Experiment: Living without using GTK apps

The fact that a user of KDE don't want to use apps GTK, or which users of GNOME don't want to use apps QT, to many of us it seems absurd, but those who think so have some reason.

It is proven (at least from my personal experience) that an application GTK en KDE consumes much more than its counterpart written in QT / QML. On the other hand, install an application KDE en GNOME it entails dragging a bunch of dependencies in most cases.

Distributions like Chakra They have a strong policy on this, but you don't need to have to install this distro to achieve that goal. On the weekend I gave myself the task of trying not to use GTK applications on my KDE + ArchLinux And this was the result.

There are several alternatives for the most famous GTK applications, but we will see the two that I use the most:

Mozilla Firefox

For Firefox we have several options such as: Arora, rekonq, Konqueror or Qupzilla. All of them very light and fast, but they have some small drawbacks, at least for me:

  1. They do not have extensions, or not the amount that Firefox has.
  2. The interface of some of these applications is very little customizable.
  3. It gives us a lot of options, but sometimes things are missing, such as an advanced configuration for those of us who use Proxies.

In all this Mozilla Firefox outperforms all competing apps.

However, if I have to recommend one of them for daily use, I would say that rekonq or failing that Konqueror they are not the best option. why? Well, because sometimes they have errors, for example, when using the keyboard shortcuts in the editor WordPress.

Therefore, the winner if we have to use a browser written in Qt is: Arora.

Pidgin

Honestly, this messaging client has very few competitors that can match it. In the case of KDE we have two options:

  1. Kopete
  2. KDE Telepathy

Neither of the two is a good option for me, not only because of the poor support they have for various messaging services, but because there is no human way to manage a Sock5 Proxy in a satisfying way.

Pidgin it manages multiple accounts in an extraordinary way, its consumption is not high and it has never disappointed me. I use it for basic things, no Webcam or Micro, so in these sections I cannot comment on anything.

Conclusions

These are the only two GTK applications that I use most frequently and so far they are unrivaled, therefore I would not feel very comfortable using distributions like Chakra.

The spell checker of the browsers KDE is solved by installing the packages aspell-is y hunspell-it, but there is the issue of little customization that can be given, something contradictory if we take into account how customizable the Desktop Environment is.

So for these and other reasons, I'll have to keep dragging around with GTK apps for now, like it or not.


70 comments, leave yours

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked with *

*

*

  1. Responsible for the data: Miguel Ángel Gatón
  2. Purpose of the data: Control SPAM, comment management.
  3. Legitimation: Your consent
  4. Communication of the data: The data will not be communicated to third parties except by legal obligation.
  5. Data storage: Database hosted by Occentus Networks (EU)
  6. Rights: At any time you can limit, recover and delete your information.

  1.   msx said

    Chakra's impetus for using only KDE SC is related above all to the base system, understanding the concept of Chakra as the base system as the 'true base system', that is, the bare distribution, properly speaking, and the complete and functional KDE SC environment. about her.

    Now, that in no way means that they are against using Gtk applications and in fact that is why Chakra seeks to implement mechanisms that:
    1. provide the necessary Gtk applications
    2. Avoid the mezcal of libraries and especially unnecessary compilations related to Gtk.
    3. Avoid mixing Gtk files, considered foreign, with system files.

    Or, as I put it on the Chakra forum:
    «[…] Regarding Chakra being Gtk free I feel this is a very misunderstood topic. Chakra was born as a KDE oriented AL flavor and later decided to go on its own so the logical decision was to build it from the ground up oriented to be fully KDE and Qt compatible while dropping out any system requirement that expressly needs any Gtk library if that could be replaced with it's respective KDE counterpart. This way we would end with a clean, cohesive, sleek, light and fast environment that didn't added an extra weight on the base system while at the same time would let the developer team focus on polishing the desktop experience of KDE SC. »

    Currently thanks to the great work of Manuel Tortosa, one of the main devs, Chakra successfully migrated from its bundle system to a / extra directory that replicates the system's directory structure but where all the applications and libraries related to it are hosted. Gtk.

    Ref .: http://chakra-project.org/bbs/viewtopic.php?pid=74084#p74084

  2.   GoDiva said

    "I'll have to keep dragging for now with GTK applications, like it or not"

    What a diva!

  3.   msx said

    I forgot: 1st!

  4.   Juanlu said

    Well, I am in the opposite situation. I will give two examples:

    ** Calculator **: Speedcrunch is * vastly * superior to the Gnome calculator. It has a screen where the previous operations appear, syntax highlighting, tables with physical and mathematical constants ... and I could go on, but honestly there is no color.

