Single GUI App

[chocamo]

I want to have a very minimal system install on a beagleboard with a single gui app for an interface. I am trying to avoid installing an entire window manager to save space and resources. What is the best way to go about doing this?

[WarheadsSE]

GUI apps require an x-windows system of some kind, no way to avoid that.

[ykmag]

If it is written in Qt, you can use qws, you just have to build Qt with the embedded flag. I do and it works realy well.

[chocamo]

So is there not a prebuilt package that allows for this? I don't mind building qt but just seems like something that would be in repos for an embedded system

[ykmag]

I think Qt is in the repo, but not built for embedded (but I am not shure about this). Any way, building Qt yourself, gives you a bit more control over what you fill your disk with. I am building Qt on a sheeva plug nativly, it takes more ~30 hours.... I don't do it al lot as you can imagine. But the app you are going to run has to be a Qt app, otherwise qws cant help you...

[kmihelich]

Qt does take a long time to compile, and you can't distcc it as it will store the locations of the compiler (which means distcc paths) which will wreak havoc for any other Qt app you try to build.

There really isn't that much space involved in running just the base Xorg server and a lightweight window manager. Very little resources as well. You could even skip a window manager completely and control the X window settings for your app when you launch it, placing it fullscreen or whatever you need to do. In all, the toolkit your app is built with (Qt, GTK) and its dependencies will dwarf the space requirements of a windowing system.

[ykmag]

This is all true, but for me at least, when I decided to use qws, the reason was 1) less config (I have no knowledge on X, and realy had a steep enough learing curve with linux and 2) qws has a bulit in VNC server out of the box which is extremaly handy.
I suspect also that it starts a bit faster.