Talk:HOWTO Lightweight package selection (using Xfce and suitable for office usage)

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[edit] No KDE?

WTH? Okay, having both qt AND gtk libs running will stress your system, but qt itself isn't bad! In fact, some tests have made clear that having a qt-only system is lighter than gtk-only. - Tulcod

KDE has little to do with being lightweight: it pulls in many dependencies, requires much build time, is bloated (in my view; i.e. offers unneeded functionality) and has an unpleasant foot-print on System memory. This page obviously has a certain preference for GTK+ applications. However, it tries not to discriminate against applications based on other toolkits (be it QT or else), provided that it "out-performs" a GTK+ application or has no such equivalent. Then, it's up to the user to decide how she manages her system. The article does little more than presenting package selection suggestions. --Landroni 05:59, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

GTK pulls in loads of dependencies as well, but they are smaller and more modular. Which is bad in this case, because different applications might use different libraries which effectively do the same, which effectively means that libraries for some goal are loaded twice. With KDE and QT, one big lib is loaded to unify all these apps, and reducing the amount of times libs with the same purpose are loaded simultaneously. I'm not saying this page should address KDE and QT instead of GTK+, but it shouldn't put as a fact that KDE and QT are heavier than GTK+, because that is simply not true. The way to make your system light is by not loading stuff you don't need, and, most importantly, not loading the same things twice. Just choose either GTK+ or QT. In this case, the article chose for GTK+. Then explain how to avoid QT. But don't say QT is heavy. Agreed, QT has elements that seem like bloat, like its string classes, but they are all there for a purpose. Yes, copied code, but with a purpose, and it seems to be successful. Tulcod