    ** Text Editor **: I don't like Eclipse-like IDEs, but I like that my text editor is powerful, and again I have to say that Kate is far superior to Gedit. Of course if we get picky someone will suggest that I switch to Emacs, Vim, Ed or use butterflies (http://xkcd.com/378/).

    And this has been a comment almost without thinking about it with the two applications that I use the most, but if we investigate a little more we could also get clear advantages of applications written in Qt or KDE: Okteta is another example that comes to mind.

    Regards!

    1.    msx said

      Emacs! Emacs! Emacs !!!
      Theirs is a lack of respect don @Juanlu: Emacs is not a 'text editor' it is an operating system in itself! A Lisp virtual machine that allows you to do anything - including reprogramming itself live - like the coolest console text editor of all time.

      Greetings 😉

      1.    eliotime3000 said

        That's the idea.

  5.   ge said

    One point: Chakra allows the installation and use of GTK applications. You just have to activate the extra repository. The main difference is that these applications use their own filesystem (/ extra / opt, / extra / etc /, / extra / usr /) and do not mix with QT / KDE. But you can use Firefox, Chromum, Pidgin etc.

    1.    elav said

      Yes, I just soaked up the matter thanks to the MSX comment. 😉

      1.    stormrider.of.theli said

        Dear Elav, please, in that case it would be nice to clarify the comment in the article when talking about Chakra. Someone reads this article and may have a misconception as to what this distro can and cannot do.

  6.   Rayonant said

    Man already Msx I explain to you with hair and signals the subject of Chakra, and if it were not for that I understand that they do not have a local repository of Chakra, I would surely recommend it for you to use it, yes, you still depend on two GTKm applications (which to be sincerely I would not replace and I still do not do in my partition with Chakra) but that both are in the Extra repository to install them without any problem.

  7.   vicky said

    Well, the spell checker in Qupzilla worked very well for me.

    1.    elav said

      Not to me: '(How do you do it?

      1.    vicky said

        I was using the git version, maybe that's why. Also check if you have aspell or hunspell installed.

        1.    elav said

          Uff, I feel like an idiot .. I did not have either package installed. Leave, update the post and clarify it .. O_O

  8.   Gregory Swords said

    My two GTK applications that hold me back from having pure KDE: Firefox and Gimp. To a lesser extent Pidgin and LibreOffice.

    1.    xykyz said

      idem for my part

    2.    elav said

      Now that you mention it, with LibreOffice the exact same thing happens to me. Calligra can be used, but still not up to the mark.

    3.    just-another-dl-user said

      I've used GIMP in KDE and it's a nightmare, I can't even draw a line fluently, everything is pure lag.
      I have also tried LibreOffice and cannot type the letter "ñ" or the accents.

      1.    msx said

        My work involves the creation of graphic content that I do thanks to The GIMP, Inkscape and Blender - I NEVER HAVE A PROBLEM WITH THEM

      2.    msx said

        (Comment cut off)

        […] When I was using Arch Linux and I never had problems in Chakra either.

        Regarding your problem with the letter 'ñ' I am also absolutely unaware of it (I write this from Chakra [stable] a day + 107 CCR packages).

        Arch Linux is a magnificent distribution that by its very nature and dynamics requires RTFM or, in this, the F * wiki - and generally some other external resource - to properly configure the graphical environments and installed applications. Perhaps in your particular case the error may be there or some incompatibility of HW not detected.

        But that GIMP in KDE is a nightmare is an absolute fallacy, comments like yours are a nightmare!

        1.    eliotime3000 said

          In that case, it would be "RTFW"

  9.   stormrider.of.theli said

    In Chakra, these applications have official support. The surveys in the extra repository, which is the repository where in addition to Firefox and Pidgin you can find other GTK applications such as Skype, Gimp, Filezilla, Chromium, etc.

    More information here: http://thechakrabay.wordpress.com/2013/05/08/el-repositorio-extra-listo-para-ser-usado-y-los-bundles-dejan-de-funcionar/

  10.   truko22 said

    The chakra team, replaced the bundles with the optional repositories [extra] (http://www.chakra-project.org/packages/index.php?subdir=extra%2Fx86_64&sortby=name) there is a large number of the excellent GKT applications, in addition to components and libraries, that can be used in the ccr (the equivalent of aur) only with the change (prefix = / extra / usr).

    1.    truko22 said

      The gkt apps I use, firefox-opensuse and amule everything else kde / Qt

      1.    msx said

        truko22 rulez !!!

