Re: [gentoo-user] Has MySQL become compulsory?

[Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com>]

On Sunday 25 October 2009 13:08:12 Mick wrote:
> On Sunday 25 October 2009 10:43:41 Neil Bothwick wrote:
> > On Sun, 25 Oct 2009 11:11:28 +0100, Dave Jones wrote:
> 
> Back on topic I hope, it seems to me that KDE4 has made certain choices
>  which detract from the Gentoo way of being able to run lean and mean
>  should you choose to do so.  I am waiting to see if sqlite is going to
>  improve its code to be able to play with akonadi in KDE4.  I guess that
>  until then I will have to put up with the few seconds that akonadi tries
>  to start, searches and then fails to find mysql.

I doubt that will ever happen. Akonadi is designed with multi-user usage in 
mind, sqlite is built with embedded single-user usage in mind. Any attempt to 
use sqlite in Akondai will result in race-condition and blocker issues which 
can only be resolved by running akonadi in some single-user mode, or writing a 
proxy-style front end to sqlite.

Either way it seems like way too much effort for way too little return.

> Not sure if this is a signal of maturity, or if KDE is becoming as bloated
>  as Gnome was considered to be a couple of years ago (for the most
>  belligerent on this list pls don't take this as an opportunity to restart
>  another ancient flamewar, I'm just making a cursory observation).
 
"maturity" and "bloat" are often conflated and confused.

The direction that the KDE-4 devs want to go is a completely integrated 
desktop where everything is aware of everything else, and data is considered 
to be just that - simply data. Every app knows what to do with any data, so 
you loose the distinction between email from kmail and chat history from 
kopete - the DE just "knows" what to do with it and presents it in some sane 
fashion.

Well that's the goal, perhaps not the current reality. Point being, this 
requires huge backing libs and powerful processors. And that is what the 
average user possesses. It isn't bloat - it's what is needed to fulfil the 
stated goal.

This doesn't suit everyone, so accusations of bloat tend to bubble up :-) For 
those people, there are other DEs and WMs that suit their purpose. The *box 
packages for instance - those give you a lean mean desktop with the absolute 
minimum code and nothing more.

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com