How to run KDE Application in GNOME Environment

This article will explain in detail how the KDE application runs in the GNOME environment. The editor thinks it is very practical, so I share it with you as a reference. I hope you can get something after reading this article.

The visual differences between GNODE and KDE desktop environments are obvious, so how to transplant applications from one environment to another? This question has been answered by someone on today's SuperUser Quan A section. The following Qrooma section is licensed by SuperUser (SuperUser is a section of Stack Exchange and Stack Exchange is a community question and answer website).

Question:

SuperUser reader LeNoob wants to know how applications under KDE run in GNOME:

GNOME uses GTK+ graphics library, KDE uses Qt graphics library, so how does KDE application run in GNOME environment, and what is the internal mechanism that it can run smoothly?

Answer:

Grawity, a contributor to SuperUser, replied as follows:

This migration is possible because both KDE and GNOME desktop environments use the same graphics system-X11. All graphics programs interact with the X server (usually Xorg) through the X11 protocol: send instructions to draw the screen and receive input events from the input mouse, keyboard and other peripherals.

As for UI toolkits such as GTK and Qt, they are called by graphical programs in the form of linked libraries. Under GNOME environment, the program uses libgdk and libgtk;KDE environment, and the program uses libQtCore and ligQtGui. Both toolkits simply call the X11 function to draw the window of the corresponding program.

Most modern toolkits, such as GTK,Qt and EFL, have drawing capabilities, and they usually send drawn windows directly to X11. In contrast, some traditional toolkits, such as Xaw and Motif, send instructions to draw lines or rectangles to the X server, which parses the instructions and draws windows.

The X11 protocol also involves window management functions, so every desktop environment has a window manager program. The program is responsible for drawing the window frame and completing the operation of moving, zooming in and out of the window. In fact, the current powerful window manager has replaced the work of Xorg, which can synthesize all the windows into images displayed on the screen, so that you can easily add some shadows and other effects.

For better compatibility, binding the desktop environment to a unified graphics system is a great design. In this way, you can run all the applications you are interested in in the same desktop environment, even if the application is not developed for that desktop environment.

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