  11.   Blazek said

    At the moment when applications like firefox, gimp or libreoffice work native on the libraries of kde, I change without thinking twice to kde.

    1.    elav said

      Man, I use them with full Appearance integration .. O_O

      1.    Blazek said

        Yes, but as you indicate in the article, the performance is noticeable, in addition to the extra disk space for dependencies.

        1.    pandev92 said

          I do not notice any difference in performance, that is silly, it is like saying that if an application is not written in .net, then you are not going to use it in windows, because the performance is noticeable, but what wttttf xD?

          1.    Blazek said

            It depends on the computer you are using, obviously a current computer with 4 GB of Ram and a Dual Core is not going to notice practically anything but in more modest computers it is noticeable.

        2.    msx said

          Ahhh… c'on… come on! The extra "disk space" they can use is _trivial_, no matter how old-fashioned the equipment is!
          Today any high resolution image or video easily exceeds 100mb, several times more than the extra space that these applications may need!

          We are in 2013, not 2003! 😉

  12.   just-another-dl-user said

    A query Is it very difficult to port an application from GTK to QT and vice versa?
    I would like to learn how to do that and contribute to free software.

  13.   renato said

    And wasn't QT supposed to be the solution to everything and that it worked well on all platforms? I have seen that in many forums.

  14.   vicky said

    Well, I no longer care if an application is in qt or gtk (and the truth is that I do not notice so much difference in performance)
    I am not going to stop using Smplayer2, vlc, clementine grooveOff or PhotoQt because they are written with qt. Same with firefox, libreoffice and chromium for gtk.

  15.   lovelltux said

    Greetings, Elav in your tests of web browsers in QT you do not include Opera, I imagine that you missed including it or you have not tested it well, if not for that, tell us your opinion about Opera in your installation with KDE.

    1.    elav said

      Is Opera QT? I find out now O_O
      As far as I understood, Opera used the graphics library that we are using, be it GTK, QT or another.

      1.    lovelltux said

        Certainly, I correct myself. Opera used the QT graphic libraries until version 10.50. Appearance of this version starts using the X11 libraries .. sorry for the mistake 🙂, but you could still use it, it integrates well in kde

  16.   pandev92 said

    Right now the only gtk application that I have on my pc is google chrome ... the rest I don't even touch, much less the gtk3 which are not compatible with qtcurve.

    1.    Albert I said

      There is Opera, which as long as it does not use the new engine is usable within the need of not using gtk applications and libraries.

      1.    pandev92 said

        The opera 12 in speed does not even reach half of the chrome 30 ..., and at least in the chrome 30 I can use the flash player pepper xd

        1.    eliotime3000 said

          And I keep waiting for Opera to update its version because I hate how it displays the page.

  17.   Javier Orozco said

    Of the browsers that you name, possibly the most developed and functional is Qupzilla, but I will provide a small detail about the dictionaries and that almost no one takes into account (And DuckDuckGoeando I have not seen references to it).

    It is as simple as installing the package "huspell-es", restarting any of the browsers in question (Although I think it is only possible for Qupzilla and Rekonq, I have only tried it in the first one) and you will have the dictionary in Spanish (Perhaps it is disabled the spell correction option in the settings, activating it is ready and working, normally with a right click on any text box where you are writing), it is complete even by region (Hispanic Americans, Spain ...).

    sudo pacman -S huspell-en

    regards

    1.    Javier Orozco said

      Errata, it's Hunspell, I ate the "n" for writing at the races.

      sudo pacman -S hunspell-en

    2.    elav said

      Yes, that's right .. It has worked perfectly for me in Qupzilla .. 😀

      1.    Javier Orozco said

        It would not be bad if they published an article about it, it is something simple but I have not seen that they name it on the net, several use these browsers without the spell checker thinking that it cannot be used or that they do not have it.

      2.    Javier Orozco said

        I see you have added it to the post, excellent 😉

    3.    linuxerolibre said

      it is said «dukear» 😛

      1.    chinoloco said

        People like you

        1.    cookie said

          BOY… THAT ESCALATED QUICKLY

      2.    eliotime3000 said

        Quack!

      3.    facundokd said

        Question: Are you the one from Taringa?

  18.   majority said

    I do use Firefox but in the case of Mageia 3 the packagers do a good job with certain patches that give it a good look in KDE by the way KDE 4.10.5

  19.   Trauma said

    In my case, it's 3 GTK2's that I can't live without:

    Firefox (so far, unrivaled. Not Google Chrome).
    gkrellm (reasonably configurable, single process).
    Claws-mail (magnificent mail client, very configurable, with multiple modules).

