Re: Qt and Gnome both on system?
Your question is sort of unclear. First of all, I should clarify
something- Qt is just a GUI toolkit- a library which programs can, if
they chose, link against in order to provide the widgets which Qt
provides. Since it's just a library, no 'switching' is involved- just
run a program which uses Qt, and it will use Qt. All of the same
applies to another toolkit, GTK/GTK+, which might be what you're
referring to when you say 'Gnome.' In that case, you don't need to
worry about switching- Qt and GTK apps can coexist with no problems
whatsoever.
However, I think you may be referring to KDE and Gnome, not Qt and
GTK. KDE and Gnome are desktop environments, which use Qt and GTK
respectively as their GUI toolkits. They provide higher-level
functionality, such as the ability to drag-and-drop between
applications, all the way up to such fancy stuff as component
architectures (to do things like embedding one document inside another
document). In this sense also, no 'switching' is needed- just run
whatever program you want to run, and it will use whatever Gnome or
KDE facilities you want. However, Gnome and KDE apps are not likely to
interoperate very well (You probably won't be able to embed a gnumeric
(Gnome) spreadsheet in a KWord (KDE) document, for example), so you
may find yourself preferring a particular desktop environment if
high-level interoperability is important to you.
There is a third way to interpret your question, which I think may be
what you really mean: Gnome and KDE, as a side benefit of being
desktop architectures, also offer X session management, and it is only
here that switching is needed. Both Gnome and KDE offer a way to run
X-windows that automatically launches such useful programs as a
panel/taskbar with a menu of Gnome or KDE programs, a file manager,
and so fourth. In KDE's case, it even provides its own window manager
(in Gnome you can chose your own). However, although there's no
theoretical reason why you couldn't run both sessions at once, they both
try to do the same thing (put a panel at the bottom of the screen, set
the background, etc.), so running them both would lead to an extremely
confusing user experience. However, there is no problem at all with running
Gnome applications in a KDE session or vice-versa, although a few of the
session-manager's options may not be available for that application.
In order to switch between session types, you need to edit your X
startup file which, depending on your configuration, may be .xsession,
.xinitrc, or some other such file. If you want to run a Gnome session,
add the line "exec gnome-session" to the bottom of the file. If you
want to run a KDE session, add the line "exec startkde" (make sure you
have all the necessary packages in both cases) to the bottom. In both
cases, make sure the line you add is the only 'exec' line, unless you
want very confusing (and possibly broken) results.
If you want something simpler, you might want to install the kdm program.
Kdm is a display manager (is the terminology getting confusing yet?), which
is a program which provides a graphical login window and then starts X for
you. The advantage of kdm is that it offers you a menu of all the possible
session types installed on your system (including Gnome, KDE, and many
others), and lets you chose among them. It's designed for KDE, but don't
worry, it starts Gnome perfectly happily.
> So, how do you switch between these? Are they used as needed by the system (always active)
> or does one choose which is currently running on X (only one runs at any one time)?
>
> >>> Danie Roux <droux@tuks.co.za> 08/08/01 10:49AM >>>
> On Wed, Aug 08, 2001 at 10:37:05AM -0500, Lance Hoffmeyer wrote:
> > Is it possible to have Qt and Gnome on the same system and to be able to =
> > choose one or the other when starting X (or even switching between them =
> > when runnng X? It might be useful for comparing the difference between =
> > the two of them. Also some programs only run in Qt whereas other programs =
> > only run in Gnome.
> >
>
> Yes, yes and yes to all the questions.
>
> More beautiful than that, you can run GNOME apps in KDE and vice versa.
> Basically anything that runs in X (Gnome, KDE, FLTK etc.) works no matter what
> desktop you use (GNOME, KDE, XFce etc.)
>
> And you can Drag and Drop between GNOME and KDE. And cut and paste.
>
> --
> Danie Roux *shuffle* Adore Unix
>
>
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--
Geoffrey M. Romer
gromer@hmc.edu
---
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right"
-Salvor Hardin
"I can't leave you alone with this man! He might be a tenor!"
-Fred Astaire
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