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#1 2010-08-31 01:45:06

hensondroid
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From: Canton, NC, USA
Registered: 2010-08-31
Posts: 2
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Is it bad to use KDE packages if I'm not using KDE?

I've been looking for some very basic (cut & paste) video editing software that I can use on movies captured from my webcam.  A few people have suggested some KDE movie editors. Being that I'm running openbox, and doing my best to stay lightweight, is there a downside to using a KDE app?

Thanks!

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#2 2010-08-31 01:56:34

karol
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Registered: 2009-05-06
Posts: 25,440

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#3 2010-08-31 02:00:11

Skripka
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From: 2X1280X1024
Registered: 2009-02-19
Posts: 555

Re: Is it bad to use KDE packages if I'm not using KDE?

This.  I'd also add, that "lightweight" doesn't matter that much given the availability of 2TB HDDs and 10s of GBs of RAM.

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#4 2010-08-31 02:04:00

Deadguy1
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From: IL, USA
Registered: 2009-09-08
Posts: 9

Re: Is it bad to use KDE packages if I'm not using KDE?

most KDE apps carry a heavy dependency list. I use a few of them(digikam and k3b) in my LXDE DE and have no complaints, actually they are quite zippy.
just be aware that you'll need lots of KDE libs to run them.......


Linux=Freedom

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#5 2010-08-31 02:36:01

splittercode
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From: WI, USA
Registered: 2010-03-16
Posts: 203

Re: Is it bad to use KDE packages if I'm not using KDE?

I use OpenShot and it works just fine (it's in the community repo).  It's the only one that's worked reliably for me, and all i do is the basic types of editing you mentioned.  It takes a while to export videos after you've edited them, but I'm no expert so maybe that is normal.

Skripka wrote:

This.  I'd also add, that "lightweight" doesn't matter that much given the availability of 2TB HDDs and 10s of GBs of RAM.

I would say that the idea of 'lightweight' software is more about developing cleanly-coded, utilitarian, hackable apps that are reliable and contain no fluff.  Low ram and disk useage are merely inevitable side effects of that.  In fact, I would still use my current 'lightweight' setup even if I owned a super computer. wink

EDIT: Oh yeah, and to actually answer your original question, no it's not really a bad idea.  It's not ideal, but if there is a KDE app that does what you desire and there is no other alternative, you might as well use it.  It would be kind of silly to limit yourself to an app you like less just to avoid some libraries.

Last edited by splittercode (2010-08-31 03:22:19)

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#6 2010-08-31 03:25:58

urist
Member
Registered: 2009-02-22
Posts: 248

Re: Is it bad to use KDE packages if I'm not using KDE?

The only answer to the topic is "Yes... if you think it is." I personally don't care. I've got Gnome and KDE apps running side-by-side in xmonad. The whole "mixing DEs is bad" idea is just an ideal that some people carry. Use what works, if you've got an average or greater amount of disk space.

Last edited by urist (2010-08-31 03:26:18)

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#7 2010-08-31 03:59:16

vae77
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Registered: 2010-07-02
Posts: 75
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Re: Is it bad to use KDE packages if I'm not using KDE?

You will only load those libs when you run the app.

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#8 2010-08-31 14:26:00

hensondroid
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From: Canton, NC, USA
Registered: 2010-08-31
Posts: 2
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Re: Is it bad to use KDE packages if I'm not using KDE?

Thanks for all the great replies!  This one, in particular, shared my point of view:

splittercode wrote:

I would say that the idea of 'lightweight' software is more about developing cleanly-coded, utilitarian, hackable apps that are reliable and contain no fluff.  Low ram and disk useage are merely inevitable side effects of that.  In fact, I would still use my current 'lightweight' setup even if I owned a super computer. wink

And so if I understand correctly, the only downside of running an application built for another WM or DE is that I'll have to grab a few additional libraries.  Space wise, I can't imagine that creating an issue unless you were running in a very specialized (or very old) environment.  I do have a few questions about performance though..

vae77 wrote:

You will only load those libs when you run the app.

The above posts mentions that these libraries will only be used (loaded into memory) when the application depending on them is running.  Is that true with all Linux libraries?  Also, do multiple applications share the same library in real-time?  For example, if I were running 2 KDE applications, would those libraries be loaded into memory twice?  If not, then it seems like there would be a *slight* performance increase in running applications built from the same libraries -- same WM / DE.

EDIT: From what I read on Wikipedia about DLLs, multiple applications can share the same libraries in memory.  I'm guessing all the libraries that pacman grabs are DLLs, and not static?  Otherwise, they'd have to compile before they were ran, right?

Last edited by hensondroid (2010-08-31 14:36:42)

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#9 2010-08-31 14:39:23

mir
Member
Registered: 2010-08-25
Posts: 59

Re: Is it bad to use KDE packages if I'm not using KDE?

Libraries are shared.

But apart from that, the various desktops all start some daemons (dbus, kded, whatever) which can be a hog on io or cpu.

There is an advantage when sticking to one desktop: The applications usually interact better (like, know what to call to open a file) and everything feels more uniform. But since all these desktops have their good and weak appications, it's really hard to avoid mixing things.

Just try it out.  I still simply use whatever does the job best and the slight disadvantages are no real problem, at least for me.

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