GNOME & KDE

RobH

RobH

RobH

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I'm mainly a Windows and OSX user but I've wanted to try out Linux for a while now. One thing is confusing me though. I know that GNOME and KDE are both windowing systems and so are xfce and fluxbox. However one thing that is not clear is what affect it has on the things you can run.

I know that you can run openoffice on both GNOME and KDE but not xfce. Do programs have to be specifically written/compiled for GNOME or KDE? For example, why is Konqueror only in KDE and not in GNOME?
 
Konqueror is just KDE's file manager, it'll open in Gnome fine, but doesn't necessarily fit in with the theme in the same way. And it'll have the KDE logo :)

Not sure about why OpenOffice won't run in fluxbox etc. though.
 
OpenOffice is written in Java, so as long as you have the JVM it "should" work fine.

The difference is the libraries used for KDE/Gnome - KDE uses qt and gnome uses gtk.
 
XFCe and Fluxbox are window managers. They're a lot more minimalistic and take up less memory. The trade-off is less features or less bloatware (depending on your point of view). They're perfect for lower spec machines.

Gnome and KDE are both desktop managers. They provide an all in one GUI for most of your day to day needs. KDE has its own window manager called kwm, but Gnome has to be used in conjunction with a window manager (it uses the Metacity window manager officially, but it can be switched with other window managers).

Basically, if you are a Windows user, you'll most likely become comfortable with Gnome or KDE. Fluxbox is quite popular too.

I'd suggest installing whichever ones you like the look of and try them all out. You can switch which to use when you login from the "Session" panel.

For a list of DMs and WMs (screenshots for each one too) go here: http://xwinman.org/

And yes, all your programs should work in any environment. They're not dependant on particular window managers.
 
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RobH said:
So programs should work fine in either, it's just the appearence that's different?
Click to expand...

So long as you have the correct libraries installed for the program, yes.
 
Just to clarify (i'll use Ubuntu as an example because of apt-get) if you're using Gnome and you want to download say Amarok (stupidly good music player), then it'll install all the base KDE libraries along with Amarok itself and then run from within Gnome fine :)
 
Fillado said:
Just to clarify (i'll use Ubuntu as an example because of apt-get) if you're using Gnome and you want to download say Amarok (stupidly good music player), then it'll install all the base KDE libraries along with Amarok itself and then run from within Gnome fine :)
Click to expand...
Or use Audacious or Listen instead, which are equally as pwnage.
 
RobH said:
why is Konqueror only in KDE and not in GNOME?
Click to expand...

As said Konqueror is a KDE thing, but you can still use in when you are using GNOME, you just need to have KDE installed. Nautilus is the Gnome version of Konqueror, which can be used in KDE or any other window manager for that matter.
 
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fumbles said:
Nautilus is the Gnome version of KDE...
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Not really. :p

The reason Gnome apps depend on Gnome and vice versa for KDe is that the programs call on bits and pieces of Gnome or KDE to do their business. If only the Gnome bits are present and an application calls for a KDE bit it expects to be there, it will error. In order to fix this when you install an app that belongs in the other desktop environment you'll also end up installing a lot of the libraries for that foreign DE.
 
fwiw, my experiences with Konqueror are less than satisfying. It could just be my installation of it, but I doubt it. Whilst the (x/html) markup engine is semantically spot-on, it has several 'no brainers' not included with it, things like when filling out a form I must tab-to/click-on the submit button, rather than just hitting enter when I have filled in the final field, etc. There are also some other querks about it that niggled me enough to switch back to firefox.
 
I need to test using Konqueror, I'm new to all this and have just installed Ubuntu/Gnome. I've been to ftp.mirrorservice.org/sites/ftp.kde.org/pub/kde/ but what on earth do I grab from there to install KDE or just Konqueror? :)
And what do I do with the files, will they be recognised as packages and install or do I need to CLI it?

Help appreciated. Thanks.
 
Probably easiest jsut to downlaod whole kde and then your sure you have all the deps as well.

"apt-get install kde" should do the trick on ubuntu.
 
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