> Can't one just install the desktop environment on Ubuntu? Isn't this stuff modular, take in what you want take out what you don't? Yes to both. I run Window

> Can't one just install the desktop environment on Ubuntu? Isn't this stuff modular, take in what you want take out what you don't? Yes to both. I run Window Maker on Ubuntu to the exclusion of any other desktop environment, and it works. It's in the package repositories, and there's no barrier to making it your GUI. The big difference is the libraries installed in the initial OS install: Ubuntu has the libraries required to support Gnome, Kubuntu has the libraries to support KDE, and I don't know what libraries Lubuntu has by default. But since we have dependency-tracking package management, if you install Ubuntu and then install a KDE-based application, the packaging system will install all of the libraries required for it to work.