GUI setup

ONEEYEMAN · Advocate Joined: 01 Mar 2005 Posts: 3650

Hi, ALL,
Now, that I have a nice good-looking installation, I would like to have a GUI interface, because I'd like to write programs with GUI. I am a C/C++ programmer, have some experience with MFC, now I want to check what do I have in Linux/UNIX for GUI development.
As far as GUI concern, I know that there are 2 most popular shells Gnome and KDE. I asked at the office and one of my co-worker said that KDE is better. Maybe because he already used it?

Anyway, my task is to create a nice GUI environment for development for myself, and high resolution high color GUI environment for my wife to edit the photographs we made and will make.

What is best shell to use for those task?
Also, since I am talking about GUI, I would like to know something about software called LinNeighborhood. Thing is It gives an opportunity for RedHat, Debian, FreeBSD and Slackware. It should interconnect Windows and Linux machine on the network. Maybe there is something for Gentoo, or somebody already using this with the Gentoo successfully?

Thank you for any comments.

_never_ · Posted: Wed Mar 09, 2005 6:56 am Post subject:

KDE has much more features than Gnome, but the latter one is faster and takes less memory. You might also give XFCE a try, which is a lightweight desktop. By the way: this is not called a shell. The shell is the command processor (the command line) you use. In the Gentoo default installation it's bash (the Bourne Again Shell).

You might also want to try out some non-desktop window manager like Fluxbox, some *box (like Openbox) or FVWM (which I use). Check out the screenshots throughout the Gentoo forums.

For GUI development I recommend using KDevelop, which is a C/C++ IDE for Linux. It features a nice GUI editor (the Qt Designer) much like GUI editors you find with Windows IDEs. With KDevelop you will use the Qt or GTK+ libraries, which are cross-platform, so your programs will run on all platforms supported by the particular library (at least Linux and Windows). However, you will need to use Qt if you want to make use of the KDevelop Qt Designer. Note: you don't need to use KDE, if you want to work with KDevelop. Another note: Qt is a KDE-independent library, so your programs won't depend on the KDE libraries to be installed. Personally I prefer GTK+.
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thebigslide · Posted: Wed Mar 09, 2005 6:58 am Post subject:

Between gnome and kde, it's really a matter of personal preference.
Gnome takes a minimalistic approach to things
KDE is all about being fully featured.

For developing, if you go with gnome, anjuta is a nice IDE, kdevelop is a good choice for KDE.

There are many many window managers to choose from if you don't need all the features of KDE/gnome. Check out fluxbox.

Please be sure to read the desktop howtos as they answer many of these questions.

ONEEYEMAN · Advocate Joined: 01 Mar 2005 Posts: 3650

Thank you for the responce, guys.
I apologize for using incorrect terminology, _never_. I actually thought that it goes like this: DOS=Gentoo+X Windows, Win3.11=Gnome/KDE, so it more like a interface on top of OS. (shell). Ok, now I know.
BTW, I think you location is misspelled. It should be "BMW", not "BW".....

2 thebigslide: I checked the "Desktop Howto's", that you pointed me out, but I have a question though. For KDE there is a list of packets with the description of what is what. Unfortunately it's not full. Will I find the full list of packets with the description on KDE site?

Also, what about my second question about LinNeighborhood. Thing is, I have a photoprinter attached to XP machine, and I don't want to take it off there. Will I be able to work with this software? Or maybe there is somthing else similar for Gentoo? Or perhaps I should use plain Samba, and forget about all this nice, good-looking interfaces? What do you suggest?

Thanx again for the help.

Sith_Happens · Posted: Wed Mar 09, 2005 7:45 pm Post subject:

Just so you know in the future ONEEYEMAN, this type of topic really belongs in the Desktop Environments forum, although some moderator is probably going to send it to Duplicate Threads instead.
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ONEEYEMAN · Advocate Joined: 01 Mar 2005 Posts: 3650

Ok, I am sorry.
But this question, I think, relates to the installation.
Before I crash my freshly installed system and install GUI, I'd like to ask you following question. When I build system, I put the support for both Gnome and KDE. Now, if I choose to install KDE, do I have to alter the USE-flags first to remove Gnome support? And vice versa.
Also, for some reason, I couldn't execute "shutdown" command. The command I gave is following:

Sith_Happens · Posted: Wed Mar 09, 2005 11:07 pm Post subject:

Right after it saves the random seed it brings down your network connection. What happens if you try /etc/init.d/net.eth0 stop as root before you reboot? The reason you get an ACPI error is probably because you have a newer computer that has an ACPI multifunction power switch. Try holding down the power button, that should turn it off. As far as vi not being an ebuild, I can't find it in portage either. I see alot of vi clones (vim, vile) but no vi, wierd

.
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ONEEYEMAN · Advocate Joined: 01 Mar 2005 Posts: 3650

Hi, Sith_Happens,
As far as I know, this way is inappropriate. I shouldn't turn the UNIX/Linux computer by turning the power off.
Is there an option in the kernel that I should check/uncheck to fix this problem?
And also what about my question for USE-flags? Should I remove support for one GUI interface, and leave the one I will use? I am asking this because there might be a conflict...

And about vi. I had it on the LiveCD, but lost it after 'chrooting'. Any suggestions?

Thank you.

