDE has moved from being the top dog (pre-Ubuntu days, 60% users) to KD-who? (post-Ubuntu, 35% users).
So what can be done to change this? I’m fine with synchroniing the Ubuntu release schedule with GNOME’s. I’m fine with GNOME being the default desktop for Ubuntu. What I’m not fine with is the relegation of KDE to the sidelines. For starters, the websites should be merged. While Ubuntu (meaning the GNOME version) has a spiffying, shiny website, Kubuntu’s website is a front page full of news. That’s what the RSS feed is for! Then, on the unified mainpage, Ubuntu should be mentioned as Ubuntu [ GNOME | KDE | XcFE | Edubuntu ], and each can lead to an appropriately themed ( GNOME being orange/brown etc) website that deals with information about that version. Hell, they can even add a “(default)” next to the GNOME link. But just acknowledging the equal status of the four versions would be nice for starters. They could do a Beatles styled (think, album cover of Let It Be…) entry page. That would totally rock. KDE gets to be Lennon, of course. GNOME can be McCartney. XfCE can be Harrison and Edubuntu is Ringo.
One more (minor) thing, could they (puleeze!) make the grub menu read Kubuntu and not Ubuntu. Or atleast not change the title everytime a new kernel upgrade comes along…or not. I guess it might be a pain to implement since at least the grub menu thinks of all Ubuntu versions as the same thing…
September 26, 2007 at 8:36 |
” (pre-Ubuntu days, 60% users) to KD-who? (post-Ubuntu, 35% users).”
If you’re referring to the DesktopLinux surveys, you’ll note that the “60% KDE” (2004) and “35% KDE” (2007) survey asked completely different questions: KDE scored 60% on the “What is your favourite DE?” survey (a single choice question) and 35% on the “What desktops do you use?” survey (a multiple choice question). It stands to reason that the latter will result in closer figures for KDE and GNOME as people who use both are not forced to choose their favourite.
However, given that GNOME and KDE switched places in the 2006 and 2007 polls (KDE:37.7% vs GNOME:35.1% in 2006; KDE:34.4% vs GNOME:44.8% in 2007), one can certainly make a claim from this fact that GNOME has eaten up some of KDE’s market share, but nowhere near to the degree that you have claimed above.
This is also assuming that the figures are accurate: there is circumstancial (but suggestive) evidence that the 2007 polls were swollen by approx 7000 votes, all with the exact same combination of choices (Distro: OpenSUSE. DE:GNOME. Browser:Firefox. Mail client: Evolution. Windows Emu: [Can't remember]) occurring over a handful of hours – a very, very striking statistical anomaly, made doubly so by the fact that at *all other times*, KDE’s votes were steadily increasing and GNOME’s decreasing.
September 26, 2007 at 9:31 |
I definitely was lax on my research for this post. The numbers I quoted above, like the “60%” and “35%” were just ball-park figures that I remembered from reading the articles that came up on feeds from digg, reddit, fsdaily, linux.com and the like. That’s also why I didn’t embed any source links in the post. It’s just that this post was … “from the heart”.
Further, I was unaware of this statistical anomaly you mention. It certainly adds an interesting angle to this.
Still. the fact stands that over the past few years, most of the newcomers to the linux user base (including myself) were Ubuntu users and a fat majority of them started with GNOME (again, this includes me) with little or no idea that there was a KDE version even available. And I think that with Ubuntu’s popularity only rising higher and higher, this GNOME-KDE disparity will only get worse. In other words, perhaps in the 2008 or 2009 survey, GNOME won’t need any such anomaly to win.
I should probably add that I don’t wish GNOME any harm.
It’s plenty noob friendly and I’m sure it deserves its legion of supporters. It’s just a personal view of mine that I prefer the gorgeously well integrated KDE environment much much more to GNOME’s loosely integrated collection of apps. And like all parochial humans, I wish more people thought like me. 
September 26, 2007 at 12:01 |
Ok, sure, but do note that in spite of almost 3 years worth of Ubuntu popularity, the damage to KDE is nowhere near as great as the “60 to 20″ statement suggests. Even if we take the desktoplinux surveys as correct, we see that KDE lost only a tiny bit of market share to GNOME over the last year (GNOME’s increased popularity came largely at the expensive of other DE’s/ WM’s). And as you can see from the chart, it has done absolutely nothing to hamper KDE development, which is still proceeding at a simply phenomenal pace (figures don’t include Qt commits, which is also very active) :
http://kde.mcamen.de/statistics.html
If anything, I’d say Kubuntu is almost more damaging to KDE than Ubuntu: as one member of the Ubuntu Forums put it:
“Ubuntu is GNOME at its finest; Kubuntu is KDE at its worst”
February 15, 2008 at 18:07 |
can I ask slackware to bundle Gnome?or those umpteen distros to default to Gnome?
NO;huh? get ur facts straight.
Gnome is simple and much more userfriendly and clean.
It is indeed a sad thing that M.Shuttleworth & Co decided to make a kde distro.
which harms the popularity of Gnome,confusing n00b’s.
Let kde rest with some fanboys(almost 99% of kde users are fanboys and windows lovers) and their distros like slackware,pclinuxos,suse etc
fcuk kde!
February 15, 2008 at 23:19 |
The key thing that attracts me to open source software is choice. To be told that GNOME (or even KDE) is the only thing I can use is unacceptable to me. So, it’s indeed commendable that Ubuntu offers this choice, which as you rightly said is denied by exclusively KDE or exclusively GNOME distros. To that end, I’d have to disagree with you that founding Kubuntu was a bad thing. (I’ll disregard the rest of your comments)
Just as you evidently prefer GNOME, there are others who would love to see KDE more in the spotlight. And while Ubuntu claims equality in spirit, it’s not upheld to the letter.
This could be better explained by a comparison; The second most popular distro today is openSUSE. Most people would be hard pressed if I asked them what the default desktop environment for openSUSE is. You get to choose it when you install.
I have no problem making this choice before I download the ISO. This has the added advantage of making the ISO size smaller as it doesn’t have to include all the apps in one package. What I do object to is making Ubuntu synonymous with a GNOME desktop environment and treating KDE as a second class citizen.
The right thing for Ubuntu to do would be to market all desktop environments as one and the same distro, like openSUSE, and go ahead and offer separate ISOs for each project. A simple popularity meter showing the percentage of downloads for each version will help newbies choose the most popular version (which could very well be GNOME).
But, I’m not holding my breath.