[Kexi] Kexi with QT only

[Jaroslaw Staniek]

On 2 April 2010 11:14, Giuseppe Torelli <colossus73 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 2, 2010 at 10:56 AM, Jaroslaw Staniek <staniek at kde.org> wrote:
>> At operating system level, what you need to run is just X11 with
>> window manager (I am sure you know this very well but I mention that
>> to others). Kexi, like most of KDE apps, does not limit you in
>> regarding your desktop. So desktop (kde workspace) is not a dependency
>> and is not installed.
>> Also, packaging systems install only needed parts, some of them are
>> large (well, not anymore in 2010) - like icons (shared between apps) -
>> but how we're talking about GUI program. Kexi itself is even clearly
>> splitted into packages so users can install only needed components (we
>> openly work with Linux/Windows/etc. distribution makers to handle that
>> well - example document: [0])
>
> Thank you for your detailed answer, I appreciated that but:
>
> gt at gt-desktop:~$ sudo apt-get install kexi
> Reading package lists... Done
> Building dependency tree
> Reading state information... Done
> The following extra packages will be installed:
>  exiv2 kde-icons-oxygen kdebase-runtime kdebase-runtime-bin-kde4
> kdebase-runtime-data kdebase-runtime-data-common kdelibs-bin
> kdelibs-data kdelibs4c2a kdelibs5 kdelibs5-data
>  khelpcenter4 koffice-data koffice-libs libavahi-qt3-1
> libclucene0ldbl libexiv2-5 libknotificationitem1 liblua50 liblualib50
> liblzma0 libplasma3 libpq5 libpqxx-2.6.9ldbl
>  libqt3-mt libqt4-qt3support libraptor1 librasqal1 librdf0
> libsoprano4 libstreamanalyzer0 libstreams0 libxcb-shape0 libxcb-shm0
> libxcb-xv0 libxine1 libxine1-bin libxine1-console
>  libxine1-misc-plugins libxine1-x phonon-backend-xine raptor-utils
> redland-utils soprano-daemon
>
> The following NEW packages will be installed:
>  exiv2 kde-icons-oxygen kdebase-runtime kdebase-runtime-bin-kde4
> kdebase-runtime-data kdebase-runtime-data-common kdelibs-bin
> kdelibs-data kdelibs4c2a kdelibs5 kdelibs5-data
>  kexi khelpcenter4 koffice-data koffice-libs libavahi-qt3-1
> libclucene0ldbl libexiv2-5 libknotificationitem1 liblua50 liblualib50
> liblzma0 libplasma3 libpq5 libpqxx-2.6.9ldbl
>  libqt3-mt libqt4-qt3support libraptor1 librasqal1 librdf0
> libsoprano4 libstreamanalyzer0 libstreams0 libxcb-shape0 libxcb-shm0
> libxcb-xv0 libxine1 libxine1-bin libxine1-console
>  libxine1-misc-plugins libxine1-x phonon-backend-xine raptor-utils
> redland-utils soprano-daemon
> 0 upgraded, 45 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
> Need to get 69.0MB of archives.
>
> Let's leave xine packages and the others apart but have you noticed I
> am forced to install:

I am not sure xine is needed, could be solved by KDE team and the
packagers team.

> exiv2 kde-icons-oxygen kdebase-runtime kdebase-runtime-bin-kde4
> kdebase-runtime-data kdebase-runtime-data-common kdelibs-bin
> kdelibs-data kdelibs4c2a kdelibs5 kdelibs5-data khelpcenter4
> koffice-data koffice-libs?

I understand your concerns, but if one day you use more than one KDE
app on your non-KDE system, the investment shall pay off. I have had
packaged Kexi 1.x on Windows, which looked a lot like Qt-only app from
your perspective, and you know what? It took itself about 20MB
compressed. So even for 4 such "statically bundled" apps we would
already have consumed 80MB of archives. Example of openoffice.org
shows the case of "statically bundling" - it carries everything with
is, from the display subsystem to the file format handling routines.
No single other app on your computer will use these binaries. For
KDE/KOffice libs you have at least chances for that...

Icons are a must as I said. Also the help center. The data packages
are for infrastructure like mime types handling.
kdebase-runtime is the runtime only, kdebase-workspace makes the
actual KDE Desktop, and is not forced.
The split is exactly for your convenience. I wouldn't worry about the
number of packages (it is exactly the result of fine-grained split).
The sum of 69MB is even smaller than openoffice.org, not mentioning
base java packages... Quite a good match for a runtime component that
is a base for hundred+ apps.

Important reason for troubles in supporting Qt-only versions of a
bigger application is compatibility. If I create a .kexi file with the
full version of Kexi (even if not run Kexi under the KDE Desktop), and
send the file to you, you may be not able to install all the
components (not everything is possible to be Qt-only), and then the
.kexi file won't be fully functional for you. To my understanding that
would be quite a big cost compared to using several dozens of
megabytes of your RAM or hard disk...

-- 
regards / pozdrawiam, Jaroslaw Staniek
 http://www.linkedin.com/in/jstaniek
 Kexi & KOffice (http://www.kexi-project.org, http://www.koffice.org)
 KDE Software Development Platform on MS Windows (http://windows.kde.org)