Desktop Environments: KDE

Of all desktop environments, KDE, by far is the most simple and intuitive. It has an resemblance to Windows. However, it is also fairly ugly and inefficient. However, other than X, which I once used with twm, it is about the only desktop environment that I have used. I plan to try out GNOME and Xfce, which I have seen running once in a Xubuntu distribution, fairly soon.

This brings me to another point. I have begun a new article for the blog called Desktop Environments. Later will be reviews of other environments, including Xfce and GNOME. I will probably begin with Xfce, but I don't know for sure. I will also go into depth about particular packages and features of each of the next environments.

Desktop Environments

The thing that finally got Linux off the ground was not sash :) but a GUI called GNOME created by a young programmer named Miguel de Icaza. GNOME is an example of a desktop environment or GUI. They make computing more fun but, as I say, slower. X is also a desktop environment. I personally prefer Xfce, but I also think KDE is cool. What environment do you use? Why? Tell us about it.

Using KDE, GNOME and X with NetBSD

Okay, so you probably understand that I only use the shell. Just bash, that's right. Now I have decided to install X and, especially, KDE on my machine. To install X, I believe that you simply install it as is comes distributed on the cd (the i386/Amnesiac port). X is required for KDE, I think. So install it as sysinst will tell you. For me, it messed up my installation of 2.1, so I just forgot about it and stuck with the shell. Maybe 3.0.1 or, sometime soon, 3.1, will handle it. Next, for KDE.

I know that you can download KDE from the pkgsrc collection on the NetBSD website. However, I am still reading about how I might want to install it. Let's see.........Google Groups........pkgsrc.org..................ah.......NetBSD's package collection. I guess that you just have to install it according to a makefile in the package. The same I think is true for GNOME.