Ubuntu + KDE vs Kubuntu

[Pich78]

Hi to all,

I don't know if this is the right section to post this question, but it's interesting for me to know if it's the same thing installing KDE on ubuntu or install Kubuntu directly. ( suppose you have the same base, eg. 10.04 )

Some people in forum says that it's not exactly the same thing. So, what are the differences?

Thank you very much!

Pich

[Telengard]

Re: Ubuntu + KDE vs Kubuntu

The most obvious difference will be the presence of all the applications from the other DE. Do you want Pidgin or Kopete, and do you really need both? Ditto Nautilus vs. Dolphin. Your program menus will be very cluttered.

Along with these come many Gnome related libraries and DE components. You'll have both GDM and KDM, but you can only use one of them.

The command line is exactly the same. The only difference is the presence of extra programs and scripts related to the DEs.

[lmilano]

Re: Ubuntu + KDE vs Kubuntu

Yes, unless you have a very good reason not to, it is MUCH better to install Kubuntu directly. As Telengard says, you'll have lots of redundant software, otherwise.

To me, the best set up is to install Kubuntu directly, and then some light desktop environment just in case KDE breaks for some reason. I always install LXDE in my Kubuntu machines.

[woodsmoke]

Re: Ubuntu + KDE vs Kubuntu

Yeppers did that!

I put KDE on Debian and Ubu and got...........

waaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy more apps that I ever even knew existed.....

I mean....sub menus going all the way across the screen with acronmymized linuxy names I didn't even know existed!

However....given all that....the real thing was that I had to go to the trouble to "click a lot of apps" in synaptic to get full capability. If one knew what he or she was doing in CLI one could probably "oh just type this and that" and sit back and watch...

So...one thing about it was watching all the stuff that was involved in "making" the plasma desktop, I kept the installer on "details" and just sat and watched.

A few things wouldn't install because "libraries" were missing out of date.. and those were the tweaks that make Plasma on Ubu and Debian so they wouldn't be in the "normal" stuff...but it wasn't show stopper stuff, and after a little fiddling I had pretty much what I think is the Plasma desktop on both.

I fully expected to NOT see the plasma screen with at least the Debian, but nope...it was there...full bore!

There are some irritating things like Debian does not have a way to install a high end video driver except the "Debian way"... while KDE Kubu ne Ubu provided the hardware installer as a default.

So...as Telengard said... it took a while... but basically I got Kubu with a gazillion other apps and it needed a little tweaking.

There's also the whole "long term support" thing but I didn't do that.

laborious, interesting, but basically Kubu on Ubu and Debian.

woodsmoke

[runequester]

Re: Ubuntu + KDE vs Kubuntu

Im not sure if this should happen or not, but KDE felt much slower when I had it installed side by side with Gnome, versus now, when I am just running Kubuntu from a clean install.

[verndog]

Re: Ubuntu + KDE vs Kubuntu

Thanks for bringing this topic up. This is one of those questions that passed my mind , but not strongly enough to inquire about.

I've read over at Ubuntu those that have installed KDE on their Ubuntu installs. I wondered at the time if the gnome apps that are already there would greatly increase the slice. Now I know. It just seems easier to install Kubuntu all by itself.

[wizard10000]

Re: Ubuntu + KDE vs Kubuntu

Thanks for bringing this topic up. This is one of those questions that passed my mind , but not strongly enough to inquire about.

I've read over at Ubuntu those that have installed KDE on their Ubuntu installs. I wondered at the time if the gnome apps that are already there would greatly increase the slice. Now I know. It just seems easier to install Kubuntu all by itself.

I remember a couple of readmes from one of the contributors over on the Ubuntu forums on how to get to pure GNOME or pure KDE if you'd had both installed. Look here -

http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/purekde

or if you wanted to complete remove KDE and go back to GNOME -

http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/puregnome

[shane2peru]

Re: Ubuntu + KDE vs Kubuntu

I always install LXDE in my Kubuntu machines.

As I read through this I thought YIKES! Is this really necessary? Do we expect KDE to break? Should I do this? I'm pretty handy at cli and can usually fix stuff when I log in and there is no DE.


As a side note, I installed 11.04 Ubuntu, then installed kubuntu-desktop, and used this http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/purekde to remove all my gnome stuff. Unity wasn't for me. Ok, there were a few bumbs I had to iron out, but overall worked great. I had to install a few kde things that perhaps were left out of the metapackage that were in the CD, and I had to reconfigure my nvidia driver, but overall, seems to have worked great. I did use Unity for about a day or two, and broke it bad twice in that short time.

Shane

[wizard10000]

Re: Ubuntu + KDE vs Kubuntu

As I read through this I thought YIKES! Is this really necessary? Do we expect KDE to break? Should I do this? I'm pretty handy at cli and can usually fix stuff when I log in and there is no DE.

There was a time when yeah, we expected DE to break but I figure that time's long past. Back in the day I had way more trouble with Xorg and before that, X11 than I ever did with the DE.

Every time a working KDE installation has broken I've been able to bring it back to life by renaming ~/.kde and then copying the dotfiles I wanted back into the new .kde directory once I got it running.

[GreyGeek]

Re: Ubuntu + KDE vs Kubuntu

Gnome is built with the GTK+ API and KDE is built with the Qt4 API). For several years the developers of Gnome and KDE worked together, resulting in libraries for each which allowed one to run the others applications. That's why GIMP, Firefox, Thunderbird and other apps built with the GTK API run on KDE, and visa-verse.

However, that harmony between the two DE's is less than what it has been in the past, and in the future I suspect that there will be less interoperability between them than there is now. That is one reason why, about a year ago, I started a gradual move to pure QT4/KDE applications. I've dropped Thunderbird for KMail, LibreOffice for KOffice, etc... I will run binaries that are DE neutral, like Stellarium. I will NOT run any app which requires libmono. I haven't found a good replacement for FireFox 3.x ... yet ..., and that includes FF 4.0. I have Konqueror and Chrome installed and I use them both on occasions, but none of the three have the plugins that FF3.x has.