What is GConf ?
GConf is a system of storing preferences of most of the installed applications, as well as the environment and desktop for GNOME for Linux.
GConf made its way into GNOME 2.0 first, but it also can be used in pure GTK+, XLib, KDE or pure text mode. The tool so far isn’t very spectacular, but its developers have quite ambitious plans.
GConf resembles the Windows Registry (and the graphical gconf-editor resembles Regedit) both by looks as well as the principle of operation. It is designed to go beyond Windows 3.1 type of preferences storage, with lots of .ini files in /HOME/.name directories.
GConf is to skip the Regedit stage, but to let the preferences to as many programs as possible be stored in one place, without copying the originals faults (damage to the Windows Registry grossly disables the system completely, the registry has many undocumented features and lacks the support to managing preferences over the network).
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Lancelot and Raptor are alternative menus intended for KDE 4. We are, however, at the frosty point, and we should ask ourselves the most important question here – which one to choose, and are they sufficiently mature and functional at all to compete with the default menu? Let’s look at them closely then to know the answer.
Lancelot
Just after my recent review, a commit appeared, which added a decoration that matched to the Air style. It indeed gave Lancelot a completely different nature. Lancelot is probably pretty close to what it’s intended for. It looks very appealing, and just after few moments of seeking around, we can say with all responsibility that it simply does it.
Similar to the one in default menu KDE we can choose from several groups, sorted by specific tasks: contacts, applications, computer and the search bar.
Lancelot comes with pretty good configuration capabilities as well.
Raptor
There was some buzz about Raptor for a long time now. It was even quite commonly considered as “revolutionary”. It is in fact the least complicated form of starting-up and searching for programs. Unfortunately it’s sad, but true, that Raptor stays way behind, and the way it works resembles KRunner a lot. Anyway, Raptor deserves its praises for the simplicity and speed. One of Raptor’s weakest points is that it doesn’t offer any configuration possibilities beside selecting a keyboard shortcut.
