QtWebEngine Poses Problems For Debian, Distribution Vendors

[phoronix]

Phoronix: QtWebEngine Poses Problems For Debian, Distribution Vendors

Debian and other Linux distributions are running into issues with packaging up QtWebEngine, which is becoming a problem since more of the new KDE stack is becoming dependent upon this addition to Qt 5.4 that provides a web rendering engine based on Chromium...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=QtWebEngine-Mess-Debian

[Sonadow]

With developments such as these, desktop Linux doesn't need Microsoft's or Apple's help in forcing it out of relevance. It's already doing an amazingly good job of imploding on itself.

[Azrael5]

With developments such as these, desktop Linux doesn't need Microsoft's or Apple's help in forcing it out of relevance. It's already doing an amazingly good job of imploding on itself.

I totally agree. Linux systems are a completely failure.

[Ericg]

I totally agree. Linux systems are a completely failure.

This is one of the things that make me keep coming back to Arch... I'm running Fedora right now on that new T450s, but on my old laptop I started setting back up an Arch install. I LIKE the polish and extra-work that Fedora puts into its releases, but having to deal with 3rd party repos and debates on what should and shouldn't be in included is really annoying at times. Just wish SELinux was implemented fully in Arch and I didn't have to pull in core components from AUR.

[Azrael5]

This is one of the things that make me keep coming back to Arch... I'm running Fedora right now on that new T450s, but on my old laptop I started setting back up an Arch install. I LIKE the polish and extra-work that Fedora puts into its releases, but having to deal with 3rd party repos and debates on what should and shouldn't be in included is really annoying at times. Just wish SELinux was implemented fully in Arch and I didn't have to pull in core components from AUR.

So avoiding KDE is it convenient to use Lubuntu as lightweight system? It's a pity because Kubuntu has just introduced acceleration on its desktop environment.

[curaga]

There's something to be said about a software's bloat when it's too bloated for Debian and Fedora. 8GB required for linking.

[grigi]

ugh, Chromium... ugh
I hate the trend of sites that only work on Chrome. it is becoming the new IE.

I understand how package maintainer hate Chromium, it tends to ship customized versions of all its dependencies, and makes it very difficult to update the rendering engine with a 3'rd party security fix, without updating the whole engine, so you can't even guarantee simple things like compatibility within Qt versions.

I think it is right that QtWebEngine is getting so much flak.

[uid313]

Maybe someone should make a really minimalistic web engine with focus on security.
It doesn't have to support JavaScript or all kinds of fancy things.

Just pure HTML and CSS while being well maintained.

[plonoma]

QtWebEngine should be a framework to put web engines in.
Seriously if the developers are not going to build and maintain their own rendering engine, why create hard dependencies on it?
Not to mention flexibility in choosing the web engine is important to distributions.
No offense but this is looking like the hard dependencies on web engines in certain closed source operating systems.
The flexiblity is absolutely necessary to make the whole concept of QtWebEngine work well. With the development of web standards, you absolutely need to be able to swap out web rendering engines. QtWebEngine should be a framework in which you could do this.
In which developers of distributions and user apps can specify what web engines they work best and tested with.

There's been some suggestions that it shouldn't be a hard dependency on QtWebEngine so packagers could swap it out for an alternative web rendering engine or perhaps there should be a new, self-contained, lightweight layout engine -- frequently being mentioned is why do email clients need a full-blown web engine. However, it's unlikely that either change would happen in the immediate future. Some also don't like QtWebEngine for being based on Chromium that in turn comes from the "evil" Google, it's too tied to FFmpeg, the V8 JavaScript JIT engine causes problems for some architectures, etc.

[ssokolow]

it's too tied to FFmpeg

I'm guessing this has to do with the maintainers who chose to favour libav in the Debian ecosystem? If so, I have no sympathy for them.