    I recently abandoned KDE mainly due to its slow loading (and the fact that it needs MySql installed, when not using Nepomuk). I recognize a tremendous quality to your applications. Especially Dolphin; its filter bar makes me terribly comfortable, and no GTK application so far offers me anything similar.

    In the end, I have opted for XFCE + most Qt applications, with some GTK2 (GTK3 is removed from my system completely). The only GTKs there are are:
    * XFCE components.
    *Tilda.
    * Claws-mail.
    *Firefox.
    *XArchiver
    * SWeep (to cut .MP3 files and make custom melodies for mobile)

    The integration of the themes is acceptable, more with a set of KDE icons (not to require GTK3).

    It keeps bugging me with the different configuration services of the GTK applications. gconf2, gconf, dconf, xfconf for XFCE. Each of his father and mother.

    Another subject for improvement is gvfs. Recommend gvfs-backends, which in turn requires GTK3. Fortunately, I don't need Samba or the like, and I can live without the backends, but it's a hassle. Plus glib-networking services, I don't even know what to do.

    In short, they can be lived together, but the result is usually useless consumption, and slower loading. But that's what there is.

  20.   eliotime3000 said

    While I have just arrived in the lands of KDE, I hardly use Iceweasel and Icedove very often on Debian, in addition to the occasional app that really supports QT. Luckily Transmission has its QT version and I'm doing great.

  21.   tanrax said

    I propose another experiment that I did: live a day without Google. That includes your search engine, gmail, maps ...

    1.    eliotime3000 said

      Easy: DuckDuckGo, OpenPublicMail, OpenStreetMap, Vimeo ...

  22.   bleed said

    Well, what if we don't please anyone and we use finch directly (.-.)?

    1.    eliotime3000 said

      or Tron.

  23.   rainbow_fly said

    Yep, the only two GTK apps I use

    In fact, I would use Kopete if it had facebook support (it always throws a protocol error that doesn't make sense)

    The only option qt to firefox is qupzilla, but it is poorly designed and makes it uncomfortable

    the dear Rekonq and Konqueror only know how to close themselves in any random situation

    1.    Albert I said

      my KDE Telepathy works very well with facebook, so you can use an application that is linked to the system

  24.   Dante Mdz. said

    Lots of bold words!
    Now, regarding the article, I don't think I can find a replacement for the GTK applications that I use most frequently (curiously the same ones you mention).
    It is a good exercise to imagine alternatives or what can be done when you want to replace an application.

  25.   xunilinuX said

    By when will Firefox port to QT? It's GTK2, they didn't even port it to GTK3 xD
    It is the only thing that the QT ecosystem lacks in my view ... a good browser that has extensions and all the ball, like Firefox ...
    Rekonq the times I tried it was a disaster, it closed all the time and QupZilla is very good, but it lacks that it is compatible with Firefox extensions and that it does not close out of nowhere like Rekonq,

    They were commenting on Gimp and LibreOffice ... As a replacement for Gimp you can use Krita which is excellent and LibreOffice does not require GTK. nor QT

    And with installing GTK apps in QT environments is as I always say, FOR ME it is absurd unless you need it a lot and there is no replacement in QT ... If you want to install a Gnome app it drags you a lot of dependencies and if it is a standalone app will also drag you things like gtk-doc-utils or gtk-update-icon-cache (to name a few). Those things that screw me (Unless I'm in GTK). I am very purist, I do not like to fill the package system, I try to be as clean as possible ...

    1.    truko22 said

      Firefox Qt would be great 😀

      1.    Emiliano said

        At some point some versions were compiled using QT ... I don't know where all that will be

    2.    lewatoto said

      the problem with krita is to configure the pressure sensitivity of the graphics tablets since by default it is only compatible with wacoms.

  26.   giskard said

    I, on the other hand, what I do NOT use or bullets are native KDE applications because the weight of everything that must be installed is prohibitive. I'm doing very well with GTK. The interesting thing is that I can run QT stuff without the KDE paraphernalia.

  27.   Emiliano said

    I always liked KDE much more, I am a Designer and I work mainly with Inkscape, Gimp and Scribus. I have many errors in Ink running on KDE, especially when using keyboard combinations and when using the guides.

    At the moment I am still tied to GTK.

    Very good post, greetings!

  28.   Juanlu said

    Sorry, has my comment been deleted for any particular reason?

    1.    Juanlu said

      Forget what I said was on the other page jiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii 🙂

  29.   carma said

    You need to name Ekiga who does not have an equal in kde