One thing about Linux I don't like…

There’s one thing about Linux I don’t like. In Linux, you’ve got two big graphical desktop environments — one is called Gnome, and the other is called KDE (there are others, but those are probably the biggest at the moment).

This is all good, because it gives people a greater choice. If you prefer the look and feel of KDE over Gnome, you can make the switch. And if you have both installed, you can choose which one you want to use when you login. All good.

The problem is that certain utilities are written for one or the other. If I have a browse through the Ubuntu package repository, I see a bunch of packages starting with “K” — most of these are written specifically for KDE. I also see a bunch of packages starting with “G” – these are developed for Gnome.

Why the separation? Why can’t I use a utility whichever desktop I want to use? It is not possible to compile for both? I’m pretty sure Firefox and Thunderbird work on both. If someone can explain this to me, that would be good

Edit: hmmm, it would seem that you can run KDE programs from within Gnome. It just has to load up all the KDE libraries. Hmm, strikes me as being a bit inefficient, but still…