OpenOffice.org Performance
cbbrowne-HInyCGIudOg at public.gmane.org
cbbrowne-HInyCGIudOg at public.gmane.org
Tue Nov 4 04:15:46 UTC 2003
> On Sun, Nov 02, 2003 at 10:10:20PM -0500, cbbrowne-HInyCGIudOg at public.gmane.org wrote
>
> > If you look at what is _actually happening_, there is nothing
> > ambiguous about it, except when you use ill-defined terms like
> > "running GNOME" to describe it.
> >
> > What you are _truly_ doing is "running X," along with some set of
> > libraries and applications in addition to some window manager that may
> > or may not have any kind of association with any of these projects.
> >
> > - KDE is not a window manager, as is quite well documented by that project.
> > - GNOME is not a window manager, as is rather less well documented.
> >
> > Both are far and away best described as "application frameworks."
>
> I deliberately used the word "desktop", not "window manager". The
> usual situation is...
> - X at lowest level
> - window manager on top of X
> - optional "desktop" on top of the window manager; cutsie icons strewn
> all over, and ooey-gui, touchy-feely interaction.
> - actual applications that do the work that you bought your computer
> to do
But that's not how the desktop environments function.
The "desktop" does NOT run 'on top of the window manager.' Applications
do NOT run "on top of" the desktop.
- The window manager... is an X application that runs atop X. That is
the ONLY necessarily special part; window managers are special in that
they are exclusive. You cannot run two window managers concurrently.
- The "desktop" is a set of X applications that run atop X.
- If you're running a "Panel", that is very much equivalent running a
program launcher like TkDesk or the "dock" modules in AfterStep and
WMaker.
- If you are running an "icon object manager," that generally puts in
an application that implements the equivalent to DFM
<http://www.kaisersite.de/dfm/> or Nautilus or such; programs which
try to open windows as large as possible and draw icons to represent
files or applications.
- GNOME and KDE both have 'server programs' that implement RPC
servers. GNOME somewhat prefers CORBA; KDE prefers DCOP. These may
not communicate with X; that's the closest we get to something that
isn't an "application running atop X."
You don't have to take my word for any of this; just look at the
"Developer's View" diagram. <http://www.kde.org/whatiskde/devview.php>
The only part that diagram shows that is at all "extra" to my
description is KParts, which, just like GNOME "Bonobo," is a way of
implementing parts of applications as embeddable widgets.
Which still leaves it all as a set of applications that invoke a bunch
of libraries that all run atop X.
The emperor has no clothing; they are nothing more or less than a set of
X applications. If you call it more, then you are fooling yourself into
thinking there's something truly special there.
The things that are _nearest_ to being "special" are the 'component
architecture' parts, but even that is something that dates back to the
Fresco system <http://www.fresco.org/> that came after InterViews, back
before Motif was created. Hardly anyone can remember that far back.
(Henry probably remembers further :-).)
--
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"Linux is not ready for the Enterprise. There is not a single
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Enterprise. Conspicuously absent are warp core control, phaser bank
activation, interstellar navigation, transporter operation, and the
all-important self-destruct sequence. Until these and thousands of
other important apps are written and deployed, Linux will just be a
toy in the Enterprise." -- Kevin Novak, Network Computing Magazine
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