is Xfce getting too bloated ?

[Nikolas Arend]

purslow at sympatico.ca wrote:

>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.
>  
>
Whether the KDE services are an extra is a matter of opinion. I think 
they definitely are
and should be made optional. KDE applications are undoubtedly programmed 
to run and
integrate best under the native KDE environment. That's not very much in 
the spirit of *NIX
IMHO (more like Windows, actually) and creates "problems" (e.g. 
performance) when they get
started under a different environment (and that's what this is about, 
right?). I personally think
that KDE has to consider what way it'll take before the next major 
release. I've been
following KDE from the beginning and am stunned what it became. But it 
should always
remember what OS it's meant to run on, despite all user friendliness and 
configurablity
(which are important!). As xfce does not have a development platform, 
yet, maybe soon,
those issues did not arise so far.
I do use KDE apps, too, and I always wish they were qt-only. That does 
not mean that
the application is not a good one and not well written. Many are.

Sorry, this has nothing to do with xfce development, I'll shut up now.

>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).
>
>  
>
Well, xterm is working pretty well for me, what features does a terminal 
need to have? Ok,
you need to configure its appearance, but only once in the lifetime of 
your home profile.

>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.
>
>  
>
I guess there are other improvements compared to 4.0.x

As I said, I guess a part of this discussion should rather appear in a 
KDE mailing list.

Nick.