I want to code a primitive, DE independant application. Hence I want to be independant of Qt and GTK. What is the next lower library below Qt/GTK. I mean what is the lowest common denominator that is used by either of them and is available on every graphical linux system.
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3The X11 protocol, so Xlib/libxcb. Have fun working with that.Matteo Italia– Matteo Italia2014-07-06 20:40:11 +00:00Commented Jul 6, 2014 at 20:40
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The X11/Xorg server is used by both Qt, GTK, and pretty much every GUI toolkit out there (FLTK, etc...), so it is the "lowest common denominator" you're talking about. You can use it directly with the XCB or Xlib library.
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ManuelSchneid3r
X11/Xorg is a software system. I am looking for a library that is used for programming a GUI
Matteo Italia
@Manuel: so you are looking for something at the same level of GTK+/qt, but that looks out of place in any DE (e.g. the hideous Motif GUIs). Not a good idea, if you ask me. Honestly, you should go for either Qt or GTK+, for one reason or another anyone having a Linux desktop today will have both installed, and both do a decent job of not looking out of place in all the main DEs.
There is no such common library.
If you are writing a desktop app (i.e something you expect the user to interact with through their usual windowing system) my advice would be to use either QT or GTK - choice is yours.
There are some other reportedly simplier 'lightweight' libraries you can use such as EFL (Enlightenment) and TK (i.e. Old school tcl/tk apps haven't seen one of these for years). Or you could even use something more exotic like Motif (for that cutting edge mid 90's unix workstation CDE look and feel) - I hear that is open source now (finally).
For a full screen app like a game I believe you can use SDL or maybe ever write out directly to Linux's frame buffer device - I can't really offer anything here I have no experience.
There is no gurantee any of these libraries will be available on any given Linux installation. Thankfully package management exists to take care of this for you. Write the app publish the source and the make files. If people find it useful and want it in their distribution someone will package it for you.
If you are making a closed source binary you are left with static linking.
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rubenvb
Your last sentence is very untrue. Various libraries provide licenses that permit closed-source applications to be distributed.