[17:57] <RonMan> Hello
[19:41] <em22_> hello, I'd like to write some GUI programs on/for Linux.  I've done a little bit of GUI on Windows so understand the basic concepts.  But when I approach Linux I feel lost, can't figure out where to start reading.  there is X and Mosaic, and OpenGL, and GTK, QT, etc.  Then there are an infinite number of window managers.  It is unclear to me how all of these fit together.  Where can I find some good docs on this subject?  thanks.
[20:03] <c10ud> em22_, it's actually pretty simple: you pick your favourite language and a toolkit and start coding.. no need to care about wm, display servers or anything unless you really need to mess with them
[20:04] <stqn> em22_: most applications use either Gtk or Qt
[20:05] <stqn> then there’s Gtk2 and Gtk3… devs tend to switch to Gtk3 progressively
[20:05] <c10ud> em22_, the most widespread UI toolkits are GTK and Qt. GTK offers UI only and many languages, Qt is c++ and python and has many utilities beyond UI elements only
[20:05] <c10ud> that's the brief explanation
[22:47] <em22_> c10ud: thanks, what do you mean when you say that GTK is UI only?  what I am hoping to find are some docs that explain how the different pieces fit togehter and what the trade-offs are of GTK vs QT vs X...  what I really don't get is how you talk to the window managers, especially when there are so many different ones.
[22:49] <em22_> oh, well, perhaps I should explain, that I am a crazyman who prefers to write stuff in assembly.  I try to avoid heavy (and usually buggy) libraries as much as possible.
[22:59] <c10ud> em22_, unless you want to start yet another toolkit I suggest you take a brief look at GTK and Qt documentation and then you decide what's best for you. Everything else like window managers etc. you can ignore it for now
[23:38] <stqn> em22_: as c10ud said, you don’t care about window managers.
[23:39] <stqn> if you want to use asm I think Qt is out of the question…
[23:39] <stqn> it’s a bit strange to use asm and limit yourself to a single arch though.
[23:39] <stqn> for a gui app…
[23:45] <em22_> stqn: well, actually I do care about window managers, Im trying to understand the whole process....  and yes, I might just end up writing my own toolkit....   yeah, using asm is strange...  but I guess Im just a strange guy...  Im actually writing my own programming language and I have a very strong dislike of C.  I want as little between me and the cpu as possible.  Ive read most of petzold, so have a grasp of how things work ove
[23:45] <em22_> r on that side of the fence, but I have not yet found anything (docs) similar to give me a grasp of the linuxey side of things.
[23:47] <em22_> so bottom line of what Im searching for is the linux equivlent of petzold.  any ideas?
[23:49] <stqn> I don’t know who or what petzold is.
[23:50] <stqn> What we said is when you write a GUI application, you don’t care about the window manager.
[23:52] <stqn> (well for my SDL game I had to disable fullscreen when under Unity because Unity is bugged, but that’s a special case…)
[23:58] <em22_> petzold is the bible of windows programming, he explains all the APIs for creating and managing Windows and more...   I've looked at SDL, it's a very interesting approach.  how do you like it?  how buggy is it?   My number one concern is bugs.  I tried some demos with GTK and it was crash city, a throughly underwhelming experience, especially for a DEMO.  My general impression of QT is that it is encumbered with a lot of baggage,
[23:58] <em22_> both codewise and polotical.  so it would not be my first choice.  I've heard that X is pretty ugly to interface with but dont have any specifics.   And none of what I've seen so far gives me a clue how to talk to the window managers.