Gnome / Compiling time

[sluggeek]

Hi I use Gentoo since few month on my main computer. Everythings works fine. Because I was a bit afraid by the compiling time of gnome I switch to i3
But I miss gnome ... witch was my favorite desktop over many years.

So, do gnome is really a pain to compile / upgrade ?

My laptop is a T14 Thinkpad (2020)

Thanks !

[alamahant]

Hi,
Not per-se but it has many more packages than i3.
So yes it will take more time.
Why dont you try xfce?
Less dependencies than Gnome and super cool
Some long-to-compile packages that you should best avoid if you can.

*webkit*
rust ### use rust-bin instead
spidermonkey ### not very long but pulls llvm/clang. Use ducktape instead
llvm/clang ####and assorted bullshit.Use firefox-bin thunderbird-bin instead.They will not pull llvm and clang.NOT Gnome-specific but good to know.
.firefox chrome thunderbird libreoffice #####VERY LONG avoid them like a vampire the sunlight.Prefer bin where available.Again not Gnome specific but good to know.

If you want to get a rough idea about how long a package takes to compile , please ggogle "lfs <package>" and have a look at the "Estimated build time:".
_________________

[sluggeek]

Hi alamahant, thank for your answer

Xfce is awesome, I had install it on my wife's Arch-computer but for my personal use I prefer Gnome.
I also already use some bin package : chrome, thunderbird, libreoffice.

[Leonardo.b]

If you want something, you don't need to explain why to yourself.
Otherwise you will stick forever with what you have.

Compiling time is not a big problem. Be patient: just wait.
If you want to install it, I suggest you to follow this guide (thanks to Sakaki work):
https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/User:Sakaki/Sakaki%27s_EFI_Install_Guide/Setting_up_the_GNOME_3_Desktop


Know that Gnome requires (e)logind to work properly - if you use OpenRC, you need to install elogind (and so dbus).
Some people consider it unnecessary bloat imported from systemd into their system.
It's default on desktop profile anyway, and others say that it improves security against running suid xorg.

Then, on Gnome there was a feature that could scary privacy concerned users.
Search for it, I don't know the details.
Sakaki guide mentions it and explain how to remove the problem if it matters to you.

You make your opinion yourself.
Usually you can change them too.

Leonardo

[salahx]

GNOME is mostly lots of small of packages, and a few medium sized ones, so the compile time isn't too bad sans one or two packages. Evolution-data-server is kind of hefty, but the real problem one is webkit-gtk. That package takes 1 to 2 hours to compile on a 3rd gen 4-core Intel processor.

[sluggeek]

Ok, Thanks all for ur answers

[Juippisi]

Gnome as a whole is not bad, IF you can avoid the webkit-gtk dep. That itself is a bit tricky to do. Webkit-gtk is the "issue" package when installing Gnome.

So try to avoid gnome-online-accounts package, and use nautilus[-previewer] (image and video thumbnails still work with ffmpegthumbnails[gnome]).

[sluggeek]

Thanks for the advices,

I will test that in a VM before do it on my laptop.