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Shin_Gouki2501
January 21st, 2008, 07:38 AM
At first i want to apologize for possible upcoming confusion as this is not exactly an "Idea" therad. more likly i would like to see a discusion and first to start i have some questions ( which hopefully can be answered)

Aaron Seigo from KDE 4 Team said KDE 4 is thier "Boeing 747". I read some stuff how flexible and scalable KDE 4 actually is.

A basic problem with Linux Desktop Environment is IMO the heterogeneity
of the many DE's.

So first thing is why are there so "many" diffrent DEs and in which way do they actually differ?!

From what i can see there are small and fast ones like fluxBox or XFCE and the "bigger" ones like : GNOME and KDE.

They share lots of common functionalitys.

My question now is: Is it possible to unite them?! Is it possible for them to share more then "just" media frameworks?!

In the end there would be a system where the user have absolut control
over his system he could see every feature like thumbnails in File explorer or window trancparency, or even desktop icons directly affect the performance of his desktop system.

Would something like that possible?
Can KDE 4 run as fast as XFCE or fluxbox without all eyecandy?!

Would that increase reusability of existing software components?!

Eventually all the devs would work on THE same ( the one) desktop system. But on their specific Projects like :
High desktop Performance:
C API -> Gnome
C++ API - > KDE
Low Desktop Performance :
fluxBox
XFCE
e16/17

All desktop environments sahre benefits and drawbacks from their functionality. So could they actually (besides the technical efforts) gain something from working together in that scope?!
DrMega
January 21st, 2008, 08:32 AM
You can run an app that was written with one DE in mind on another. E.g. I have apps that use the KDE libraries but I usually run Gnome or Xfce.

I like the choice of desktop environments. I use Gnome most of the time, but I use Xfce for running games etc (because I find it more stable when running graphics intensive stuff, but that's just my experience).

I think if all the DEs were unified, we would lose a lot of choice, and we wouldn't gain anything (as I mentioned, the choice of DE doesn't restrict your choice of app).
23meg
January 21st, 2008, 09:04 AM
At first i want to apologize for possible upcoming confusion as this is not exactly an "Idea" therad. more likly i would like to see a discusion and first to start i have some questions ( which hopefully can be answered)

In that case it belongs to Community Cafe, which is where I've moved it.
SunnyRabbiera
January 21st, 2008, 09:23 AM
well the reason why there so many desktop environments and such is the general openness of the software itself.
However there is what happened to kde all those years back.
Back in the early days of a gui on linux KDE was top dog however you could not use it for free like you can today.
Trolltech had this big clause going on those days that prevented people from using KDE freely.
This is is why Gnome was born, it had been built on a development engine that was free and open source and that is what started off the whole desktop wars.
Now of course KDE was not the only player at the time it was first released, others came before it but none really shared its success.
Then came gnome and the desktop wars began, then came XFCE to the mix.
but now the playing grounds are even KDE is now pretty much free (except if you want to develop commercial apps via qt)
but Gnome and XFCE continue to grow and expand.
I foresee a great future for all of them, right now of course KDE4 is very limited because its so brand spankin new but who knows what it will bring to the table.
fuscia
January 21st, 2008, 10:28 AM
i don't think people who have such differing, even hostile views of DE's could work effectively together. there is no 'choice' without a variety of options. i think there is more to gain than lose in having a variety of options.
SunnyRabbiera
January 21st, 2008, 11:08 AM
i don't think people who have such differing, even hostile views of DE's could work effectively together. there is no 'choice' without a variety of options. i think there is more to gain than lose in having a variety of options.

thats how i see it, if you dont like how something looks you can change it...
One of linux's best traits.
Shin_Gouki2501
January 21st, 2008, 04:02 PM
hmm i was kinda more concerned about the things which are done again and again while they could be shared.
smartboyathome
January 21st, 2008, 04:07 PM
hmm i was kinda more concerned about the things which are done again and again while they could be shared.

And there are features which are taken from one project and used in another (I know there was a bit of code from Thunar used in Nautilus). I think that splashy may do this too by taking a bit of code from usplash. The beauty of open source is that others can use the source of one program in another, to decrease the duplication of efforts.
Shin_Gouki2501
January 22nd, 2008, 02:58 PM
yes but in my opinion its still not enough!
I mean the frameworks the desktop projects use , in most cases only the project it selfes uses them.
maniacmusician
January 22nd, 2008, 07:35 PM
yes but in my opinion its still not enough!
I mean the frameworks the desktop projects use , in most cases only the project it selfes uses them.
well you can't really force people to use them. I mean, KDE4 has a lot of new, portable technologies, such as Akonadi, Solid, Phonon, etc, and if people want to use them, they're free to.
Shin_Gouki2501
January 23rd, 2008, 01:46 PM
thats the way it works...
to bad we dont have an ( positiv way) dictaor for Linux DE ( only one) like we have for the kernel :D
because sometimes this can be damn constructive and effective!