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LXQT instead of LXDE?

Posted: 28 Jul 2014, 10:42
by JosepZ
I'm not sure if this is the right section to start a thread about this, so please feel free to move it if needed.
Last week I read an announcement by Brokenman according to which LXDE would be replaced by LXQT in the next Porteus release (3.1). Although I've felt curious about LXQT since I first read about it, and I admit I can't wait to try it first hand, I can't help but wonder if it is the right move to replace the GTK version of LXDE so early, knowing that LXDE has a growing fan base (including myself), plus the facts that it has been proved to work beutifully, that it can be customized using GTK icons and themes designed for other GTK-based environments (XFCE and GNOME2/MATE), and more importantly, that according to PCMan himself it takes more resources to run than LXDE and even XFCE (http://blog.lxde.org/?p=1117).

Does someone else think it somehow misses the point of the original LXDE? Distros like Lubuntu and Raspbian were created to offer a lighter alternative to XFCE-based ones like Xubuntu. I agree that XFCE will grow in memory usage when in moves to GTK+3, and that's exactly PCMan's main point. He also says he can't stay with GTK+2 forever... but that's precisely what MATE will do, right? I don't think MATE will take the step towards GTK+3, unless it finally merges with Cinnamon, but that's another story.

What do you guys think? And I'm not asking for an opinion about LXQT; I trust PCMan enough to know it will be (and maybe already is) a great desktop environment. I just wonder if it is the right thing to switch to LXDE before the new port has been refined enough to reach the goals of the original project. Will you LXDE fans make the move to LXQT at once, or will you stay in the GTK bandwagon with either LXDE or XFCE?

Re: LXQT instead of LXDE?

Posted: 28 Jul 2014, 23:07
by brokenman
As much as I love gtk2 and want to hold on for as long as I can, it has to move on. This became evident today while trying to remove gtk3 from my XFCE build. I have a nice looking lightweight BASIC gtk2 only setup. So then I wanted to add to it a little. Oh no, transmission has moved to gtk3. Audacious has moved to gtk3 (actually they are switching back to gtk2 now) and many other applications are doing the same. Sure we can remain with the older versions but it makes more sense to look upstream and decide what will make life easier and more secure. Gnome-keyring and seahorse has gone to gtk3 which means gcr is also with it.

I think the gtk3 way needs to improve. There is a lot of argument about how it breaks things, changes and then breaks more things. I don't experience this so much because slackware stays stable and doesn't roll. But the truth is that natural selection rules and we eventually move on. I can totally understand why the merger took place. Moore's law dictates that technology will exponentially grow and decrease in price. This means memory and processing power too. The differences in memory usage that I see on your link are minimal. 100MB is nothing these days (can't even buy a 128Mb ram/memory stick today) unless you are using legacy equipment. I think this is the niche for gtk2.

To answer your question about other lightweight desktops ...
http://wiki.mate-desktop.org/status:gtk3

I think the crux of your question is really:
I can't help but wonder if it is the right move to replace the GTK version of LXDE so early ... What do you guys think?
I am also interested to see what others have to say about this.

Re: LXQT instead of LXDE?

Posted: 29 Jul 2014, 06:26
by JosepZ
The differences in memory usage that I see on your link are minimal. 100MB is nothing these days
Oh, please don't get me wrong; I don't think the difference is significant at all. But it's certainly a turning point as LXDE will not be the lightest desktop environment anymore. PCMan himself admits there's still room for optimization, and I'm sure it will one day become my desktop of choice. I just felt, when I read your announcement, that it might be too early to completely replace LXDE. I understand moving on from RazorQT since it has been discontinued and merged into LXQT.

[BTW, if someone here has managed to create an LXQT module for Porteus 3.0 (32-bit), I'd be delighted if they share it here. Can't wait to put my hands on that thing.]

