I'm having a hard time understanding the dependencies of software on (the combination of) Ubuntu distributions, desktop environments, window managers, file managers and what have you.
What I'm particularly worried about is that I might install software that doesn't play nice with any of the aforementioned processes and that it messes up those processes and/or uses different config files, spread in different locations, etc.
Could you give a short overview of what elementary knowledge, about the architecture of linux systems, is needed to determine whether a software package is suitable for a particular set-up?
Best Answer
Here's a quick overview of the Desktop Environments available:
Gnome (both the erstwhile GNOME2 [now MATE] and GNOME3) and KDE are comprehensive suites, with components tightly integrated with each other. They can include a lot of things, even office suites. Enlightenment, XFCE and LXDE considerably lighter and have fewer apps under their respective umbrellas. Some rules of thumb:
yakuake
(a drop-down terminal) one my Gnome3-based setup drags in about 60 packages (and 301 on a headless server). For comparison, Terminator (an independent terminal) needed 2 (and 144 on the same headless server).kde-desktop
on a standard Ubuntu. You can look around the answers to find out what goes where.