Originally posted by: Robor
Originally posted by: The Linuxator
I have been experiencing some freezes in Gnome in Fedora Core 4 lately , has anyone been experiencing the same thing too ?
I have had the occasional program lockup (much more than in WinXP) but no complete system freezes. I have had a few situations where I go to shut down and the system just sits there. I can move my mouse around but I can't click on anything and the system never goes down. I waited a bit then just gave it a power button and it went through the shutdown sequence.
I'm considering trying KDE just to see what it looks like and compare it to Gnome. Is it a difficult process to switch?
Technically it's very easy.. As long as you have all the kde desktop stuff installed.
With Fedora Core it's fairly Gnome-centric, but I beleive they do a decent job of supporting KDE. With Ubuntu KDE support has been very poor, in my experiance. However there is the Kubuntu or something like that that takes Ubuntu and builds KDE on it. With Debian Stable they should support KDE and Gnome equally well. With Debian Unstable (aka Debian Sid) KDE is well supported, but upgrades can be a kinda of a pain due to it's C++-ness. Not sure what the problem/solution is for that one. But it should work fine.
Once you get the KDE stuff installed then for any user it's up to them to select KDE or Gnome session when they log in. They'll be some selections you can do from the graphical login screen.
Then if you want to go back to Gnome then you log out and select gnome session to start up next.
Also another thing to remember when using Linux is that you do not have to take what you've been given.
Both KDE and Gnome offer large amounts of customization.
Also if you do not like either there are so-called 'minimal' enviroments. Everybody who wants to use Linux should also check them out.
By reducing functionality and features your going to reduce memory footprint and often increase the amount you can manipulate the system without breaking anything.
Items like AfterStep, Fluxbox, Icewm, FVWM, ROX, XFCE, Ratpoison, Evilwm and many others offer unique graphical experiances.
They do not offer the feature-full enviroments that KDE/Gnome offer, but they do provide low resource and many people do like them. Each has their strong points.
AfterStep along with GNUstep are designed to match the Openstep API developed from NextStep which was by Steve Jobs and friends while they made Unix boxes. The OpenStep API also forms the basis of the 'modern' side of the Aqua OS X user interface. Apple calls it "Carbon", I beleive.
Carbon and Gnustep have a very high degree of API compatability and can make porting applications between Linux and OS X relatively easily.
Fluxbox is a minimalist enviroment that is very popular with a lot of people and is nice with high resolution desktops..
Icewm is a minimalist eviroment that provides a small taskbar for a Windows 9x-type experiance. Good if you want the fastest speeds possible.
FVWM is a modernized version of a very classical Unix window manager. Very old school. You can get crazy with it with various add-ons and such.
ROX revolves around a graphical file manager. Very oriented around 'drag-n-drop' stuff.
XFCE is designed to provide a low-resource, high-performance, highly-customizable version of a Gnome-style desktop.
Ratpoison is for people who don't want to use a mouse. It is designed around the terminal utility called 'screen'. If you like Screen then there is a high degree of similarity with ratpoison. It's a very no-comprimise window manager. Doesn't work with everything, but I used that and a script with Xnest and lwm (lightweight wm) to make a 'box' to run apps like Gimp in that has lots of independant windows.
Evilwm is so minimalist that it doesn't even have minimize buttons. Just one pixel borders all the way around your Windows.
To understand the difference between a "Window Manager" and a Desktop enviroment you have to understand a bit about how X Windows works.
X Windows is not a GUI enviroment it's a Networking protocol. Designed originally when you had mainframes and much simplier X terminals to run gui enviroments in.
Think of things like HTTP and such. A bit backwards terminology though due to the fact that it pre-dates the normal PC 'server-client' relationships.
Each X Client is a program. Firefox is a X client. Gnome is a collection of X clients. Your Window manager is a X clients.
X clients are any program that displays output on your X Server. In Linux it's pretty much any GUI program can also be called a X client correctly.
X Server is like your browser.. It controls your display and manages your input devices.. keyboard and pointer devices (usually a mouse). It is what X clients display things on.
The X server is always on your local computer. A few examples of X servers is XFree86 X server, the X.org X server, the Xaccl X server. They are all mostly compatable.
There are also X servers that are offered along with OS X when you buy a Mac (although OS X itself is not a X windows system.. it has a X server that can be used like that optionally though). There are also X servers for Windows that you can use along with Cygwin (creates a Linux-like userland on Windows for compatability with Linux apps)
X Clients can also be on your local computer. This is how most Linux installs go.. so it's Windows/Mac-like. However X clients can be run on remote computers and display their output over the network on your local X server.
A example of a system that is setup to do that by default is the LTSP. Or the Linux terminal server project. It's designed to provide a enviroment were you have all the people sharing the resources on a single 'big' computer while they all use minimal PCs or special X terminals.
It's quite a nice way to have central management and reuse old PCs. Very nice for situations like schools and call centers.
http://www.ltsp.org/
they also sell diskless workstations...
http://disklessworkstations.com/
So by itself a X server provides a ugly gray screen with a Ugly X-shaped gray cursor. There are no windows, no taskbar, no command line, no nothing. Although you can move the cursor around.
Ontop the X server then you run a Window manager.
All a Window manager needs to do is manage windows. A window manager controls the sizes of windows, the borders around windows, what happens when you click on the bar, or try to resize it. Stuff like that. Window manager itself is a X client, but it's main job is just to manage windows.
Some people just stop there. Most window managers have a way to start programs, or access a menu.. Like Fluxbox has a menu that pops up when you click on the background. Icewm provides a little panel and start menu that way.
Then when you have Gnome or KDE, they have what is known as a 'desktop enviroment'.
They are not Window managers per-say.. but they provide a window manager as part of the package. The default Gnome WM is 'Metacity' and for KDE it's Kwin. But these can be swapped out by other EWMH-complient (standards for window manager behavoirs) window manager.
For instance you can run Gnome on FVWM with ROX-filer instead of Metacity window manager and nautilus file manager if you feel like it and know how to setup stuff like that.
A desktop enviroment is a collection of assorted tools, window managers, office-style games, office productivity tools (word proccessor, email, spreedsheet, database tools, etc), basic paint/art tools, file managers, web browsers, media players, etc etc etc.
Basicly it's to provide a unified look-n-feel for pretty much everything a normal desktop user would expect in terms of functionality.
Since it's a layered approach you can usually swap out any part of one system for another.
Like if you feel twisted you could use Konquerer (kde web browser) with Nautilus and FVWM with a XFCE tool bars if you want.
Or if you don't like Nautilus you can swap out that for Rox-filer or no file manager if you feel like it.
There are things that exist just for eye candy, too. For instance with Gnome you haave gnome desklets, and with KDE you have superkaramba.
So on and so forth.