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Magissia

Member

Registered: 2013-05-06

Posts: 9

Evolution mail without gnome desktop ?

Hello,
Is it possible to install and use evolution email client without gnome-desktop?
At this time, gnome-desktop is pulled because the package depends on it, is there a good reason for that?
I've been using evolution on cinnamon desktop env without gnome desktop installed for years on different distros and was surprised to see pacman would pull a desktop env for a mail client.

Example here :
https://packages.debian.org/sid/evolution

Thank you.

twelveeighty

Member

Registered: 2011-09-04

Posts: 1,383

Re: Evolution mail without gnome desktop ?

It comes down to Arch's philosophy of Simplicity, which states "[...]Arch ships the configuration files provided by upstream with changes limited to distribution-specific issues like adjusting the system file paths.".

The upstream configuration sets '#cmakedefine HAVE_GNOME_DESKTOP 1', which pulls in the gnome-desktop dep.

You are, of course, free to build your own, or check the AUR to see if someone has already create a package for 'evolution without gnome-desktop'.

Last edited by twelveeighty (2025-02-01 19:37:31)

jl2

Member

From: 47° 18' N 8° 34' E

Registered: 2022-06-01

Posts: 980

Re: Evolution mail without gnome desktop ?

Interesting, so it's just because it's compiled to expect gnome to exist? Can I also compile the whole rest of gnome's suite (cheese, terminal, whatever) without a dependency on gnome?

Last edited by jl2 (2025-02-01 20:27:17)

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twelveeighty

Member

Registered: 2011-09-04

Posts: 1,383

Re: Evolution mail without gnome desktop ?

Nope:

#*******************************************************************************
# Check required libraries
#*******************************************************************************
...
gnome_desktop_dep = dependency('gnome-desktop-3.0')
...

Magissia

Member

Registered: 2013-05-06

Posts: 9

Re: Evolution mail without gnome desktop ?

It comes down to Arch's philosophy of Simplicity, which states "[...]Arch ships the configuration files provided by upstream with changes limited to distribution-specific issues like adjusting the system file paths.".

The upstream configuration sets '#cmakedefine HAVE_GNOME_DESKTOP 1', which pulls in the gnome-desktop dep.

You are, of course, free to build your own, or check the AUR to see if someone has already create a package for 'evolution without gnome-desktop'.

I'm not sure how deep the rabbit hole goes if go this way, but if it's a simple define change in a makepkg why not?

topcat01

Member

Registered: 2019-09-17

Posts: 241

Re: Evolution mail without gnome desktop ?

It's definitely possible to use Evolution without running gnome. Although I use mutt, I have Evolution for testing and it runs fine with my i3 setup.

seth

Member

From: Don't DM me only for attention

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 69,046

Re: Evolution mail without gnome desktop ?

And can you run it if you ignore the gnome dependencies?

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topcat01

Member

Registered: 2019-09-17

Posts: 241

Re: Evolution mail without gnome desktop ?

No, I installed all needed dependencies. I don't mind them being installed as long I don't have to actually run gnome.

tekstryder

Member

Registered: 2013-02-14

Posts: 450

Re: Evolution mail without gnome desktop ?

It's possible the OP is misunderstanding what gnome-desktop is.

gnome-desktop (package) != Gnome environment

It's just a tiny utility library, and is required by Evolution.

~ ❯ pactree -r gnome-desktop
gnome-desktop
└─evolution

Hyprland and Sway are the only environments I have installed here... and I use Evolution.

topcat01

Member

Registered: 2019-09-17

Posts: 241

Re: Evolution mail without gnome desktop ?

Yes this is very similar to what my setup is.