I also think it's a good thing that LXDE and LXQT will coexist for a while. And as experience in the FOSS world has showed us, when PCMan announces the end of LXDE-GTK there'll probably be someone who steps in and forks the project porting it to GTK+3. :D
To answer your question about other lightweight desktops ...
http://wiki.mate-desktop.org/status:gtk3
Thanks for that; I had no idea this was happening. This is GOOD. I like MATE a lot, and this warrants its future.
Audacious has moved to gtk3 (actually they are switching back to gtk2 now) and many other applications are doing the same.
I didn't know they were switching back to GTK+2, but I'd read they are so pissed with GTK+3 they're considering moving it to Qt. It looks like a trend, really. I find this very exciting and relevant. For years Qt had been used almost exclusively by KDE and its apps. The arrival of LXQT (and formerly Razor) marks the first time another DE uses that toolkit, and that is definitely good. I want to see what non-KDE developers can do with it.

Re: LXQT instead of LXDE?

Posted: 04 Nov 2014, 22:49
by rych
brokenman wrote:...technology will exponentially grow and decrease in price. This means memory and processing power too. The differences in memory usage that I see on your link are minimal. 100MB is nothing these days...I am also interested to see what others have to say about this.
Could you still offer LXDE as an option? Or, if not, what is the next lowest in footprints desktop would you recommend? I, for example, often have to work on old university library computers. They don't upgrade their machines often. So every 100Mb counts. I use mostly Firefox, LyX (LaTeX editor), Skype.
Thanks.

Re: LXQT instead of LXDE?

Posted: 05 Nov 2014, 08:17
by fanthom
Could you still offer LXDE as an option?
there is no possibility for this unless i quit my job and send my family to outer space
what is the next lowest in footprints desktop would you recommend?
every user not happy with lxqt should switch to:
a) LXDE + FVWM developed by neko: http://forum.porteus.org/viewtopic.php?f=75&t=2966
b) openbox developed by ncmprhnsbl: http://forum.porteus.org/viewtopic.php?f=75&t=3988

why we decided to not offer LXDE anymore in our desktop selection set?
because LXDE will no longer be developed according to upstream:
http://blog.lxde.org/?p=1046
Looking further ahead, the GTK version of LXDE will be dropped and all efforts will be focused on the Qt port.

i'm kindly asking regular forum users to link to this answer when you spot lxdq->lxqt complaint (i'm expecting many).

thank you

Re: LXQT instead of LXDE?

Posted: 05 Nov 2014, 10:50
by brokenman
I would also like to personally thank ncmprhnsbl and neko for offering these alternatives. It means fanthom and I don't have to do more work. Please respect that we look ahead to what will require the least maintenance so we can work smarter and not harder since this is a volunteer project and we have families and jobs to maintain also.

PS: Fanthom if you decide on the 'outer space' thing let me know. I will grab an extra ticket. :evil:

Re: LXQT instead of LXDE?

Posted: 05 Nov 2014, 12:17
by sean
This is a good discussion. Again shows how Porteus Admins/Developers clearly and intelligently interact with the users.

I am always torn between which of the DE's to use. Since the furture of LXDE has been determined with the stated transition to LXQT, I resolved myself to give LXQT a good look and see what happens.

Improvements seem to come almost everyday in the form of updates on my Lubuntu system on which I have installed LXQt. It seems to be equally as fast as LXDE. At ver. 0.8.0 the major areas of merger IMHO appear to be the panel and the GUI configuration applications.

My first Linux DE experience was with Gnome, so should LXQt become a real PIA, I would easily fall back to Mate, or XFCE, which I'm familiar with also.

Should I have the opportunity to embarrass myself with a face to face question of the LXDE-LXQt transition people, I would ask why they don't use the LXDE panel (they could jump directly to 0.9.0). The existing LXDE panel seems complete, totally flexible, and it works. Their answer would, of course, be way over my head, thus fufilling the opportunity :-)

The feeling I get presently is that the panel is an afterthought, and they fix or add to it as complaints show up. It feels like maybe someone called and said they'd like a transparent background, so they add that feature. For me the panel in LXQt is a big deal, I hope it's not their last priority.

In the meantime, I have Porteus in my pocket all the time. I boot every machine I see with it and "everybody" loves what they see.

And fella's, let's keep your feet on the ground please, those spaceships aren't safe anymore......

Sean

Re: LXQT instead of LXDE?

Posted: 06 Nov 2014, 01:19
by biotec
@fanthom (and the rest of the team),

Sorry if you felt being pushed somehow, I was only trying to give some feedback. I don't wish you to quit your job and family, especially now that weather is getting really cold out there. As said before, I really appreciate Porteus. Regards.

Re: LXQT instead of LXDE?

Posted: 06 Nov 2014, 17:39
by francois
a) LXDE + FVWM developed by neko:
http://forum.porteus.org/viewtopic.php?f=75&t=2966
b) openbox developed by ncmprhnsbl:
http://forum.porteus.org/viewtopic.php?f=75&t=3988
lxde is lxde, isn't it? These are very reasonable alternatives. 8)

Re: LXQT instead of LXDE?

Posted: 06 Nov 2014, 22:54
by Ed_P
francois wrote:lxde is lxde, isn't it? This is a very reasonable alternative. 8)
Not if it's dropped from the servers. If wanted I recommend it be backed up now before it's gone. There's also the concern it won't run, or run well, on 3.1.

Re: LXQT instead of LXDE?

Posted: 31 Dec 2014, 22:03
by ElectriQT
fanthom wrote:
Could you still offer LXDE as an option?
there is no possibility for this unless i quit my job and send my family to outer space
:-)
why we decided to not offer LXDE anymore in our desktop selection set?
because LXDE will no longer be developed according to upstream:
http://blog.lxde.org/?p=1046
Looking further ahead, the GTK version of LXDE will be dropped and all efforts will be focused on the Qt port.

i'm kindly asking regular forum users to link to this answer when you spot lxdq->lxqt complaint (i'm expecting many).
thank you
Hi Fanthom & LXDE users
I found this when reading that blog:
http://blog.lxde.org/?p=1310
"LXPanel 0.8.0 released.
December 7, 2014 LStranger

As already was announced, the time to release next LXPanel has came. The release goals for 0.8 were:

complete multi-monitor support
improve and further simplify plugins API

It also happen to have better performance than before, that was a side effect of optimizations. The release 0.8.0 comes fully translated to 17 languages: Chinese (China), Dutch, Finnish, French, Galician, Ganda, German, Greek, Icelandic, Indonesian, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian. As usual, a lot of bugs were fixed, and you are welcome to report any bugs you happen to find yet. Work on LXPanel features will be continued shortly, stay in touch, it will become yet more convenient later. :)
New release tarball download link:
lxpanel-0.8.0.tar.xz –


And This:

http://blog.lxde.org/?p=1323
"A Status update for “LXDE”
November 18, 2014 PCMan 3 Comments

Yes, it’s about the gtk+ version LXDE, not LXQt.
Previously, razor-qt and lxde project merged and formed LXQt project, which just had a 0.8 release. Though the original plan was to migrate to Qt, this does not mean that LXDE is dropped. As many of the users have noted, many LXDE gtk+ components got updates recently. LXDE is still actively developed and maintained by the developers lead by Andrej N. Gritsenko (LStranger) and as long as gtk+ 2 is in use, I believe that they’ll keep working on it. We even got some patches for gtk+ 3 recently. Yes, gtk+ 3. This does not mean that LXDE is going to use gkt+ 3, but it’s a clear indicator that LXDE is not dead. If you’re not a fan of LXQt, don’t worry, you can still use LXDE. Also I want to say “thank you” again to LStranger who work really hard to keep LXDE so others can have some time to focus on LXQt while keeping our promise to the users.
About LXQt, the 0.8 version is quite stable and we have the required features, but of course it’s not good enough and have room for improvement. We’ll keep working on that, too. For the part I’m responsible for, the file manager, I’ll try to add the features that exist in the gtk+ versions but abscent in the Qt port. Also, I’m going to do more bechmarks for LXQt recently. Other developers are working on code cleanup and removing dependency on X11 so we can move to Wayland later.Both LXQt and LXDE are actively developed. Stay tunned! :-)


Good news it seems,
but I also understand that your family dont want to live in space for to long, so someone else need to take on this work I guess,

LXDE is really the very best in stability and performance in my tests

-What would you guys say is the major things that will make LXDE
hard to implement/use with the rest of a future Porteus base?

.

Re: LXQT instead of LXDE?

Posted: 02 Jan 2015, 11:51
by fanthom
there is a team behind LXQt which guarantees a steady development for this DE. we dont have this comfort with LXDE currently.
anyway - see my response here:
http://forum.porteus.org/viewtopic.php? ... 391#p30391