GNOME dependencies

[Jim Campbell]

I've forwarded the start of this thread on to the Free Geek Chicago [1]
mailing list to seek their input.  They use Xubuntu on all donated machines,
and all of them are lower hardware - a typical machine is a PII @ 450mhz
with 256MB ram.  Every once in a while they'll get a PIII or something, but
they almost never ship a computer out with more than 256mb of RAM.

The apps that go on the machines are xmms, Open Office (yes, they make the
sacrifice) and then some mp3 & flash support.  CD burning is not an issue
just because these machines don't have CD burners on them.

I've worked on a number of these machines.  They're slow.  It's easy to
forget how slow a 450mhz processor really is.  Hopefully they'll be able to
provide some good input on their situation.

I would kind of like to see actual figures on how much each additional gnome
library [2] would take up.  Does anyone know of any apps or tools that can
be used to measure the system resources used by a library?

Also, I'm going to be taking an inventory of apps used by several of the
Xfce-based distros listed on distrowatch.  I should have that available
shortly, and will post it to the ML.

Jimbabwe

[1] http://www.freegeekchicago.org
[2] http://www.somashamans.com/picture_of_the_week_28.jpg


On 8/9/07, Jani Monoses < jani.monoses at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Obviously there's no easy solution to this problem right now. If Gnome
> > apps have to be installed by default, so be it. I just hope it doesn't
> > become a trend.
>
> Guys, we cannot all admit that we do not use some of the apps we ship, but
> stick to them and
> force them upon inexperienced users.
>
> Just for the sake of whatever kind of correctness or out of principle stay
> away from GNOME apps?
>
> Here are other possible consequences of this hypothetical Xubuntu+GNOME
> apps unification:
>
> - we share more apps with Ubuntu, thus spend developer time on improving
> them and benefit from
> their developer efforts. Bug triaging efforts are similarly easier. Both
> desktops get better.
>
> - Xubuntu is a lot closer to a friendly desktop and no it's not "90% GNOME
> OMG!" but same
> lighter desktop with some apps from GNOME but which are only started
> explictly. OpenOffice
> included is not good even as a joke though ;)
>
> -Since the apps are shared Xubuntu is way more likely to get commercial
> 24/7 support from Canonical or
> companies elsewhere as there's a smaller extra burden of dealing with new
> bugs and use cases.
> That can open a whole new segment of users to it.
>
> Please let's think of this only in technical terms and user experience
> terms, leaving our developer bias
> and possibly gnome induced traumas of the past at the door ;)
>
> Again, as in the OP I'd like to hear opinions of deployers of Xubuntu (or
> derivatives). They have more
> close-hand experience with users and can say whether this direction would
> help or annoy them
>
> We can discuss this all we can on the list, but we're not the typical
> Xubuntu user.
>
> Jani
>
>
> --
> xubuntu-devel mailing list
> xubuntu-devel at lists.ubuntu.com
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/xubuntu-devel
>
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