[Kexi] Kexi with QT only

[Sam S.]

On Fri, Apr 2, 2010 at 12:36 PM, Giuseppe Torelli <colossus73 at gmail.com> wrote:
> PS
> Which distro do you actually use? I want to leave Xubuntu.

I use Arch Linux now, because:
  1) it has well-packaged, up-to-date KDE 4 packages
  2) it doesn't include unneccessary bloat - you only install what you
actually need (this also makes it a little faster than Ubuntu for many
users)
  3) it doesn't get in your way when you want to manually customize
advanced stuff (e.g. what exactly should be done during/after boot)
  4) it has a good wiki with easy-to-follow tutorials for
accomplishing anything you might imagine
  5) no devel packages: all official packages already include the
corresponding header files, so if you ever need to compile some
additional application from source, you don't need to worry about
installing the right "something-devel" dependency packages first as
you do in Ubuntu...
  6) rolling release approach  (I really hated those upgrades between
Ubuntu versions, which always took hours to complete and depended on a
working Internet connection during this whole time.)

However, it's not for everyone:
  - Point (2) means that it doesn't give you a system where everything
"works out of the box" - in fact, installation is console-based [*1]
and the default install doesn't even include an X server. *You* are
responsible for installing everything *you* want/need. However, as
mentioned above, there are easy howto's/tutorials for every possible
scenario.
  - Point (3) means that you yourself will have to take some
responsibility for maintaining your system, e.g. updating
configuration files, actively reading warnings/suggestions printed by
the package manager and acting upon them, etc. It's not a
works-out-of-the-box thing, where you just click on an "install
available updates" button every now and then and never ever touch any
system files yourself. It's well worth it though, because you'll have
a clean & stable system which you won't need to re-install from
scratch every few months because somehow it got "messed up" (my Ubuntu
experience was like that unfortunately).
  - Point (6) means that only the combination of all packages in their
most current versions can be officially supported, so you're living a
little "on the edge" (e.g. problems might arise if you need to
downgrade a specific package like a kernel driver)

Arch Linux currently has no (stable [*2]) package for Kexi though,
since the KDE 3 version is no longer maintained and the KDE 4 version
of Kexi hasn't officially been released yet - it will be, for the
first time, with KOffice 2.2, at which point also Arch Linux will
start providing packages for it. I myself use a manually-compiled Kexi
from SVN. As mentioned above: self-compiling stuff is easy! :-)

Cheers,
Sam

[*1] Note that the same people who provide the up-to date KDE 4
packages also provide an alternative graphical installer which aims to
make it easier/faster to set up Arch Linux + KDE 4 from scratch - you
can get it at http://www.chakra-project.org
[*2] There seems to be a compiled-from-SVN package there as part of
kdemod-playground, but it's not up-to-date.)