GNOME - XFCE - KDE differences.

[nightrider.36]

Hello all,

I installed GNOME, KDE and XFCE environments in seperate partitions of my hard drive. I don't know if I needed to do that but that's how little I understand the various environments.

I'm running 8.10 on an Alienware Area-51 M5550 w/4GB RAM.

GNOME:
My default installation - SDA-1. Everything works great. Nvidia drivers work(with some effort), sound works, the system is snappy and I have no complaints. Hibernate and Sleep are twitchy but they were with Windows as well.

KDE:
Looks cooler than GNOME but bluetooth doesn't work, sound doesn't work. I don't understand their installer as I got used to the star rating in GNOME's. Things just seem more difficult to find. I know the hardware works because it works using GNOME and XFCE Yet KDE is the environment of choice if you like to customize. What gives? What am I doing wrong with KDE? I guess I don't really understand how they work.

XFCE:
Beautiful. Like GNOME, everything works perfectly and faster than the previous two environments.

So, what's the difference? More things seem to work on my laptop better and faster using GNOME than KDE. Xfce worked nicely as well, better than KDE.

Why do some users prefer one environment over the other?

[smani]

Well, people have preferences, as you stated "KDE: Looks cooler than GNOME" which is clearly a matter of opinion. In windows you get what you get, like it or not, in linux you can choose;)

[mirons]

partitioning is useless, gnome kde xfce don't conflict (I don't know if you did this or just cut out /usr on a different partition, but if you installed three times ubuntu there is a lot of data replicated). Kde xfce gnome relies on different philosophies: the first has a huge infrastructure on which programs are run (I mean many servers offering services to apps). Xfce just want to be mionimal and fast. Gnome is more a mesh of indipendent apps, trying to reuse existing things (This is more my feel about Gnome, not something objective)

[nightrider.36]

partitioning is useless, gnome kde xfce don't conflict (I don't know if you did this or just cut out /usr on a different partition, but if you installed three times ubuntu there is a lot of data replicated).

That's a good point, I'm sure data has been replicated by as I stated before, I'm not sure how the environments work. I didn't do anything special. I let the installer split the hard drive for me in thirds (33%). I'm not sure how that works either.

I'm going to redo everything and leave GNOME as my default environment because I just don't get KDE. It's slick but just seems buggy on my computer.

[MarblePanther]

If you want to try out all 3 on the same partition, just use Synaptic to download and install kubuntu-desktop and xubuntu-desktop for KDE and XFCE respectively. Then simply log out to the gdm login screen. Choose options, then sessions and choose whichever environment to log into. No need for seperate partitions. They dont conflict.

[Therion]

Why do some users prefer one environment over the other?
THIS user sees it sorta like this:

Xfce is nice, but a little spartan and hard to "theme".

KDE is nice, but a little over the top and harder than Gnome to "theme".

Gnome is nice and just "fits".

[MarblePanther]

THIS user sees it sorta like this:

Xfce is nice, but a little spartan and hard to "theme".

KDE is nice, but a little over the top and harder than Gnome to "theme".

Gnome is nice and just "fits".

^^ Same here ^^

[zeealpal]

Absolutly agree. Gnome fits in the middle nicely. And if u think KDE 'looks cool' then try some cool gnome themes, just search the web, or try http://art.gnome.org/

[MarblePanther]

Absolutly agree. Gnome fits in the middle nicely. And if u think KDE 'looks cool' then try some cool gnome themes, just search the web, or try http://art.gnome.org/

www.gnome-look.org has a lot more themes also to choose from

[Zorael]

Ubuntu (and GNOME) uses Pulseaudio per default, which I'm not sure KDE plays nice with yet as it doesn't use it itself. Moreover, I advise you to use the KDE 4.2 release available from the kubuntu.org repository (http://www.kubuntu.org/news/kde-4.2). Things are happening, it's in heavy development. :3