Very simple newb Desktop question

**mntamimi** · 08-11-2007, 04:31 PM

Does your choice of Desktop (we'll keep it simple and say KDE or Gnome) effect what software will run on your machine?

In other words, am I correct in understanding that if I see software for one of the Desktops, something like KDE-Calculator that that won't run on a Gnome desktop?

If software isn't compatible between the two desktops, then isn't it really like two different OS's?

If software is compatible, then why call it KDE....?

Sorry, I know this is uber-basic, but hopefully this will be a nice lob for someone to answer. Thanks in advance!

**countach44** · 08-13-2007, 10:16 AM

Software can be compatible for the two desktops depending on what libraries you have installed. I think GNOME uses GTK and KDE uses TCL. Some software is specific to it's desktop environment, but that's pretty much only the utilities for said environment.

They are not two different OSes (trying to answer by your definition) because they till run the same software for everything else, but may not be abe to run a couple of things. Is a windows XP system with the .NET framework installed a different OS than a windows XP system without?

**Schotty** · 08-18-2007, 07:01 PM

Actually KDE uses QT.

But the answer is no not natively. But there are in most distros the compatibility/translation libraries that make it work just fine. In fact, some distros have gone as far as creating themes that look the same across both QT and GTK.

Fedora, Red Hat, CentOS, Mandriva, Linspire, and Freespire I know for a fact work with the fancy schmancy themes, but just about every distro will run GTK apps in KDE and vice-verse.

**masinick** · 09-06-2007, 02:21 AM

Originally Posted by mntamimi

Does your choice of Desktop (we'll keep it simple and say KDE or Gnome) effect what software will run on your machine?

In other words, am I correct in understanding that if I see software for one of the Desktops, something like KDE-Calculator that that won't run on a Gnome desktop?

If software isn't compatible between the two desktops, then isn't it really like two different OS's?

If software is compatible, then why call it KDE....?

Sorry, I know this is uber-basic, but hopefully this will be a nice lob for someone to answer. Thanks in advance!

You can run a KDE application whether you are logged into a KDE session or not. Same with a GNOME application. The requirement is that the libraries needed to run the software are installed. Well, with software library and dependency management, unless your system is broken, the necessary libraries will exist if the application is properly installed.

The next thing to consider is speed. Applications do run much more effectively when their libraries are already loaded. Much of the overhead in both KDE and GNOME is loaded a lot of memory intensive libraries. If you have the memory and speed, these are well worth using, because they do add a consistent interface and a seamless desktop.

Summary: if a KDE or GNOME app is properly installed, it can be run as long as a graphical user interface (GUI) is running, in other words, an X server. Applications run best in their native environment, but they will work as long as a window manager of some sort is active.