[Gllug] What is the Gnome & KDE difference??

[Steve Nelson]

On 3/29/06, Nix <nix at esperi.org.uk> wrote:

> The sort of people who complain about bloat
> tend to be people (like me ;) ) who use X as a platform to run a heap of
> xterms and and a text editor or six: these people aren't *using* any of
> the apps that would need the features that that extra code provides, so
> from their POV it's pure bloat.

Indeed - and for  this reason I find Debian to be a joy to use for
setting up a workstation.  I have no need for any of the gnome or kde
chuff, I just get the core X stuff installed, and add ratpoison and
openbox as my two window managers - the latter for rare occasions when
overlapping and tiled windows are useful (gimp is the normal example).
 Given that I spend my entire life in xterm+screen with an occasional
foray into a graphical browser if its not just text I'm reading, I
have no need for anything else.

If you (the OP) want to get an idea of the difference between desktop
environment and window manager, try adding bits a piece at a time. 
For example, just starting X with no window manager at all, and seeing
what that does.  Then add metacity.  Now try to work out how to launch
new applications?  If we were following a modular approach what might
we do?  In gnome world, you could add a panel.  Now remove metacity,
and install something like openbox.  Then try fvwm2.  This way you get
a feel for what does what.  If you want, you could install nautilus
with some other window manager.  Its all like lego - and playing like
this helps you understand how it all fits together.  Incidentally,
fvwm is a really super window manager with excellent documentation -
using and configuring this for a while is a great learning experience.

S.
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