Running KDE/GNOME programs in XFCE
 

Hey,

I couldn't find anything even thought I'm positive this is already answered...

So can I run KDE/GNOME programs in XFCE?
I know these are just window managers, so are some programs dependent on some window manger functionality/libraries so that there's no guarantee that it will work on XFCE but it's possible?

Also just quick question: is package term used when referring to 'tar.gz' and another packed 'packages' which have files making it possible to install some 'program'?
So, downloading 'package', installing 'package', running 'program' which was installed from 'package'?

KDE/Gnome programs should run just fine in Xfce, no problem. :)

A tar.gz is called a "tarball" or "archive" and can contain anything inside, similar to .rar or .zip in Windows. Type man tar for more info.

There is no reason that you cannot run gnome or KDE apps under XFCE, providing you have the nessercery dependenys but you will not be able to install without the (without really forcing it anyway).

Often applications from other desktop enviroments can look out of place. As gnome and xfce both share gtk(gimp tool kit) as there basic tool kit gnome applications genrally look exactly the same between xfce and gnome (there may be some diffrence as gnome3 uses a diffrent version of gtk). KDE applications should run fine but often look out of place because the software is designed to look nice on KDE but the issue is only asthetic.

Another minor issue you may run into with KDE applications is that as they have diffrent toolkit dependencies you have to load these dependencies on the running of the first KDE application witch may take some time and use more memory. This will only be an issue on older hardware if you have have more than 1GiB of RAM then the additinol memory load will be negligable.

I Remeber KDE applications always used to seem like memory hogs for this reason but this was some time ago (I have long since stopped using KDE or KDE software) and my machine at the time was a sempron 1800+ w/512MiB of RAM (I think). I find that most KDE software has an equally good gnome/XFCE (or plain X) equivilant but if you really need a peice of software that is KDE only (or prefer it to the point it feels like a trade off not using it) there is no reason not to use it.

As for understanding the .tar.gz/.tgz files of this types they are compressed tape archives. the .tar represents that an archive has been made wich essentially turns a directory into a file Unpacked into the full directory structure and file). that has then been compressed with gzip (gnu zip). gzip is very similer to zip or rar but needs to be run (I understand) against a single file which is why you need to tar the dir first. as an alternative to gzip there is also bzip(2) (.bz) which can give better compression.

Slackware uses thes compressed file to distrobute binary packages as well and some specific .tar.gz .tgz and .tkz files can be used to install packages. Packages are a program (or collection of programs) and often required (or some of the required) libaries and shared object (.so) files. Along with infomation about where to put them to operate correctly and sometimes some executed set up script/program.

A shared object file is a collection of binary program parts used by one or more peices of software (that can be used by many pieces of software at once). In windows these are dynamicly linked libarys (.dll).

Yes, I do because I prefer some of them.

Gnome is not a Window Manager it is a Dekstop Environment same with KDE. Gnome's desktop manager is Metacity for Gnome 2.x and Mutter for Gnome 3.x. KDEs window manager is KWin. When you install anything you will need to install its dependencies (most package managers do that for you anyway) and then it should work as intended.

I see that you are running Slackware 14. If you have made the recommended default install you will have absolutely no problems with KDE programs, since KDE is part of the default install. It may be a bit trickier with Gnome programs, since there is currently no recent version for Slackware available, but in general it should be possible.

Have a look at the Salix repository. They have stuff from the Gnome stable, like Gnucash, and since they do dependency checking, there should be no problem with installing. The Salix repository is 100% compatible with Slackware.