[clue-tech] LXDE -- New Desktop for Old/Slow Machines

Dennis J Perkins dennisjperkins at comcast.net
Mon Jul 7 21:55:30 MDT 2008


On Mon, 2008-07-07 at 21:24 -0600, Jed S. Baer wrote:
> On Mon, 07 Jul 2008 21:04:50 -0600
> Dennis J Perkins wrote:
> 
> > On Mon, 2008-07-07 at 19:34 -0600, Jed S. Baer wrote:
> > > Just caught a link to an article about LXDE, the Lightweight X11
> > > Desktop Environment. Check out the System Requirements here:
> > > http://lxde.org/about.html
> > > 
> > > Of course, it doesn't help out with running big apps such as
> > > OpenOffice. But even there, if the desktop environment is consuming
> > > less RAM and cycles, even OO should improve at least a little.
> >
> > It uses Gtk+, just like XFCE.  Any Gtk program like Gimp should run on
> > it.
> 
> That conflates the Desktop/Window Manager with the underlying system. The
> choice of desktop and WM software will mostly not limit the apps that can
> run. If I have the underlying libraries, I can run Gnome and KDE apps
> even if I'm running Fvwm as my window manager (there's no "desktop"
> environment at all with Fvwm, at least not in the sense of Gnome or KDE).
> Same with Fluxbox or IceWM. Back when I ran Fvwm all the time, I used
> mostly Gnome and GTK apps. IIRC, I also tried out Konqueror, and it ran,
> though I didn't care for it.
> 
> The only restrictions on running apps are those that are wedded
> specifically to features of a particular desktop. Things such as
> Kapplets, for example, I wouldn't expect to just dock into the
> FvwmButtons module. (I have no idea whether they'd just run as standalone
> apps. If they would then I could use the "Swallow" Fvwm module to pull
> them into a "button" in FvwmButtons.)
> 
> For that matter, if you're using the Gnome environment, you can certainly
> run KDE apps, as long as you have the underlying Qt libraries. And I run
> Gimp, Sylpheed, Galeon, and other GTK apps in KDE with no problems.
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I should have phrased that differently.  Gtk+ is a very good choice to
build a lightweight desktop.  It provides some features many programs
need, such as a common printing interface, window mechanism, etc, so
developers don't need to reinvent the wheel.  And I certainly would not
want to write X11 programs without a library like Gtk!  It would be too
painful.

Gtk doesn't have a lot of the additional features that Qt and the Gnome
libraries provide, so it fits into smaller memory better.  The fact that
LXDE used GTk means that some programs like Gimp, and I think Abiword,
can be used without needing a bunch of additional Gnome or KDE
libraries, which was the comment I tried to make earlier, but I didn't
explain it.  As soon as you start using those libraries, some of the
arguments for using a lightweight desktop instead of Gnome or KDE
disappear.  Not all, just some.



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