is Xfce getting too bloated ?

[purslow at sympatico.ca]

041014 Olivier Fourdan wrote:
> Well, I've never seen any session manager being very fast,
> I guess it's due the the very nature of the session managers,
> as they have to start apps and wait for feedback or timeout, etc.
> This said, I think xfce4-session is pretty good in its class.

thanks for your customary polite & sensible response.

the point i really want(ed) to make is not so much that Xfce has got slower
-- though it has -- , but that KDE has got a lot faster in starting up.
there is very little difference in start-up time between KDE 3.3.0
before it starts applications (there's a bar & percent chart for it all)
& Xfce 4.0.6 without the session manager, 4.2 being about the same
or perhaps a bit slower due to the menu configuration.

i can't understand why others want to make an issue of KDE services,
which they describe as an extra when starting Xfce.
if you use the session manager -- after all, an important addition to 4.2 --
& you start a normal range of applications,
you are very likely to start some KDE items, which are among the best.
Xfce does not have a terminal -- really, it's too primitive to use -- 
nor a browser nor games, nor hopefully will it try to add such things
(ok maybe a terminal, if it ever gets fully worked out).

again, the issue is not how fast Xfce 4.2 is with or without session-managing,
but how much faster it is than its principal competitor, ie hardly at all.

> Another problem with the menu parsing.
> We are aware of the problem, but the standard is not simple.
> Brian said that he wants to rewrite part of the menu stuff,
> but we are in the beta release cycle,
> so it's not a good time for a rewrite now.
> Fortunately, there is the cache that dramatically improved things,
> and you can disable the menu from xfdesktop settings.

if i were to drop the desktop menu as well as session management,
there would be almost nothing to be gained by using 4.2 rather than 4.0.6 .
in fact, i probably have little daily use for the menu
-- all the applications i regularly use are in launchers --
& it's about as fast to start things by hand without the manager.

> So in a nutshell, you are probably right, but things aren't that bad
> and will hopefully improve in the 4.4 version
> (we need to leave some space for improvements in 4.4, don't we ;) )

thanks again for your response & as always for inventing Xfce.

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