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http://www.linux.com/articles/58592
By Leslie Polzer on November 28, 2006
PDF's progenitor PostScript is a page description language that was invented in 1982, also by Adobe. It is an interpreted language with postfix (RPN) notation and is thus very flexible. In contrast, PDF is a file format describing the position and nature of text and pictorial content (in raster or vector format), which makes it easier to parse and process. To learn more about the relationship of PostScript and PDF, see Adobe's explanation.
If you have a choice, I recommend using a combination of Xpdf and KPDF to view PDF files. I'd rather copy and paste a URL leading to a PDF document into Konqueror and use the KPDF browser plugin than wait for the Acrobat Reader plugin to stuff its megabytes into my memory. Of course, you can also just instruct your browser to open PDF files with your favorite viewer, thus removing the dependency on plugins. Okular looks promising for people who don't like the "keep it plain" philosophy of the GNOME project that shows in Evince. Also, check out DjVu if your content is mainly in raster format (this is especially true for scanned documents and photographs).
documented on: 2007-09-05