Re: --with-gtk as default?

[David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

>> From: David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>
>> Date: Wed, 28 Feb 2007 12:40:23 +0100
>> Cc: Nick Roberts <nickrob@snap.net.nz>,
>> 	Jan =?iso-8859-1?Q?Dj=E4rv?= <jan.h.d@swipnet.se>, rms@gnu.org,
>> 	emacs-devel@gnu.org
>> 
>> Sigh.  So the default Emacs installations for decades to come are
>> going to show off the utterly archaic Athena look
>
> I don't see why this should be inevitable.  I'd expect the
> distributors of GNU/Linux systems (RH, Debian, Suse, etc.) to
> provide packages built with several (perhaps even all) supported
> toolkits, including GTK+, even if it's not the default.  At least,
> that's what I would do if I were the individual responsible for
> packaging Emacs.

We have currently packages in Debian called "emacs-snapshot" and
"emacs-snapshot-gtk"

apt-cache search emacs-snapshot

emacs-snapshot - The GNU Emacs editor (development snapshot)
emacs-snapshot-bin-common - The GNU Emacs editor's shared, architecture dependent files
emacs-snapshot-common - The GNU Emacs editor's common infrastructure
emacs-snapshot-el - GNU Emacs LISP (.el) files
emacs-snapshot-gtk - The GNU Emacs editor (with GTK+ 2.x support)
emacs-snapshot-nox - The GNU Emacs editor (without X support)

It is obvious that the _standard_ Emacs is the one built without extra
configure options, namely using the Athena toolkit.

At the current point of time, it appears that more than half the
people install the GTK+ snapshot.  However, if someone is going to do
a review, or if someone is going to provide a "standard installation",
he is going to go with the standard.

So the installations of reviewers and of site-wide installations from
sysadmins not using Emacs themselves are going to be Athena.

I am really not eager to see screenshots of that on modern GNU/Linux
desktops, in particular not side by side with screenshots on Windows
and MaxOSX desktops.

It will be quite embarrassing and look completely out of place.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum