It is not because they are slow or something, but because of the tons of daemons running in background and wasting memory. LXDE, as of now, has daemons only when necessary, and does just what it is supposed to do.

I’d say to implement something just for LXDE or leave it as it is.
Just my opinion.

And how could pcmanfm stay light if it required half of the gnome libs ? It may be nearly light in memory but it wouldn’t be light on the disk (think livecd systems).

Actually, I wouldn’t mind not having volume management, but that’s a very personal thing. A ./configure –disable-volume-management switch would probably be nice to have, no matter the decision that is taken.

Consult w/ Dear Xfce folks, GIO folks, FreeDesltop folks, everybody finding the best solution (i feel: fork thunar-vfs ))

m a r

I realize there are a lot of people who don’t really like GNOME in the lxde community. But keep in mind that you already use technology primarily shaped by GNOME (glib, gtk) and that gio/gvfs are proven and well-maintained extensions to those. Also, using gio in LXDE means better integration of GNOME- and GNOME-tech-using apps on LXDE.

Instead of reinventing the wheel you should use what “GNOME” provides and contribute to it (speed/memory fixes always welcome I guess!)

“In the long run I think this is more constructive than fixing old bugs and broken compatibility all the time. I believed that judicious use of gio/gvfs can still make things lightweight and fast “enough”. “Enough” means, it won’t be the fastest, but it will be acceptible by the users.”

LXDE is about to become number 3. An enterprise ready fast desktop environment for the masses which delivers what Gnome can’t, while KDE slowly eliminates the bugs for his next generation to win back its 3.5 users. LXDE has no toolkit nazi attitude, in fact it is totally modular and low risk. Concentrate on running code and simplicity, outsource the common cruft to others. Linux desktops together have less than 2% market share, so we don’t compete with the allmighty Gnome which is just another dwarf. LXDE = the LinuX Desktop done right, focused on responsiveness and less performance/memory taxation. VFS is on a lower level. It is a bit like to ask whether to take ubuntu, red hat linux, freebsd or opensolaris. If thunar throws away thunar-vfs it would be a total waste and it looks to me that thunar itself is getting very little attention.

thunar-vfs is a pretty bad name. It is a pragmatic aspect to use the gnome stuff and later to a joint project with thunar developers and others based on the thunar stuff as a replacement to get rid off this gnome library. It depends on the developer community to grow first. Immature solutions here would block broad LXDE adoption.

Pragmatism and running code over ideology.

“- If only several simple APIs of another big library are needed, try to extract them and add them to your program instead of depending on the whole library whenever possible. (Beware of license)

- Only use libraries from other desktops when they are small or efficient enough and have few dependencies.

- Only create a daemon if there is a really good reason.

- Try to keep maximal compatibility with lower gtk+ versions (gtk+ 2.6 is preferred). Try to make features requiring higher gtk+ versions optional with proper conditional compilation and compatibility macros.”

In this sentiment, pcmanfm should have less dependencies, not more. The added funtionality of handling remote volumes isn’t worth sacrificing speed, or having few dependencies (thus occupying less space on the harddrive), or the modularity which defined lxde in the first place.

My take: Fork thunar-vfs (or whatever code base that suits your purpose best). Fork it not as part of the pcmanfm codebase, but as an standalone project. Give it a new name, make it as lightweight possible providing just the funcionality that you need. Look out for developers to work on this and keep it as a separated project (but coordinating efforts) from the development of pcmanfm.

Please, keep lxde lightweight.

Regards,

thunar-vfs being picked up by you guys may even spur its further development.