I have the 11.1 loaded, but I ran into a program that ran appropriately under KDE 3.5, but the version KDE 4 is missing some functionality that I had on KDE 3.5. Can I load the KDE 3.5 with the KDE 4 version without screwing things up? This way the program application will function the 3.5 version.:\
I wish people gave more details when they asked questions…
Your question is a little confusing, so let me try to clear it up.
You’re trying to run a KDE4 version of a KDE program and find it lacking. For example, you want to run Amarok 1.4.x on KDE 4 because Amarok 2 doesn’t have ___ feature.
This is possible. All KDE 3.5 programs can run within KDE4, but you will have to get the appropriate libraries and dependencies. YaST2 does this for you.
You may be asking whether you can run KDE 4 programs like Amarok 2 on KDE 3.5. I don’t think this is possible, and you shouldn’t attempt it. KDE 3.5 will not give programs more features they don’t already have in KDE 4.
You can argue that individual KDE3.5 programs have more features than their KDE4 counterparts, but you can run both in KDE4.
Thanks to initiatives by freedesktop.org and cooperation, programs built for one desktop environment, should run fine on the other.
They still will need libraries installed, to fulfill dependencies as pointed out in previous answer.
Many KDE 4 programs, were available and functioning under KDE 3.5 before KDE 4.0 was released. KDE 3 programs should run fine under KDE 4. GNOME programs should run under KDE, and KDE ones under GNOME.
openSUSE has taken steps to keep KDE4 settings seperate from KDE3, so that the evironments can co-exist better. Other distro’s may not have done this, and that might make mix n’ matching less desirable.
That’s the general story in theory. But have seen reports that some Qt programs like Quanta, have issues under new KDE 4. So your mileage may vary with specific applications.