Ubuntu Finds New Love With Qt

[cl333r]

My only comment here is that including the qt-core and qt-gui libs on the Live CD will be difficult to impossible...

Replace tomboy with gnote and throw away gbrainy and the mono runtime and all its dependencies. There, space problem pretty much solved.

ps: Those (few) who think they absolutely need tomboy and can't live with gnote can install it.

[dalingrin]

For some reason -and i cannot explain it- i get the feeling that GTK is declining

Qt seems to have more support from big companies and gaining momentum.

Might be wrong though.

One of the reasons for GTK's adoption was because people were scared of Qt's longterm licensing. Now that Qt is available as LGPL I think it has quelled some people's fears. In addition, I honestly think Qt is a far more complete toolkit thanks to its corporate backing, not to mention easier to develop with in my opinion.

[pingufunkybeat]

I don't understand why people think that either GTK or Qt have to die.

They are both decent toolkits, and they have their developer bases.

Neither Windows nor Mac have just one toolkit, so why should Linux, where choice is revered?

A couple of high-quality themes which apply to both will solve the visual discrepancies, and then you're set.

[monraaf]

I've found the CD size distribution always a plus point, and am not particularly fond of this mixing of different toolkits. Keep in mind that this is not just CD/disk space we're talking about, but the extra toolkit libraries also need to be loaded in memory when running applications using these toolkits. May not be an issue on modern desktop systems, but might be on low end netbooks.

But the bigger issue for me is consistency, one thing I have always liked about GNOME is the minimalistic UI that doesn't get in the way. Developers of Qt apps on the other hand seem to more follow the Microsoft Windows philosophy, with cluttered UIs and too many options.

[RealNC]

I don't understand why people think that either GTK or Qt have to die.

Well, at least Gtk 2.x has to die. It looks like ass on anything but Gtk-based DEs. Every time I fire up a Gtk app on KDE, I want to kill a bunny and curse at God for allowing people to create such monstrosities. Hopefully Gtk 3 solved that?

[pingufunkybeat]

Well, at least Gtk 2.x has to die. It looks like ass on anything but Gtk-based DEs. Every time I fire up a Gtk app on KDE, I want to kill a bunny and curse at God for allowing people to create such monstrosities. Hopefully Gtk 3 solved that?

I used to feel like that about Gtk 1

Gtk 2 was a marked improvement!

[dalingrin]

But the bigger issue for me is consistency, one thing I have always liked about GNOME is the minimalistic UI that doesn't get in the way. Developers of Qt apps on the other hand seem to more follow the Microsoft Windows philosophy, with cluttered UIs and too many options.

I'm assuming Canonical will be taking this into account when choosing applications. That said, I don't completely agree with you. There are plenty of Qt applications with a minimal UI.

[89c51]

I don't understand why people think that either GTK or Qt have to die.

They are both decent toolkits, and they have their developer bases.

Neither Windows nor Mac have just one toolkit, so why should Linux, where choice is revered?

A couple of high-quality themes which apply to both will solve the visual discrepancies, and then you're set.

we are also going to have e17 in a few months (or years who knows )

what bothers me is having a non consistent desktop experience with apps looking like shit.

we also need central configuration for the toolkits (have no idea if its achievable) and matching themes

it would be better resource wise to have one toolkit or at least a big set of common libraries (ie why do we need both ffmpeg and gstreamer and whatever else does the same job)

[Yfrwlf]

That's all nice, Qt fanboys now rejoice, now let's solve some real Linux problems.

Thanks for that, glad to know there are users out there who care about open source software as a whole. I was happy to read concerns about real open standards was mentioned and is part of the concern, as "standards within distro X" by definition means they are not standards.

I don't think so.

But the rise of MeeGo will make Qt much more relevant in the future.

If MeeGo finally ever truly sees the light of day. I'm very much looking forward to the ARM coalition to standardize the arch and maybe then we'll finally have devices that we can buy and install ARM Linux software on just like they were any standard computer without having to have specific compiled software for specific devices the way it is now.

Not to mention, the cellular companies with their anti-standards contract-based device-lock-in market aren't helping on that front, at least not in America. Oh Europe and your government-mandated pro-consumer standards like SIM cards, how I envy thee.

Replace tomboy with gnote and throw away gbrainy and the mono runtime and all its dependencies. There, space problem pretty much solved.

ps: Those (few) who think they absolutely need tomboy and can't live with gnote can install it.

Gnote is awesome and is a complete replacement for Tomboy so I don't know where the love for .NET lies because even complaints about .NET being a better programming language can be erased thanks to language choices like Vala, which is better as it is not a "managed environment"/VM or whatnot like .NET is, so it's faster.

we are also going to have e17 in a few months (or years who knows )

what bothers me is having a non consistent desktop experience with apps looking like shit.

we also need central configuration for the toolkits (have no idea if its achievable) and matching themes

it would be better resource wise to have one toolkit or at least a big set of common libraries (ie why do we need both ffmpeg and gstreamer and whatever else does the same job)

Basically what Gallium is for graphics drivers is what is needed on this front too, fully agreed. In other words, abstracting/separating the actual visual look/theme from the underlying GUI core. Then if you wanted to use GTK for the core, or Qt for the core, it wouldn't matter as it'd still look the same.

The same thing needs to be done to the Linux kernel too so there are actually real standard interfaces for drivers. I refuse to believe that it's impossible to have a standard method of communication between system components that can't be made in such a way to allow for upgrades while maintaining compatibility. If you can have systems like DBus, you can have communication standards between drivers and other parts of the kernel.

[evolution]

Well, it seems Ubuntu developers finally woke up and are forgetting (a bit) that there's only GNOME/GTK+ apps/desktop in the linux world...

I also hope they start to develop some lightweight applications using the Qt framework instead of GTK+. It wouldn't just be good for Ubuntu, but maybe also for other distros...

About some people saying Qt is a too huge application: Well, if you're compiling Qt in your PC along their debug libraries, you'll take about 700MB of installation (Qt 4.7).
If you're compiling all main Qt runtime libraries (QtDevelop, QtCore, QtWebkit, QtMultimedia, QtPhonon, etc.), you'll have a full-blown access to them with about "just" 100MB of disk space.
If you just want to compile the main Qt "Core", it isn't bigger in your disk than 20MB.

Cheers