[buug] desktop deps [Was: Gentoo, Bluecurve and Linux too!]

[Ian Zimmerman]

Rob> I've heard this alot, and I don't get it. Where is the line on
Rob> what's gratuitous?

itz> functionality and I say "how dare they"?  Rather, I am a happy
itz> longtime user of a gtk program X.  X is really nice but, like
itz> every software project, has a couple of bugs.  I hear an annyoing
itz> bug is fixed in X2.1, just released.  I say "apt-get install X"
itz> and bingo!  apt is asking me to download 20M of Gnome libraries -
itz> including audio, panel, CORBA, and what not.  I'll never use any
itz> of that functionality (and I can't afford to have all these
itz> libraries loaded, even once).  That is gratuitous.

Rob> I'm curious as to what gtk program X is ( I sure hope it's not
Rob> X11 ).

It's not one program, it's a pattern that has happened more than
once.  "Program foo" would have been a better phrase, perhaps :)

Rob> I agree that things like panel are gratuitous, although it's
Rob> feasible that the app actually uses the gnome audio libraries,
Rob> same for CORBA. If you can't afford to have just the libs loaded
Rob> ( I do think things like the base binaries and the panel are
Rob> gratuitous in most cases ) then that's kind of a difficult
Rob> situation ( I assume you also don't have the time/space to
Rob> staticly compile the bins you need ).

The problem is that all the gnome libraries interdepend very tightly,
and so if a program uses just one bit of the functionality (say, the
audio), it is forced to load all of them.  At least that's how the
Debian deps are set up.

Rob> I've seen furors over apps that use alot of gnome functionality,
Rob> which formerly were gtk-only ( galeon probably being the most
Rob> prominent ).  

Yes, I sure wish galeon were gtk-only.  But in that case I actually
understand they genuinely do Gnome-ish things, so I wouldn't call it
gratuitous. 

Rob> I think it would be a good thing for more GTK apps to move in
Rob> this direction, for the reasons I outlined in my original post on
Rob> this topic.

I don't think it'll surprise you that I disagree :)

Rob> Of course, the only benefit you'll ever see if you only run one
Rob> app that uses any of the gnome libraries is possibly stability,
Rob> you'll probably end up losing more diskspace than if the app was
Rob> gtk-only ( or tk, or athena, or straight xlib, whatever ).

Disk space is not the issue, it is main store. (96M, I can't afford an
upgrade, and even if I could the upgrade will only take me to 128,
then I need a new motherboard).

-- 
Ian Zimmerman, Oakland, California, U.S.A. I did not vote for Emperor Bush.
GPG: 433BA087  9C0F 194F 203A 63F7 B1B8  6E5A 8CA3 27DB 433B A087