My quest for a GTK3 and Python3 desktop with archlinux on a ASUS EB100

drev · 2016-12-31 17:02:31

Synopsis

Install an arch linux with no GTK2 or Python2 dependancies

Disclaimer

There is nothing wrong with Python2 / Ruby or / GTK2 / QT or depandancies in a general matter.

This is more like a test to find the more suitable GTK3 desktop without Python2 and GTK2.

Choice of the Desktop Environement

There are greates GTK3 DE in arch linux repo.
Gnome Shell, Budgie, ... the problem is that the control center (package gnome-control-center) depends on smbclient which itself depends on Python2.

Granted you can install those DE without the controle center but edit all those config files is tiresome.

After some research, there is a GT3 version of lxde (package lxde-gtk3) not everything is ported, and the team behind lxde are more focused on the QT portage (lxqt) but this is a usable port and the memory footprint is excellent, I skypped lxmusic, lxterminal and pcmanfm packages and installed some package from gnome: gnome-terminal, nautilus, eog.

$ free
total used free shared temp/cached available
Mem: 1019064 96924 719916 23580 202224 874400
Partition d'échange: 2097148 0 2097148

$ top

top - 12:54:25 up 2 min, 1 user, load average: 1,06, 0,81, 0,33
Tâches: 97 total, 1 en cours, 96 en veille, 0 arrêté, 0 zombie
%Cpu0 : 5,0/2,9 8[||||| ]
%Cpu1 : 5,4/2,9 8[||||| ]
GiB Mem : 14,3/0,972 [ ]
GiB Éch : 0,0/2,000 [ ]

final choice : lxde-gtk3

Choice of a Web browser

I usualy switch from time to time between chromium and firefox, but both of
theme uses GTK2.

There is a chromium-gtk3 package but is has a Python2 depandancie.

I installed gnome web browser, epithany, (it's basically webkit with gtk3)
I must say that I am impress with the perfs/feature this browser has grown to even if I miss a few chromium plugins like stylish.
Web has it's own abdlocker integrated. A major problem is that with a dark GTK theme, textarea have dark background on dark text (define a custom css via the preferance menu change nothing)

final choice : gnome web (epiphany)

Choice of a music/video player

I used to play video with vlc but it has it's interface in QT since 2008

mplayer depands on smbclient (which depands on Python2), as well as mvp.

totem is GTK3 but is slow on my computer (not sure why) and could be a good choice if it's works on your hardware,
snappy crash, xnoise works perfectly and do not have many deps

final choice : xnoise

Choice of an Office Suit
LibreOffice has GTK2 depandancies, as well as abiword

final choice : None !

Choice of a cbz viewver

mcomix depends on python2 and gtk2

turns out that evince, who is my pdf viewver of choice, can also read cbz.

final choice : evince

Choice of Input Methode for Japanese

I used scim with anthy for a long time, but scim has a gtk2 dependancie.

After failed to make fcxit works, I installed uim wich has applet for QT and GTK2/3 as optional dependancies (and enable the coressponding applet according to what package is installed).

Anthy is not maintained but it has no depandancies on GTK or QT and works perfectly, more modern and maintained japanese input method (mozc) has depandancies on QT.

final choice : UIM / Anthy

about perl

For a developer, perl is mandatory as git and emacs (via imagemagick) repands on perl

Conclusion

lxde-gtk3 runs very well, even on old hardware, despit the choice of it's team to focus on QT, I hope it will not be abandonned as it is a very promising GTK3 Desktop Environement.

As for the firefrox, chromium and LibreOffice, it's a matter of time that they switch to GTK3...

gnome-control-center should have it's Samba Client depenandcy optional as the SMB team will not port the python2 code to python3 soon due to the work a rewrite/test .

Even if like I say in the disclaimer there are nothing wrong with dependancies it's been interesting to test this configuration, and (re)discover software every now and then.

Last edited by drev (2016-12-31 17:08:15)

bleach · 2016-12-31 17:36:19

i do the same but with qt5 i use cli tools too though and no plasma DE integrated programs. i use i3wm texstudio, not so stingent on python though

adamlau · 2017-01-29 21:33:33

A couple of notes:

1. Firefox does not depend on GTK2 unless dependant third-party themes and extensions are introduced.

2. mpv does not explicitly depend on Python2 outside of building documentation.

drev · 2017-02-04 10:14:41

This may be true as how firefox can be build from source, however firefox is packaged with gtk2 as non-optional deps.

$ LANG=EN sudo pacman -S firefox
resolving dependencies...
looking for conflicting packages...

Packages (3) gtk2-2.24.31-1 mozilla-common-1.4-4 firefox-51.0.1-1

adamlau · 2017-02-05 17:56:46

If you are not using third-party themes and extensions:

# pacman -Rdd gtk2

And examine for yourself if Firefox behaves as expected (it should).
This is with the vanilla firefox package and not a custom build.

Scimmia · 2017-02-05 18:01:07

Firefox uses GTK2 for plugins. They're dropping NPAPI support anyway, so this will hopefully be going away.

drev · 2017-02-08 07:55:20

This is good to know. I did not know about the -Rdd option.
Maybe I can remove smbclient on my another PC with gnome shell, I hope that gnome-shell will not crash and just disable every smb related features

Last edited by drev (2017-02-08 07:55:44)

Arch Linux

#1 2016-12-31 17:02:31

My quest for a GTK3 and Python3 desktop with archlinux on a ASUS EB100

#2 2016-12-31 17:36:19

Re: My quest for a GTK3 and Python3 desktop with archlinux on a ASUS EB100

#3 2017-01-29 21:33:33

Re: My quest for a GTK3 and Python3 desktop with archlinux on a ASUS EB100

#4 2017-02-04 10:14:41

Re: My quest for a GTK3 and Python3 desktop with archlinux on a ASUS EB100

#5 2017-02-05 17:56:46

Re: My quest for a GTK3 and Python3 desktop with archlinux on a ASUS EB100

#6 2017-02-05 18:01:07

Re: My quest for a GTK3 and Python3 desktop with archlinux on a ASUS EB100

#7 2017-02-08 07:55:20

Re: My quest for a GTK3 and Python3 desktop with archlinux on a ASUS EB100

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