Re: [linux-audio-user] My rant on toolkits.. :)

On Thu, 23 Feb 2006, Michelle Konzack wrote: I never met a window manager I didn't like. Really! I change window managers every several months just for a change. But you're right about KDE and Gnome apps (real Gnome apps that is, not just GTK apps): They don't just load toolkit libraries, they launch DAEMONS...which is very annoying when you're not already running their actual desktop. Yes, running them will work, we all know that. But it's still annoying as you say to see dcopserver and gconfd and all that other business getting launched just for the sake of an app. As for the actual toolkit libraries themselves, that part never bothered me near as much. I have no problem at all with running apps that use libraries from QT, GTK, OpenLook, Motif, Tcl/Tk, Athena Widgets, raw xlib calls, GnuStep, Windows GDI under Wine, Amiga Workbench under UAE, and whatever else I can find all on one desktop. Actually, it feels rather cool even being able to do that. The memory usage of the actual toolkits only comes to a few megabytes each, unless we're talking about the aforementioned KDE and Gnome ones, whose apps trigger the launch of DAEMONS. So I've never understood the obsession with getting Linux under just one toolkit from the memory usage angle. As for the cosmetic side of it, hey, I've seen what a desktop looks like when *every single app* conforms to a particular look and feel, and has the same color palette, and the same buttons and menu pulldowns, and font settings, and truly it makes me want to hurl. I realize there's a potential for some programs to clash with eachothers' appearance if that's not enforced, but I'll take that risk any day over the utter boredom of having five dozen desktop apps that all look visually indistinguishable. <yawn> Nonetheless, it seems that during the last several years, there's been a big push in Linux to get everything onto one GUI toolkit, citing memory reasons (ha!) and cosmetic conformity reasons (ick). Since both KDE and Gnome both have no shortage of diehard supporters, in practice, this has turned out to be a push to get everything onto *TWO* toolkits, QT and GTK, but it's still a push to conform. Consequently, almost all new Unix apps (even some ones not even made specifically for Linux) are GTK, and the few that aren't are mostly QT. (The GTK ones aren't so bad when they're not actual Gnome apps, since they don't necessarily launch daemons like gconfd. QT apps invariably *do* launch KDE daemons.) Programs based on anything else -- Motif/Lesstif, OpenLook, GnuStep, Tcl/Tk, Athena Widgets, etc. -- are getting dropped from some distro's package pools just for not being GTK or QT. And *some* apps -- bringing this back to the original subject -- like Rosegarden, Snd, X-CD-Roast, the 'make xconfig' interface for configuring the Linux kernel, etc. -- are evolving into GTK or QT programs where they originally weren't before. I actually liked what most of these programs looked like before. I never wanted a desktop that made every single program look the same. (In particular, I thought Rosegarden version 2 looked just fine, not that it isn't also pretty now as a KDE app.) Everything has got to be KDE or Gnome now. If I had to make a choice, I'd want the apps to be Gnome even though I use the KDE desktop more. Why? Gnome apps launch fewer daemons when started outside their native environment, and straight GTK apps don't start any. I don't think I've ever seen a QT app that didn't insist on half the KDE infrastructure running in the background before it will whistle a tune. (KDE apps also tend to be *very* noisy on their stderr output...look at ~/.xsession-errors sometime while running any QT app, or in an xterm one is launched from...yuck.) My favorite to this day is still FVWM customized nicely running with the XFCE toolbar. Can't get a better replacement for CDE/Motif than that. :) And it's nice and snappy, too. -- + Brent A. Busby, UNIX Systems Admin + "It's like being + + James Franck / Enrico Fermi Institute + blindsided by a + + The University of Chicago + flying dwarf..." +