Downloading ISO Open Suse

[nujinini]

Hello Everybody,

I am currently running triple boot, XP/Fedora 11/ PCLinuxOS and I noticed that the PCLinuxOS partition is not as stable yet. After some readings, I am considering changing the PCLinuxOS with an Open Suse distro. May I ask what are the differences between KDE & GNOME desktop environment please?

And also, I think I might have to look around for a DVD installer because when I tried to dowload it said that it will take 1 day and 22 hours which I can't do for some reasons and it would require me 6 CDs for the ISO. I find this quite queer since my Fedora, Ubuntu, PCLinuxOS, and Mint fit in only 1 Cd.

Thanks for any infos, cheers!

[rokytnji]

I did a test download using http direct download selecting: live-cd , Standard, Live CD Gnome. It came out to 600+ mbs. So it will fit on one CD.

Software.openSUSE.org

As far as KDE and Gnome goes. I aint touching that with a ten foot pole.

[D-cat]

The install DVD has the packages contained in the oss repository as of release, incl KDE, Gnome, XFCE, and other window manager environments, which is why it's so large. If you want an array of programs you can choose to install at any time, this is the way to go. It does however require a DVD burner.

Otherwise, the other options are to install from a base package set on one of the Live CD's, then you can add other packages from the repositories as necessary... or you can go with the network install CD which literally only has the installer on the CD; every package is downloaded from the location you enter in the startup screen (I think it defaults to the tds.net mirror). If you choose the network install, you need to already have a network connection; it is not suitable for dialup, isdn, or direct DSL. It is however nice if you have a computer with only a CD drive and another computer to act as a local server repository.

[reed9]

I did a test download using http direct download selecting: live-cd , Standard, Live CD Gnome. It came out to 600+ mbs. So it will fit on one CD.

Software.openSUSE.org

As far as KDE and Gnome goes. I aint touching that with a ten foot pole.

I will gladly rub my dirty mitts all over it.

KDE and GNOME are both very good, advanced desktop environments. KDE is based on the Qt toolkit, and GNOME and GTK+. Qt is, to quote the website, "a multiplatform C++ GUI toolkit. It provides application developers with all the functionality needed to build applications with state-of-the-art graphical user interfaces. Qt is fully object-oriented, easily extensible, and allows true component programming."

GTK+ is, according to their website, "GTK+ is a highly usable, feature rich toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces which boasts cross platform compatibility and an easy to use API. GTK+ it is written in C, but has bindings to many other popular programming languages such as C++, Python and C# among others. GTK+ is licensed under the GNU LGPL 2.1 allowing development of both free and proprietary software with GTK+ without any license fees or royalties."

Back in the day Qt was not licensed under a free software license, and naturally folks who were concerned about open source software moved to create a desktop environment based on wholly free software, and lo! GNOME was born. Qt was later released as open source software, however.

I'm not a developer, so I can't speak to the pros and cons of programming with either toolkit, but anecdotally, as a user, GTK applications seem to run faster and lighter than many Qt apps. I also feel as a while GNOME seems a little more responsive than KDE. The majority of popular Qt apps are part of the KDE desktop, and therefore are dependent on KDE libraries. There are of course many GNOME apps as well, which depend on the GNOME libraries, but there are many more excellent GTK apps than Qt apps without such dependencies. As such, lightweight distros pretty much universally opt for GTK apps. (FYI, the XFCE desktop is also GTK based.) One practical consideration of this, is that to run a KDE app in a non-KDE environment, means loading the KDE libraries, which can add a little time to the startup. On modern machines, not usually a big deal.

EDIT: I guess I should add that Qt apps can look out of place, or be missing icons, in a GTK environment, and vice versa. There are some programs that help integrate the look of the two together, but many times it still doesn't look quite right. Many people don't care for the aesthetics of mixing Qt and GTK looks.

There are a few KDE apps that I think are pretty much best in class, as it were. Kpat, the kde solitaire suite is superb and beautiful, and I often install it no matter what DE or window manager I'm using. K3b, the CD/DVD burning app (and more), is great, though I don't usually need its features enough to bother installing over a lighter-weight burning app. Many people claim the music player Amarok is the end-all-be-all, especially the KDE 3.5 version, but I've never cared for it.

KDE4 is generally considered to have better eye-candy out of the box than GNOME, though compiz fusion integrates better with GNOME than with KDE. KDE has its own compositing effects, and can do a desktop cube and some other stuff as well, but performance is not as good as with compiz, yet. If you like fancy widgets on your dekstop, KDE4 is the way to go.

Personally, I eschew both GNOME and KDE for being to slow and bloated, and run Openbox as a stand-a-lone window manager.

Qt versus GTK Celettu’s Weblog

[reed9]

I completely forgot a chunk of what comprises much of the dispute between the two.

Historically, KDE has been much more customizable than GNOME. Critics say that having so many options is confusing to users, whereas critics of GNOME say they are dumbing themselves down and insulting the intelligence of their userbase.

This changed a bit with the KDE4 release, since many of the previous customization options were not included. With each new KDE4 release, however, those options are slowly being added back it, and you now have nearly the functionality available as you did under the old KDE 3.

[Segfault]

Amen.
Thanks, reed9. Once again I enjoyed reading your post (#4). I, for one, do not hink I need 200 MB of programs to edit a 5 kB configuration file, thus no need for bloated DE's. *

*Sorry for being off-topic.

[nujinini]

I did a test download using http direct download selecting: live-cd , Standard, Live CD Gnome. It came out to 600+ mbs. So it will fit on one CD.

Software.openSUSE.org

As far as KDE and Gnome goes. I aint touching that with a ten foot pole.

Thanks Will try again.

[nujinini]

I will gladly rub my dirty mitts all over it.

KDE and GNOME are both very good, advanced desktop environments. KDE is based on the Qt toolkit, and GNOME and GTK+. Qt is, to quote the website, "a multiplatform C++ GUI toolkit. It provides application developers with all the functionality needed to build applications with state-of-the-art graphical user interfaces. Qt is fully object-oriented, easily extensible, and allows true component programming." ........
......KDE4 is generally considered to have better eye-candy out of the box than GNOME, though compiz fusion integrates better with GNOME than with KDE. KDE has its own compositing effects, and can do a desktop cube and some other stuff as well, but performance is not as good as with compiz, yet. If you like fancy widgets on your dekstop, KDE4 is the way to go.

Personally, I eschew both GNOME and KDE for being to slow and bloated, and run Openbox as a stand-a-lone window manager.

Qt versus GTK Celettu’s Weblog

This is what I also need to know. Thanks Reed9

[nujinini]

I did a test download using http direct download selecting: live-cd , Standard, Live CD Gnome. It came out to 600+ mbs. So it will fit on one CD.

Software.openSUSE.org

As far as KDE and Gnome goes. I aint touching that with a ten foot pole.

Hi rokytnji,

Just wanted to let you know that I have already downloaded and in fact now using my openSUSE partition as you have suggested above. Am in the process of updating/upgrading. Thanks!