[geeks] And The Linux Weenies Wonder Why They Aren't Mainstream...`

[Charles Shannon Hendrix]

Mon, 06 Mar 2006 @ 12:34 -0500, Phil Stracchino said:

> Charles Shannon Hendrix wrote:
> > So yes, it is worse if you use Firefox while Gnome is loaded (doesn't load the
> > Gnome libs unless you are in Gnome).
> 
> Uh, actually, it does.  I couldn't even install it without updating a
> bunch of Gnome libs first.

I suppose it must need a few base libraries if built with Gnome support.
I thought it used dynamic loading to bring most stuff in as needed.  For
example, if I load even the Gnome build of Firefox without Gnome
running, it is smaller and looks kind of ugly becuase some layout and
font libs are missing.

I suppose that requires at least some base stuff to be loaded just to check.
For example, I think it uses CUPS rather than its own print system if you have
CUPS installed, etc. If you build your own release, there are tons of options.

That's one problem with Firefox sans libraries: its fonts and layout look
sloppy without them.

Too much font and widget support is in the toolkits and not X itself.
Supposedly that's one goal of Gnome: move fonts and some other stuff to the
newer X libraries. Right now you have redundancy and double memory use on
things like fonts because of this.


-- 
shannon "AT" widomaker.com -- ["The trade of governing has always been
monopolized by the most ignorant and the most rascally individuals of
mankind.  -- Thomas Paine"]