[svlug] KDE and GNOME

[David E. Fox]

On Saturday 28 October 2000 12:51, you wrote:
> On Sat, 28 Oct 2000 12:00:08 -0700
> Stupid example:
>
>   gnapster pulls in most of the Gnome universe.

Sure it seems to - having just done an 'ldd' on gnapster, it sure brings in a 
lot of gnome stuff, as well as GTK stuff. And if you've gone that far to 
compile gnapster, and get all the libraries that it needs, well you're 
probably on your way to installing the rest of Gnome, so please continue that 
activity :).

But gnapster happily runs under KDE. It's not dependent on Gnome in that 
sense, and doesn't seem that it needs to be. One issue is whether or not you 
actually want to run it under KDE (or another window manager or desktop 
environment) since it needs all those extra libraries, and if your desktop 
isn't bringing in those libraries to begin with (which happens if you run it 
under a 'foreign' environment) you end up needing all that extra space for 
libraries.

> Both are adequate reasons for me to consider Gnome something to be
> deleted on sight.  A standard desktop, in that parlance, is
> something to be actively discouraged and avoided where possible.

Agreed. I happen to like desktops if they are done well. MS's desktop really 
isn't, and it doesn't give you that big of an advantage. And it is likely 
possible to change it to something else, but too many people think the 
desktop *is* the OS, and you're changing something rather fundamental to 
their computing life if you do anything more than background wallpaper 
changes or what have you.

In that sense, Gnome is pretty OK, but I happen to like KDE better. Others 
will like other environments - that is to be expected and encouraged, of 
course.


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