Sith_Happens · Posted: Thu Mar 10, 2005 12:24 am Post subject:

You are correct that this is innappropriate, however your computer is locked up, what else can you do but hardboot and hope nothing gets corrupted? As far as how to fix the problem, we need to troubleshoot it and find what the problem is before we talk about how to solve it. As far as the KDE and Gnome use flags, they build optional support into programs, and since you havn't even emerged xorg yet, I doubt that you've emerged anything that has Gnome or KDE support. Just change your USE flags and don't worry about it. You define use flags for your system globably in /etc/make.conf, but you can compile packages with whatever useflags you want. If you ever want to add Gnome support, or remove KDE support, for all of you programs, just change your use flags and run emerge -auD --new-use world. However, you shouldn't need to do that in this case.
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ONEEYEMAN · Advocate Joined: 01 Mar 2005 Posts: 3650

Ok, so I guess I have an answer to one question. That is: It safe to do "emerge kde" with the gnome USE-flag turned on, since I decided to use kde.
The problem actually hapeens with the "shutdown" command. The "reboot" command works fine. It reboots computer without any problem. I am saying this, because you mention the "reboot" word.
OK, I just tried to stop eth0, and then shutdown. Doesn't help. I still have the same sequence. It freezes after "Saving random seeds.... [ok]" with the same error after pressing power button.
And like I said the reboot process works fine.

What else should I do?

Thank you for the help.

seringen · Posted: Thu Mar 10, 2005 1:41 am Post subject:

Sith_Happens · Posted: Thu Mar 10, 2005 1:41 am Post subject:

Use flags only add optional support for programs. All having "gnome" in your use variable means is that if a program has optional support for gnome, for instance if it has an extension that works with the gnome taskbar, or if it has additional libraries that it needs in order to work with gnome, then it will be compiled with that support built in, or additional dependencies will be installed. Thats all. Your not going to break anything with USE flags. you can have kde and gnome (and also have qt and gtk respectively) and all it will do is make some programs larger. If you are only going to use one of the DE's though, I would suggest you add the " - " sign before the flags for the other just to reduce the dependencies and sizes of some programs. As for your more pressing problem, I don't know why I didn't think of this earlier, but you need to use the -h flag with shutdown if you want it to actually turn off your computer. Use the command shutdown -h now, that should do it. Other commands that will effectivly shut down your computer are halt, init 0, and poweroff. I usually don't shutdown my computer, it's either on or I'm rebooting.
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ONEEYEMAN · Advocate Joined: 01 Mar 2005 Posts: 3650

Hi, guys,
This command:

shutdown -h now

works fine. However, since it's fresh, newly created Linux environment, everything suppposed to be working. Am I right? Which means, that the command:

shutdown -t 1 1

should work as well.
Basically I am just wondering, why this is not working without any particular reason.

Sith_Happens · Posted: Thu Mar 10, 2005 1:56 pm Post subject:

The last argument is time, as in time of day in hh:mm. I'm not really sure why it doesn't give you an error message saying "1 is not a valid argument", but whatever. What it's doing is ignoring the 1 and bringing your system down. However, unless you tell shutdown to halt (init 0), it will bring you to runlevel 1 (init 1). After it says saving random seed, press enter, I'll bet it will give you a command prompt.
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Spiritmage · n00b Joined: 06 Mar 2005 Posts: 65 Location: Colorado

Personally, I would go with Gnome over KDE. KDE just seems too... fashion over function. If you are switching over from WinXP then Gnome is a good choice. I personally like Enlightenment, but not many do. However, its click wherever you want for menu is an awesome addition. Since everythin can be configured into its menus, the desktops are completely uncluttered. http://www.enlightenment.org. Anyway, to answer your question, you should still be able to USE="Gnome KDE". In fact, some people actually have multiple GUI's that they choose to boot to depending on what they need to do. As far as developement goes, Gnome, KDE will perform equally as well so either one is your choice.

COiN3D · Posted: Thu Mar 10, 2005 4:04 pm Post subject:

Maybe you like XPde (www.xpde.com)

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_never_ · Posted: Fri Mar 11, 2005 12:05 am Post subject:

Sith_Happens · Posted: Fri Mar 11, 2005 12:56 am Post subject:

_never_ · Posted: Fri Mar 11, 2005 1:25 am Post subject:

Sith_Happens · Posted: Fri Mar 11, 2005 1:45 am Post subject:

The idea of an "OS" is a kernel and all the basic userland utilities that build an environment/foundation for application software. The shell, whatever shell that may be, is an integral part of that package, since it provides a medium between the user and the computer, a pretty basic function of the OS IMHO. Whether it is GNU's bash shell or not, it is still part of the OS.
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_never_ · Posted: Fri Mar 11, 2005 2:47 pm Post subject:

Well, if my memory isn't too messy, then the only shell that was ever part of the operating system (and which is always installed regardless of a third-party shell) is the Bourne Shell (/bin/sh). Anything that gets installed besides this is a third-party program, which is not part of the OS. However, this is the GNU definition of the GNU OS.
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Sith_Happens · Posted: Fri Mar 11, 2005 5:31 pm Post subject:

I'm saying a shell is considered part of the OS, because of it's function not it's origin. Linux is opensource, look at the kernel for instance. My kernel (2.6.11 love2) contains patches and modules which were written by third parties not affiliated with the developers of the Linux Kernel, but I wouldn't call the third party CPU scheduler it uses not part of the O/S.
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