Tom,
My 2-cents.
On 04/12/2013 10:15 AM, Tom Davies wrote:
Hi :)
Programs with tk (or more usually gtk) at the end or at the beginning are for a one
type of DE for Gnu&Linux. Sometimes a G is used instead. The other main type
of DE usually has K or Qt at the front of it's programs.
"tk" stands for Tool Kit, so truncating GTK (Gnome Tool Kit) is not
entirely proper.
Often programs have a "back-end" or "command-line" tool that does most of the heavy lifting and
then different "front-ends" or "Gui"s are put on for each of the 2 main types.
Typically we talk about families of distros but even a single distro might have
2 or 3 versions with each one having a different type of DE. If you choose the
'wrong one' then you can choose whether to install the other DE or get a
different version of the distro that does have the 'right one'. Tim at Kracked
Press has somethings he likes in each of the main DEs so he installs both. It
makes his system a bit more bloated but means he can use choose more apps.
DE = Desktop Environment. The main 2 are Gnome and KDE. Most of the rest
(Xfce, Unity, Enlightenment and probably hundreds more) tend to be able to use
front-ends written for one or the other.
I have switched to Xfce, since IMHO KDE 4 is still a basket case even
though it is release 10 (4.10) on my Slackware 14.0 distro! From what I
am hearing on other forums, I am not alone in switching. The K people
had a very stable KDE in 3.5 and they were only up to release 5 (3.5).
I was sorry to see that stability go for an entire rewrite in KDE 4.
Ok, so it's not quite that simple. 2 extra wrinkles;
1. Gtk or tk are pretty rarely used but are for the Xfce DE (well really a WM
(=window manager (note the lower-case w)) but that is nearly a DE) and Xfce
apps work well in Gnome.
Not so. From my experience, most of the apps without a "K" prefix are
written with GTK, so they can run on the most DEs. I ran GTK apps on KDE.
Gnome is a bit heftier (a bit more "fully functionally" if you know what i
mean) so it's fairly normal to find a G (stands for Gnome) instead of the rarer Gtk but
then that's a pain because the app might need a 3rd front-end instead of just having 2 to
reach everyone.
2. Going back to seeing the K at the beginning of apps written for KDE makes
sense but why the Qt? Well, until recently Qt was less streamlined and was a
lot of the weight in KDE. Now it is a lot faster and lighter it seems that
Gnome or distros using Gnome have pulled it in but just not quite enough of it
for Tim's requirements.
3. Since Gnome often can run apps built for the 3 main DEs shouldn't that make
it the DE of choice!? Oddly not. It's been forked in at least 2 or 3
different directions and in Ubuntu it's been replaced by Unity (which can also
run a lot of the Gnome, Xfce or KDE apps but is extremely unpopular amongst
purists)
KDE is and has been, built on the QT libraries, so the QT is redundant.
K* can assume QT. Most if not all of the other DEs are built on the GTK
libraries. In my experience, there are many more applications built on
GTK than QT. Apps built on GTK will run on KDE, however, I am not sure
apps built for KDE will run on all GTK DEs. I know for a fact that KDE
apps will run well on Xfce, I am doing so. In fact, I was amazed at how
well they do run. The QT library was proprietary at one time
(Trolltech). I don't know if the current version is. GTK is open
source (GNU) licensed.
I hope that helps!! I hope i got it about right too otherwise i'm going to get
deluged with unwanted flaming or something! Something i like about Gnu&Linux
is the passion and that we go all sorts of different ways but somehow manage to
grow and learn from each other or make use of each others achievements and even
build on them (if individuals are gifted enough)
Regards from
Tom :)
Yours in enlightenment.
Girvin Herr
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