[Debian GNUstep maintainers] Bug#494933: Bug#494933: charmap.app: the range switching is terribly slow

[Yavor Doganov]

On Fri, Aug 15, 2008 at 02:07:47PM -0700, Marc J. Driftmeyer wrote:
> It's the main reason I installed gnustep with the cairo backend 

There's no reason to "install" GNUstep with a specific backend on
Debian, you just have to install an extra package (this is not done by
default now simply because art is still the preferred backend upstream,
and generally we don't want to divert) and set it up with the `defaults'
tool.  You can switch dynamically between backends in a single X session.

> My approach is a workaround, due to cairo, but this then addresses  
> whether art is broken by it's design limitations or just outstanding  
> issues that have grandfathered over and people put up with it for too  
> long.

No, many GNUsteppers are using art; I believe this particular problem is
Debian-specific.  Even if not, it is a bit premature to label "art" as
broken.  The cairo backend is not the default as it still has some
problems on non-GNU platforms and perhaps some peculiar architectures,
but all apps should work equally well with art and cairo.