Kubuntu without GTK

[NickStone]

I was playing with Chakra Linux the other day on a live DVD and I thought it was quite refreshing to know that its distro does not have access to any GTK apps either pre-installed or within its repository and I got to thinking would Kubuntu benefit from having such a philosophy?

So my question to you (the community) is, if in a future version of Kubuntu it came without a single GTK app pre-installed (that includes Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice Gparted etc.) would you be happy to just use the QT equivalent?

Answers on a postcard or the back of a sealed down envelope to...

[lcorken]

I like Firefox, rarely use Gimp but when I need it I need it. GTK sucks but sometimes there is not a good alternative.
I don't use computers for anything really important but I seem to have some rather odd and eclectic interests.

After trying many other distros I usually find some app that is not available on those other distros that is easy to install on Kubuntu. So, far I have always come back to Kubuntu because I am to lazy to figure out how to find and compile from source code.

Some time ago I tried Arch. After finally getting it to work I later found they changed something (QT to QT4 ?) what ever it was I had to remove stuff and reinstall to keep it current. Back to Kubuntu. I am feeling the itch to try something like Chakra so will try that on a spare partition one of these days.

Ken.

[mr_raider]

Can someone enlighten me as to the evils of GTK?

[Snowhog]

There aren't any. GTK vs QT is merely a 'purist' issue IMO.

[Jimmy.P]

I was playing with Chakra Linux the other day on a live DVD and I thought it was quite refreshing to know that its distro does not have access to any GTK apps either pre-installed or within its repository and I got to thinking would Kubuntu benefit from having such a philosophy?

So my question to you (the community) is, if in a future version of Kubuntu it came without a single GTK app pre-installed (that includes Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice Gparted etc.) would you be happy to just use the QT equivalent?

Answers on a postcard or the back of a sealed down envelope to...

I'm for one loved the Chakra mentality from the beginning. No GTK only QT. I used to use Chakra in the early years of their development. But they ran into some trouble with devs. That's when I left their project.

I alway do a minimal install from the netboot and choose to install only QT apps except for Firefox, their is no better browser that is coded in QT. I don't mind GTK apps but I think more and more will switch to QT. Just look at Wireshark and LXDE!

I'm for one don't think GTK is evil but i don't belong in my computer, just Firefox
I use Kingsoft office instead of Libreoffice wich I think is coming along really good.

So in my opinon I think Kubuntu is really offering the best apps their is right now. Maybe one day they will offer a QT only iso but first they must have a good browser and second a good office suit that can handle Microsofts extension. That's where Calligra fail really big.

[lcorken]

There aren't any. GTK vs QT is merely a 'purist' issue IMO.

Yes, what Snowhog said.

There have been many flame wars about QT vs GTK. Here is my way of doing a quick popularity contest. Based on the following it seems QT sucks more than GTK and GTK+ combined but QT also rocks more.

googled these terms and got this many results. Admittedly meaningless but mildly entertaining.

qt sucks About 1,120,000 results (0.28 seconds)
gtk sucks About 106,000 results (0.28 seconds)
gtk+ sucks About 27,700 results (0.33 seconds)

qt rocks About 4,300,000 results (0.35 seconds)
gtk rocks About 163,000 results (0.33 seconds)
gtk+ rocks About 542,000 results (0.38 seconds)

Ken.

[jlittle]

Can someone enlighten me as to the evils of GTK?

There's two things, really, though the first did not really rate as "evil" at first.
1. GTK apps don't integrate as well as Qt ones with Qt-based KDE. IMO this wasn't so bad a while ago, thanks to open desktop standards, but as the DEs developed beyond the standards the problems increase.
2. GTK3. The Gnome 3 project seems to have been infected with a large dose of "we know best" arrogance, and have transmitted it to the toolkit, which IMO should serve a wider world. For a long time GTK was the best choice for cross-platform GUI development, but the rewrite required to go from GTK2 to GTK3, and the changes in UI forced by their attitude, has some projects jumping ship to Qt.

Regards, John Little

[mdshaver]

Firefox and Chrome/Chromium are the best browsers on linux in terms of website compatibility. Rekonq and QupZilla are decent but not quite mature enough. As far as office suites, Calligra is getting better but is not very stable and lacks many mission critcal features. LibreOffice is a better choice but KDE integration is no longer maintained. Kmail/KOrganizer does not support Microsoft EWS so I need to use Thunderbird. Dolphin, Okular, and K3B are the best! The plasma desktop is great! Amarok isn't too bad either. There are many greater QT/KDE science apps (Veusz, RKWard, Mendeley).

[kubicle]

Firefox and Chrome/Chromium are the best browsers on linux in terms of website compatibility. Rekonq and QupZilla are decent but not quite mature enough. As far as office suites, Calligra is getting better but is not very stable and lacks many mission critcal features. LibreOffice is a better choice but KDE integration is no longer maintained. Kmail/KOrganizer does not support Microsoft EWS so I need to use Thunderbird. Dolphin, Okular, and K3B are the best! The plasma desktop is great! Amarok isn't too bad either. There are many greater QT/KDE science apps (Veusz, RKWard, Mendeley).

Chrome/Chromium is switching from GTK2 to Aura (the toolkit used in ChromeOS) in version 35
And Firefox and libreoffice aren't technically GTK software, firefox (and thunderbird) uses XUL and libreoffice uses VCL

That is not to say there aren't great gtk software out there. Or that one should aim for "kubuntu without GTK".

[kc1di]

I find I have to use some gtk apps and that doesn't bother me at all, because I have the philosophy to use the best suited program for each task I must do.
and Qt though good in most area's just does not at this time fulfill that requirement. I use Thunderbird for e-mail /libre Office QT office programs just are not there yet, but getting better.
so I would not like to see Kubuntu go purely QT. there may come a day when they can do that. but it's not now. if you for whatever reason want pure QT - then by all means run Chakra or some other pure QT version but don't think Kubuntu would at this time benefit from that philosophy.

[whatthefunk]

I tried to go GTK free once....it sucked. The problem is that in many cases there is simply not a QT alternative. Web browsers, for example. Yes, there is Rekonq, but it is god aweful slow and lacks features and extensions that Firefox and Chrome have. Office software is another example. Calligra is great if you want to write personal things, but it cant save in Microsoft format so it's useless in my opinion. And then all the little things you dont think about. Things like the NVIDIA System Settings program, ibus etc. I absolutely need these things. My computer is worthless without them. But Im pretty sure they are GTK apps. If you wanted to make a pure distro, youd have to do that work yourself I think. In the end, it doesnt matter at all whether your program is QT or GTK as long as it does what you want it to do.