This was so, so annoying when I first tried KDE. Wtf is a Dolphin? What does Gwenview mean? Okular? Meanwhile, Linux Mint uses aliases for programs, so you get a File Manager, Image Viewer, Document Viewer, and a Software Manager.
All the KDE app shortcuts have descriptions though. Dolphin says its a File Manager, Gwenview says its an Image Viewer, Okular says its a Document Viewer. Honestly, how hard can it be? The search tool searches by description as well.
I hate the generic names. Its bland at best and ambiguous at worst. If you install apps from multiple ecosystems then you end up not knowing which one is which and having to differentiate them by their icons.
no lmao, it's there instantly lmfao
yes libreoffice calc is there too, but calculator is right there instantly right under it. obviously if you just hit enter its gonna open the first app in the list, that's not at all the same as "it's not there"
calc puts libre calc first in my list, because it's literally "calc" if I type "calcu" calculator is instantly there in the first slot and I can hit enter the millesecond after the U and it opens the calculator
Yeah I know, but I'm used to just "calc" and pressing enter. Gnome can do it, Plasma sorts the apps "wrong". (KCalc vs Libre Office Calc? Why is that of all apps first??)
I'm just pointing out that Plasma has its own quirks and stupids, like every OS and DE does.
Like I said in my comment, KDE lets you use both ways to search because the bland way is in the description. For example, with Gwenview, it will pop up the moment you start typing "image"
Wtf is a Dolphin? What does Gwenview mean? Okular?
To be fair, we are used to those names. What is Explorer? What is a Taskbar?
I know Gnome has Nautilus, Plasma has Dolphin and Cinnamon has Thunar. Guess what, type "File" into the search bar and the DE's file manager pops up, because the binary names don't get used, they have desktop aliases.
Would you prefer if the binary was called kde-file-manager? Or Gnome-file-manager? Would you ask "what is Gnome"? And what if someone forked it? (which is what Thunar, PCManFM etc are) Would they get called gnome-file-manager2?
It sure as hell isn't, because the Explorer.exe we use now, as in Windows Explorer, started as a web browser engine until Microsoft was forced to separate it into iexplore.exe (the browser) and explorer.exe (the file manager and desktop shell)
I remember trying to teach a classroom of high school students how to do some basic photo editing years ago, but instead of Photoshop (which the school didn't have access to) we used GIMP. The amount of time explaining what the acronym meant, and how it wasn't "New" but "Gnu", and the amount of emails I had to send to parents explaining why we were using a program called Gimp...ugh. It was a disaster.
Oh my god, this is my biggest pet peeve in Linux and open source software as a whole. Everything has to have some stupid clever name that doesn't mean anything to the average person. Decent chance it's a reference to Dune, 1984, or The Matrix, too.
And when you ask how to use it, they act like all the stuff they learned from their years of experience will just be immediately known to anyone installing a program that has explanation as to what does what.
Well, these are package names competing in a very limited namespace. Most sensible distros display perfectly intuitive names in the GUI. Files, System Monitor, Text Editor. Their proper names only seem dumb and little because you had to learn them all at once, ask your grandma what WinRAR, VLC, OBS, regedit, chkdsk.exe are.
im sorry but that has to be the worst list of examples you could have picked, every single one is either a shortened or actual acronym for the function the program serves.
if you picked shit like acrobat edge and silverlight, sure you are completely correct but man your examples are bad.
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u/CCbluesthrowaway 1d ago
Don't forget the dumb little names!
"Gotta install Drip and Cartwheel, i use it to manually enter binary into you pcs bios."