I just asked a question about Xubuntu and things are a little clearer now. But when I go to install new software or apps is the only thing that will work with Xubuntu something that says it's compatible with xfce?

I don't think that's the case, because I remember installing stuff like the text editor Kate that was more like other things than xfce but it works great anyway.

But what would be really helpful would be if someone could give me a list of the different kinds (I don't even know what they're called but the software programs or apps say things like 'works with KDE or Debian or GTK2 etc.') of things that will work with Xubuntu.

Thanks.

You can install whatever you like -- the package manager will pull in the necessary dependencies for the packages to work.

Of course if you start installing KDE-based software in your XFCE system, you may well end up with most of KDE on your hard drive...

The trick is to use the command line to check how many dependent packages are being installed:

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Thanks Head. So if I want say Turpial (a Twitter analytic download) do I just put

Turpial

where you have <package> ?

I'm running Xubuntu as well. The desktop environment on Xubuntu is XFCE. So, yeah, there you go. You can also install programs that need KDE and Gnome as well. But, in my case I just stick to the Gnome applications. It helps keep things a bit cleaner.

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In the terminal, for example you would type sudo apt-get install turpial. You can also just use the software center to install apps.

In Xubuntu and other Ubuntu/Debian distributions you can type sudo apt-cache search (name of package) in the terminal to search for the actual name.

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I've always been a bit confused on this too. But if you go to the software center and search for it and then see more info it says:

"Turpial is a microblogging client for social networks like Twitter and StatusNet.
It is developed under a strict diet in order to consume very few resources, so it is a perfect choice to be used with netbooks, and systems with limited specs."

But sometimes it will say xfce or gnome, etc. in the description. In this case, seeing the netbooks and limited specs, I conclude it is not KDE (but I could be wrong).

I have heard what "Head on a Stick" posted about KDE, so I always avoid anything specifically KDE for that reason.

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Yes that's right -- this will always give you much more information than just using the software centre; it will also alert you to potential problems with your package manager although this is not so much of an issue under the *buntu's (their package management is messed up as standard when compared to Debian Stable).

I did manage to completely break my Xubuntu system (the first GNU/Linux system I used) by installing pretty much every window manager & desktop environment I could find so don't go too crazy...

Funnily enough I have done exactly the same thing under Arch with not a murmur of complaint from the OS

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I think you likely let apt remove something that it shouldn't during one of hte installs -- if you're careful there is nothing stopping you downloading all the window managers nad desktop enironments available. I haven't installed them all but I have installed a lot at the same time without any issues.

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Yeah you're probably right about that -- I was very green indeed at the time

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Thanks. So both KDE and Gnome are different from xfce but KDE is more different than gnome?

thanks jross. I forgot about the software center. (Some people say to avoid it. (Like the Calibre developer.) That it's got dated stuff.) But anyway, you too, like greeder, think that KDE is to be avoided because it brings such a a large footprint along with it? And gnome's not as good as xfce but not bad?

Thanks Rubian. That's very good to know.

Yes.

KDE uses the Qt toolkit whereas GNOME & XFCE both use GTK+
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GTK%2B
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qt_%28toolkit%29

Next question. When I search to search to see what packages come along with whatever software program I'm wanting to download, how do I determine what's a lot and what's acceptable?

It's totally subjective. I'm running Fedora Rawhide with the Mate desktop in a 20GB partition; using about 5GB of it at the moment. Firefox, at 117MB, takes up a lot of space, but it's acceptable given that it's my default browser. On the other hand, google-chrome, at 179MB, would be unacceptable except that I need it for sites that absolutely have to have the latest version of flash. LibreOffice, at somewhere around 300MB, is unacceptably large given that I don't need all of LibreOffice's features and am well-served by Abiword and Gnumeric (at a total of 60MB).

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