Application Differences, Gnome/KDE?

[user440]

I am very new to Linux and am really struggling on a decision. I have Ubuntu on my laptop and am about to purge Vista from my main computer (AMD dual 64, 2gig) and am really struggling coming to a conclusion on KDE or Gnome.

At this point, I plan on downloading Mint (but also have a copy of Kubunto at the ready as an alternative.)

I am not looking for a Pro/Con between KDE / Gnome as it is clear that the one that is better is up to how it will be used and the user him or herself.

Despite searching, I am struggling understanding if the differences in the apps avail for each is simply cosmetic or if indeed there are different versions of software for each. Also, is there more software available for one type versus another?

Thanks for tolerating a newbie thread, suffering from information overload a bit I fear.

[techieMoe]

Despite searching, I am struggling understanding if the differences in the apps avail for each is simply cosmetic or if indeed there are different versions of software for each. Also, is there more software available for one type versus another?

99% of all software available for Linux will work on both Gnome and KDE. The other 1% are specialized applications that are distributed by Gnome or KDE respectively. Some examples are the KOffice suite and Konqueror web browser that come with KDE only. For Gnome there is the Gnome games suite or a text editor like Gedit.

These programs are distributed by KDE or by Gnome developers as an attempt to offer common applications that the end user might need along with the desktop environment all in one package.

There are plenty of KDE-specific programs (usually with a name like Kthis or Kthat) as well as Gnome specific ones (with names like Gthis or Gthat), but there's rarely an application on one that doesn't have an equivalent on the other. I wouldn't worry about that as a basis for which you want to use.

[daark.child]

The differences are not cosmetic. GNOME is built using GTK2 and KDE is built using QT. They have a distinct difference in the way they look and feel. Also KDE apps tend to be feature rich whereas GNOME focuses on simplicity. Its really difficult to come up with a concrete set of pros and cons without some sort of bias, so the best thing to do is use both desktops and stick with the one you like best (or you can just keep using both if you wish).

[user440]

Excellent responses, thanks. So that I understand, by 'installing both desktops' this means installing the full (in this case) Mint-Gnome and full Mint-KDE, correct?

Thanks again!

[i92guboj]

Hello and welcome,

Despite searching, I am struggling understanding if the differences in the apps avail for each is simply cosmetic or if indeed there are different versions of software for each. Also, is there more software available for one type versus another?

Well, cosmetics are the smaller issue indeed. There're gnome-ish themes for kde and kde-ish themes for gnome. You can mix them and make one seem the other, and you could even use kde with gnome-panel and the xfce window manager, if that makes you happy (the integration will not be that good, though).

As a general rule, there are not alternative versions of the same program for kde and gnome, if that's what you ask (nothing stops a developer of creating two versions of a program, one for gnome and another for kde, but that's what I call useless duplication of work). But there are comparable programs for almost anything under both environment. And, as I already said, you can mix programs of both environments as you wish.

Both gnome and kde have programs for almost anything. I make some remarks, however:

-it's not the same a gnome program and a gtk program. Though gnome itself is based on gtk. Gtk programs, like Gimp, only require gtk as a dependency, while gnome programs (e.g. nautilus, gdm, or file-roller) needs virtually the whole gnome desktop installed to be able to run.

-the same is true for kde and qt programs. But this case is somewhat special. While gnome programs need the whole gnome to run, the kde architecture is more smart in that regard. You only need kdelibs (and qt, of course) to be able to run any kde program under any other wm or desktop. Qt-only programs just need qt.

So, it depends on how you look at it. If you compare strictly kde vs gnome (leaving out qt vs gtk pure applications) then I think that both have a wide range of applications for almost anything.

If you compara the number of standalone qt apps vs standalone gtk apps, then gtk wins by a big margin, though the number of pure qt applications is increasing slowly.

But, and here's the point, if you add to that the big big number of kdelibs based apps that are not part of kde, then the thing changes

However, I don't understand why anyone would want to worry about this. Nowadays the hd's has enough capacity to install both gnome and kde alongside. That's not a problem. And both desktops can interact nicely with the apps of the other desktop. You don't even need to install kde and gnome, if you install qt, kdelibs and gtk, you will be able to run any application, with exception of those being pure gnome apps, which will require the whole gnome to be installed.

Besides that, there are cross-desktop themes, like qtcurve (which is available for gtk2, qt3 and qt4 with the same look and feature set) that can run natively in both desktops, giving your apps virtually the same look regardless of the desktop or toolkit they belong to. It even has a gtk1 version, though that is not in sync in which regards version number nor features.

You also have gtk-engines-qt, which lets you use the qt engines under gtk, though to tell the truth, that never worked well enough for my tastes.

[user440]

I am blown away with the quality of responses, your input has been outstanding. Thanks!

Mike D.