Ultimate Edition Forum

A good trick would be to...
Remove any heavy duty DE's like kde and gnome. Even xfce is not worth it.
Instead use something simple like lxde. You can use mate and razor but keep the install straightforward.
Look for other compositors like xcompmgr. You will have shadows and some window effects.

Otherwise if you intend to use kde, then just forget gnome and anything gtk based. Keep it alone and let kwin handle it.
What you'd get is something like #! but with your installed apps.

There was a time when an OS was built around a desktop environment. Nowadays they just patch it in. Besides opensuse
other kde distros are just alternatives.

KDE is OK if you have a lot of time and unlimited bandwidth. Personally i'd say forget it!

If you want compiz, then focus only on compiz and not the DE that will use it. Most times mate and lxde should work.... without taking a trip to hell.

xcompmgr is an extremely robust, dynamic and simple compositor. Take a look at it..
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Xcompmgr

You can even build an OS with X windows running and patching in compiz and other desktop goodies to X directly and bypass the window-manager and DE completely. But that's a long way off... ....Something that Unity is sort of. Its a plugin for compiz...

Now the solution to this dilemma is almost unbelievable!!!! After checking a few things I decided a lame brain build-dep. Was for Gimp! Yes I still do not believe it that a program like Gimp requires all those pieces and a few more. To me at first when I saw libwebkit I naturally assumed I had inadvertently chosen some sort of web development kit, which at present I have no business with!!! I have to work my way up to that kind of point! I sure admit I jumped into this building Ubuntu's a little too quick, but the knowledge gained is astounding!!!! Still thank you all here for that little push to get me going on it!!! Was well worth it! I promise one day when I am more successful building these OS's I will put it up for download. At present just am not good enough!!! Takes me too long to figure what went wrong! So as the original solution was to destroy 2gigs worth of programs and DE's, the final solution still produced a loss! Here it is and will have to work on getting this stuff back.

The following packages will be REMOVED:
google-earth-stable gstreamer0.10-x:i386 gtk2-engines:i386
gtk2-engines-murrine:i386 gtk2-engines-oxygen:i386 gtk2-engines-pixbuf:i386
ia32-libs ia32-libs-multiarch:i386 ibus-gtk:i386 libcanberra-gtk-module:i386
libcanberra-gtk0:i386 libgail-common:i386 libgail18:i386 libgtk2.0-0:i386
libharfbuzz0 libharfbuzz0:i386 libpango1.0-0:i386 libpangocairo-1.0-0:i386
libpangoft2-1.0-0:i386 libpangoxft-1.0-0:i386 librsvg2-2:i386
librsvg2-common:i386

As stated above Google Earth is always the first to get hit! I have seen that for the past year when anything goes wrong it wants to leave!!! I believe all I have to do is worry about getting to the libgail part and will be good. As after that can attest those were old files removed for the new to be installed! Still will be fun as I know the last couple days have been finding the previous problem!!!! Yes Pam, I should have just built a smaller version and would have just had XFCE and LXDE for desktops. Of course had to do the complicated thing and go for all the desktops!(Headaches!!!) Of course the learning that is coming out of this is worth it! As have said before I can not afford any more schooling. An AAS is a starting point, but to extend knowledge learned is a much better way to get my foot in the door!!!! Still seeking work! Not an easy one at all these days. At 50, employers think I am ready to throw in the towel. Nope! I am just beginning!!!! Plan to start doing a few Allison courses here and there to help extend my education. Seems out here everyone wants a BA and I can not afford any more time for school at present!!!! Just a few hours here and there at home! Anyway, if anyone ever goes through something similar, I would say check the program you least suspect!!! Cause when it comes down to it, Gimp was surely the last program I would suspect!!!! I do not feel terrible about my building skills, but sure know those skill need vast improvement!!!! Still I see a lot of young developers out there that it takes months to get one of these Ubuntu's up and running great! So far am just a little over a month and a half so is not terrible! Is just frustrating most times! Still, I thank everyone for the advice and hope some of what I just found might help someone else! Forget the apt-get install -f as is total garbage these days!!! The apt-get build-dep <package name> is your friend!!!!