Hello and thank you first on reading my posting.

I have tried to find out this question but can't seem to find it. I think I know the 'major' differences between KDE, Gnome & XFce desktops.

Here is my MAIN concern. I am TOTALLY in favor of the free software, open source etc etc approach that the Linux community ROCKS on.

I am looking to choose which Desktop environment to choose and I can't pick with out knowing more.

KDE seems to have more going for it as in the way of LOOK, FEEL and Overall Software to choose from that is compatible with it. Am I right on this assumption?

Gnome seem is nice but seems to lack 'just a weeeee bit' on style.

XFce is less of a problem for me. Seems that XFce is best for slower and older systems. But I am not sure if that means it can't do more of the modern kinds of things that newer technologies brings to the desktop environment. I want features and I don't want to not have them. I like seeing where technology is going and I don't plan on buying anything from Microsoft if I can avoid it outside of my standard Windows XP and games I do play.

My real concern is this. I heard some where, some time awhile back about KDE having some ties with ownership of KDE and about some or those ownership rights coming into conflict with the true meaning of freeware and open source...

I have not seen anything on this and I am not even sure if it there is a problem with KDE that it even has ANYTHING to do with the terminology I have used in this posting. But if there is some sort of political or ethical problem here I want to know what it might be because I simply don't want to support it. And again I don't know if it is anything else outside the scope of my current understanding.

Anyone have any information on this???

Pardon my unedited posting. I have really got to get some stuff done around here and the hours are fading fast. But thank you for your time and your energy on helping me out.

Cheers

Sincerely,

Kevin in Alaska

First, as far as which window manager to use, pick the one that you like best. You can always change from one to another. Your decision is not final.

The only thing that I can think of here is the circumstances surrounding the QT software on which KDE is based. AFAIK QT is free to use as an end user but if you want to develop software with QT then you are supposed to buy a license.

I really wouldn't worry about the philosophical foundations of KDE. If it was a problem for a lot of people then it would be written about everywhere. As you say, there is hardly anything on this subject or anything else to do with KDE not following the spirit of open source/freeware.

xfce is basically a simplified version of gnome and you can basically do anything on xfce that you can on gnome, KDE is fine but it eats alot of ram and some people complain about it having too much "bloat"

You can run all of the same applications in KDE, GNOME, and XFCE. You can run those applications in any lightweight window manager also. The difference is that KDE applications will match the look and feel of the KDE settings, and GNOME/GtK applications will match the look and feel of the GNOME/GtK settings.

Also, you can install as many desktop environments and lightweight window managers as you want on the same system. At most, all you need to do is log out and log back in with a different session to switch from one environment to another. You can often switch between lightweight window managers without even logging out.

Just install all three and test them out for yourself.

As far as the KDE/QT thing goes, Stress answered that pretty well.

I did bold on my actual questions. I hope this helps with my distracted form of writing.

So lets say I just happen to want to program something for the KDE, I would have to buy a license first? Or does the meaning in 'develop software with QT' mean that on if you plan on selling software for the KDE then you need a license?

I guess I am not fully sure how the AFAIK QT works with KDE. If someone programs a program to be used on Gnome then uses it in KDE and wants to sell it? How would that work. I know I am missing something in the understanding here.

I do think this license thing is what I heard once upon a time but just didn't have the bigger picture. For me this is a kicker for using KDE vs Gnome or XFce.

Does anyone know why Ubuntu chooses to use gnome as the major choice for it's distro version releases?

Well thank you yet again

Sincerely,

Kevin in Alaska

Now you've done it. You've made me do some research. Here is a web page from the KDE project regarding the use of QT to create KDE projects.

http://techbase.kde.org/Contribute#Qt

AFAIK is an acronym for As Far As I Know.

If I really wanted to know the requirements for using QT to develop my own software I would send an email to the KDE project and another one to the QT people.

Whatever.

No. Nobody knows why Ubuntu selected Gnome for its GUI environment. Keep in mind that there also exists Kubuntu which uses KDE as its GUI environment.

KDE works fine, if people complain about all the 'bloat' then dont use it. It works fine on my p3 128 ram system

KDE definatly has the most eye candy and fancyness by default, but im sure you could make gnome just as good, iv never tried, KDE work fine out the box, and with qt4 just released, and the first alpha version on KDE 4 released, KDE is going to be the most advanced and shiny DE for a while.


here we go, didnt want to rant, hope it doesnt start a war.#

sorry

Ryan