gnome vs. kde [LWN.net]

gnome vs. kde

Posted Aug 19, 2006 8:08 UTC (Sat) by drag (subscriber, #31333)
In reply to: gnome vs. kde by astrophoenix
Parent article: Take notes with Tomboy (Linux.com)

Gnome has the 'Gnome-vfs'. Allows you to abstract file systems such as ssh, ftp, smb, and such like that so it's all easily accesable via the file dialog stuff, and probably more. I think that probably KIO is more usefull though.

However I personally much much prefer FUSE file systems to KIO or Gnome-VFS. This is because it's used to create actual mountable file systems, so it will work for far more applications naturally then KIO or G-VFS wil.

One of my favorite is the fuse version of sshfs. It's very very fast. All the 'file server' needs is a capable ssh server were you have a account and it supports sftp (openssh is best, it seems like. The type of server affects stability of the file system).

How fast is it? For file copying and normal file operations it's faster then NFS on links up to 100mb/s. It's stable also. I've run Bonnie++ on it, without issues. But this depends on the server side. It's secure also. Uses standard ssh authentication methods so it supports kerberos, public/private keypair authentication, and password challenge response system authentication mechanisms. Also everything is encrypted.

FUSE is file system in userspace. It allows file systems without kernel modules beyond the actual fuse support. So that you can arrange it so that users can mount and umount and actually compile and create new file systems on the fly.

C, python, perl, and lots of other language bindings are aviable.

For instance other file systems:
beaglefs - mount beagle search results as a file system.
sshfs - mount sftp shares as file systems.
gmailfs - uses gmail for file system
ntfs-3g - 3rd Generation linux ntfs support for reliable NTFS read/write support. Does not require any propriatory bits like captive-ntfs does.
fusesmb - seemlessly browse smb networks.
afuse - fuse automounter
wdfs - webdav file systems. Combine with server running apache, webdav, and svn you get a distibuted network version control file system.
Run-Time-Access - access your program's internal data structures as file system
encfs - mount a encrypted directory as a file system.

And all sorts of stuff like that. Since it uses standard file system symantics it works with everything.
http://fuse.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/FileSystems

It's fairly Linux-specific right now, but there is a FUSE port to FreeBSD and it's quite possible to have it work on other operating systems also.

Also there is Gnome-VFS and KIO-slave bridges to make them mountable file systems.

I would realy realy like to see Gnome and KDE embrace FUSE so that you can achieve a much higher level of desktop compatability. Also it seems that FUSE is much faster.

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gnome vs. kde

Posted Aug 20, 2006 18:00 UTC (Sun) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

FUSE could never replace kioslaves and gnome-vfs for two reasons. Firstly,
it's not as portable (though it has been ported to FreeBSD and I believe
OpenSolaris). Secondly, kernel mounts are much, much more expensive than
kioslaves on many Unixes (although not Linux to such an extent).

However, it is plausible that kioslaves and gnome-vfs could use FUSE :)

gnome vs. kde

Posted Aug 21, 2006 13:07 UTC (Mon) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]

But if FUSE is portable to other operating systems doesn't it mean that FUSE is portable?

Or in 'other operating systems' you specificly mean 'windows', right?

Because it works on OpenSolaris.. FreeBSD. This means it would work on NetBSD and OpenBSD also. And OS X if anybody cared.

I only say that Gnome and KDE should use FUSE instead of their own paticular VFS implimentations becuase..

KIOslave and Gnome-VFS are almost completely worthless unless your running a totally pure KDE or Gnome desktop. How well does it work when the majority of applications are not able to directly use what you setup via the GUI? It doesn't make any sense.

Why is it reasonable to expect that it's ok if I can access a share via Epiphany or nautilus, but not be able to access it via Amarok or Krita (and visa versa)?

How is a unknowlegable Linux user on some desktop somewere going to understand that if they access a Windows share via Nautilus that they still won't be able to use it with the vast majority of applications?

And even if I set it up so that I have both G-VFS and KIO I still can't use either with anything that isn't Gnome or KDE, which is a lot of stuff.

With FUSE it's instantly usable by EVERYTHING. Not just one or another paticularly tightly controlled desktop environment setup by some project-specific developers.

gnome vs. kde

Posted Aug 23, 2006 19:23 UTC (Wed) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

Oh, I agree that FUSE implementations are preferable, but you have a few
problems which can't be overcome:

kioslaves and gnome-vfs modules aren't restricted to POSIX interfaces (at
least not in theory): you could do things with them that you can't do with
POSIX. The interface for POSIX is (at least semi-)frozen.

And there's no way to make FUSE work on systems with non-free kernels. I
thought GNOME and KDE were supposed to work on non-free systems? There's
certainly effort going on to make them work under Cygwin (and both already
do to a considerable extent). You could fake FUSE under Cygwin, too, but
what about non-free Unixes? (Or do we just say 'increasingly irrelevant'
and forget about them?)