Mono required by ubuntu-desktop

[Michael V. De Palatis]

On 7/30/06, Jamie McCracken <jamiemcc at blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
> You cant remove mono if ubuntu-desktop depends on it - it becomes
> compulsory for everyone regardless of whether they actually run any mono
> apps.
>
> I use mono apps on my desktop (2GB Ram) but have found most of them too
> much for my notepad (256MB  RAM). F-spot in particular can take close to
> 100MB when importing a modest no of photos and is therefore unsuitable
> for my notepad.
>
> Gthumb might not have all the bells and whistles but it is sufficient
> for my notepad. I would hope Ubuntu respects lower memory machines by
> not forcing users to use bigger bloated apps in place of more efficient
> native ones. Is it unreasonable to give us a choice at the desktop level
> without making mono or its apps compulsory?
>
> (I guess this will be a dilemma - do you design ubuntu to run on as many
> machines as possible which means making some of the bigger cooler apps
> optional or do you cater only for the high end by shipping only the best
> apps regardless of their size or resource consumption?)

I can certainly relate to this. I am the kind of person that prefers
running the less memory-intensive applications when using my laptop.
To me, it seems silly to use these mono applications that not everyone
uses when there are other options available. Another problem with
having mono in ubuntu-desktop is that that means that while removing
ubuntu-desktop will work, it makes upgrading to the next release
involve re-adding ubuntu-desktop (if following the instructions to the
letter), which in turn requires downloading yet more software that may
not be necessary and will just have to be uninstalled again later.

Just my two cents,

(p.s., sorry for you getting this message twice, Jamie... I hate gmail at times)

--
Mike