Dropping Base X group? [Was: Re: KDE logout options with F8]

[Patrice Dumas]

On Mon, Nov 05, 2007 at 01:01:13PM +0100, Matej Cepl wrote:
> On 2007-11-05, 09:59 GMT, Patrice Dumas wrote:
> 
> Well, it's confusing (at least for me) to distinguish between 
> WindowMaker and GNUStep -- at least in Debian (which I used 
> before coming to RedHat) WM tend to develop a list of wm-* 
> packages almost as long as g* and k* packages. I am not sure 

Ok, I don't know about that. Maybe a relevant comps group could be
something like gnustep desktop.

> > I don't think that dust will settle. The desktop is a moving 
> > target, with kde/gnome/xfce ruling freedesktop and having 
> > resources put by vendors in these efforts (redhat is a good 
> > example of a company pushing the desktop innovations which also 
> > means breaking existing apps).
> 
> Well, then probably point is to keep the list packages in DE just 
> as long as you and people who will be on it with you will be able 
> to maintain.  Moreover, it seems to me that (under the influence 
> of server guys, I think) many core changes in Fedora (thinking 
> pulseaudio, policykit, packagekit, and hopefully now even 
> NetworkManager) will be much more open to non-{Gnome,KDE} 
> environments.

I hope that too, but currently this is not the trend I am seeing. That
is the server/light DE will catch up, but then there will be a newer
breaking. 

> > I used xfce in the past (fedora 3, maybe 4?) but then it became 
> > to take time to launch, and then I switched to fluxbox.
> 
> Jus to make sure, that I understand -- you claim, that XFCE is 
> not as lightweight as it used to be, or in other words, that 
> their effort to build lightweight equivalent of Gnome failed?

It is much lighter than gnome, but heavier than fluxbox.

> > Nothing more is necessary for lightweight DE. Of course there are lots
> > of apps that can be optional but are suited for lightweight DE
> > (dockapps, gmrun, xdvi, xfig, conky, gv and many others...).
> 
> I don't know -- would you allow some email client, for example (I 
> heard a lot of good things about Sylpheed in this respect) or do 
> you expect most of the apps to be console ones running in 
> xterm/rxvt/whatever?

sylpheed seems to have a good record, but I personally use mutt.

Maybe what could be more interesting than a comps group which doesn't
seems to fit very well in my opinion, because of the diversity and
optionality, a spin with the most used light apps could be done. I dream
of that since a lot of time, but I don't think it is worth it as long as
the integration isn't good enough. Moreover I am not persuaded that it
would be useful, even though it should be fun.

--
Pat