Which Has the Best Apps?: KDE vs. GNOME, Part 2

In Part 1 of this article, we looked at the history of GNOME and KDE, their basic features, and their customization options. In part 2, we'll look at the programs designed to run with both desktops, from the administrative tools and utilities, to the office programs and other applications designed to work with them.

Both KDE and GNOME, you'll find, have specific naming conventions for any program associated with them. In KDE, the tradition arose early of choosing a name that starts with the letter K, such as Kontact, or contain the letter somewhere in the name, such as digiKam. This practice is not only too Kute for words, but often makes it hard to remember which program is which, since only a few of these names, such as KMail, have much relation to what the program actually does. GNOME programs sometimes follow a similar practice of starting with the letter "g" as in GParted, but this practice has never entirely caught on.

One more thing: if some of the programs mentioned in this article aren't installed on your system, don't be surprised. GNU/Linux distributions vary widely in what portions of GNOME and KDE they install. A default Debian installation, for example, includes minimalist versions of KDE and GNOME that omit most of the desktop-specific applications. Other distributions choose the applications to install, and a few install the entire range of programs associated with the desktop.

Administrative Tools

While KDE centralizes administrative tools into a single window called the KDE Control Center, GNOME disperses them into separate windows, although keeping them together in the Desktop -> Administration and Preferences menus.

Despite this difference in organization, the selection of administrative tools in GNOME and KDE is similar, and has grown over the last few years -- so much so that the cry for for a cross-desktop control center has become rarer in the last few years, although distributions such as Suse and Mandriva continue to offer them.

Both desktops cover peripherals and external storage devices comprehensively, except -- for some reason -- for sound card configuration. Users, date and time, and services also have their own tools on both desktops. GNOME distinguishes itself through its Power Management and Shared Folder tools, the KDE Control Center through a system summary that is a graphical combination of the uname -a and w commands, a tab for setting locales, and -- most importantly -- a tab for installing and removing system fonts.

In both desktops, the organization of administrative tools could be improved by clarifying which tools are for system wide settings and which are for the current user account. If you are an inexperienced user, it can be hard to remember until you click which tools require logging in as the root user. In much the same way, both mix customization and administrative tools too freely for easy navigation. These problems are slightly worse in KDE because its menu items are sometimes less carefully named; for example, KDE refers to "storage media" where GNOME mentions "Removable Drives and Media."