Post #235,428
11/21/05 9:57:05 PM
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Perhaps I see the problem.
U writes: However, when I installed KDE on this machine, I had to spend a good hour on configuration before it was in anything resembling a state I could use effectively. GNOME, on the other hand, rather than pop up wizards when I log in and leave things in a fairly useless state to start off with, has sane defaults which mean I can pretty much log in and get down to business. [link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=203862|Here] and [link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=198434|here] you mention that you've used Fedora and Ubuntu, with most of your experience being on RedHat flavors. RedHat and Fedora have been on Gnome for a long time. RedHat has [link|http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/09/19/1032054902523.html|preferred] Gnome since at least the late 1990s. Ubuntu has always been Gnome-based. I'm a Linux novice, but I was able to install MEPIS (a Debian-based distribution with a KDE desktop) and be up and doing useful things with it in much less than an hour (once I found a version of MEPIS that worked with my wireless out of the box). I've done almost no configuration of anything on MEPIS. Couldn't it be that much of your criticism of KDE and praise of Gnome be based on your familiarity with Gnome on distributions that prefer it? Cheers, Scott.
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Post #235,444
11/21/05 10:47:34 PM
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It feels like this essay might be appropriate here
Substitute Windows with KDE and/or Gnome as appropriate.
[link|http://linux.oneandoneis2.org/LNW.htm|http://linux.oneandoneis2.org/LNW.htm]
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Post #235,454
11/22/05 12:53:51 AM
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That's good. +5 Informative.
"Insert crowbar. Apply force."
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Post #235,470
11/22/05 2:12:52 AM
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Actually.
I'd never recommend anything try to be "more like Windows", for any reason, least of all a perceived winning of new users. I think Linux usability can learn a lot from the Mac, though -- there are many things that Apple has learned to get just right over the years (and, on the flipside, many things they've horribly fucked up; nobody's perfect), and the perception that "we don't do things that way" would hopefully be somewhat lessened by the fact that the Mac OS, too, is built on top of UNIX. \r\n\r\n And that essay seems, to me, to be verging on NIH syndrome. Not a good thing. --\r\nYou cooin' with my bird?
\r\n[link|http://www.shtuff.us/|shtuff]
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Post #235,447
11/21/05 10:55:52 PM
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I agree with on this one,
I tried Ubuntu for a while and found gnome to be useful once I had it configured, however, there were some things that I never got working.
I switched to Kubuntu (Ubuntu with KDE instead of Gnome) and had it working with little configuration issues and everything now worked.
Horses for sourse I suppose.
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Post #235,468
11/22/05 2:09:44 AM
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Actually.
I prefer to use a distro that's *not* oriented toward a particular desktop when trying it out; I'm sure Kubuntu and others provide nicely preconfigured stuff, but from a usability perspective I'm interested in the stock shipping version of the environment, not the version you get after a third party intercepts it and fixes things to make it easier ;) \r\n\r\n And just to drive home the point that I've been making about different types of users wanting different things: I use Enlightenment by choice, and it requires more configuration than any three other desktops/WMs put together. I like that sort of fine-grained control. But I know that not everyone does, and in fact the vast majority of people wouldn't have a clue what to do with such a thing. Which is why I think anything which aims at a broad userbase (as GNOME does) should work on simplicity and sane defaults rather than "everything is configurable in eighty zillion ways", because the former approach nets many more users than the latter. --\r\nYou cooin' with my bird?
\r\n[link|http://www.shtuff.us/|shtuff]
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Post #235,502
11/22/05 9:20:57 AM
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The parent to this post summarizes the stymie perfectly.
HERE we go: prefer to use a distro that's *not* oriented toward a particular desktop when trying it out; I'm sure Kubuntu and others provide nicely preconfigured stuff, but from a usability perspective I'm interested in the stock shipping version of the environment, not the version you get after a third party intercepts it and fixes things to make it easier ;) This entire paragraph sums up what you are trying to summarily speak about. This is why we are having such a mis-intepretation of things. This explains many, many, many of arguements here. -- [link|mailto:greg@gregfolkert.net|greg], [link|http://www.iwethey.org/ed_curry|REMEMBER ED CURRY!] @ iwetheyFreedom is not FREE. Yeah, but 10s of Trillions of US Dollars? SELECT * FROM scog WHERE ethics > 0;
0 rows returned.
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Post #235,517
11/22/05 10:48:59 AM
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"Enlightenment by choice"
So let me get this straight.
Note: I'm paraphrasing based on my limited understanding.
You have been engaging in a heated discussion, in favor of a simplified environment with as few choices as possible, taking away options that were there in an environment that a bunch of people here used to like, but now find it annoying.
AND YOU DON'T USE IT? YOU WANT MORE OPTIONS? YOU WANT YOUR VERY COMPLEX ENVIRONMENT?
If this was the corporate world, I'd start thinking of conspiracy theories that have to do with crippling the competition.
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Post #235,521
11/22/05 11:46:43 AM
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The WM is only one aspect of the environment, Barry.
Peter
[link|http://www.no2id.net/|Don't Let The Terrorists Win]
[link|http://www.kuro5hin.org|There is no K5 Cabal]
[link|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org|Home]
Use P2P for legitimate purposes!
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Post #235,851
11/24/05 9:21:44 AM
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To me, it's a simple dichotomy.
There are times, many times, and not all times, when I personally like the level of configurability Enlightenment provides. However, I understand that not everyone prefers this level of configurability, and that many people would find the idea of having to spend as much time tweaking a desktop as I've spent on E to be absurd. For these people, GNOME exists; it's very easy to change the things people most commonly want to change, and it just gets out of the way and lets you Do Stuff. There are times when I'm a fan of that myself; the only things I've ever changed in my GNOME setup are: \r\n\r\n \r\n- The theme.
\r\n- The wallpaper.
\r\n- The fonts.
\r\n- The set of application launchers and applets in my panel.
\r\n \r\n\r\n These things are all extremely easy to do in GNOME, and don't by any means represent the extent to which GNOME is configurable. But this leads to a useful observation: not everyone wants or needs a high level of fine-grained configurability, and often a desktop which does not offer that is just as usable, possibly more so, than a desktop which does. --\r\nYou cooin' with my bird?
\r\n[link|http://www.shtuff.us/|shtuff]
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Post #235,534
11/22/05 12:39:18 PM
11/22/05 1:23:47 PM
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WEEEEEE! (Great gallopin' goshes)
Thanks for reminding me, though not really reminding me.
I am now using Enlightenment as my window manager.
It has been quite a while since I looked at E, I'd like to say: THANKS.
I have to say, I am surprised. Especially now I get to get rid on my launcher farms.
Everything I wanted is in E, and I still get GNOME.
Schweet. Now to turn off the things I don't want, as GNOME does some of the tasks the way I want. But most tasks or events i want E to take care of.
And, if I am remembering right Enlightenment was the default GNOME Window Manager for a good while early on (pre 1.0 through 1.2, I believe)
It still seems to work just fine. I'll start a new thread *IF* I find anything I can't do (or remember howto do) which is doubtful. (Though recently I forgot the tags for underlining text, in HTML... ahhh!)
/me is now discovering all the things he missed again.
Edit: AHHHHHH! I have window Grouping again! AHHHH! AHHHH! I have sane Window Shading again. AHHH! I can turn off brders or not per window and have it remember it!!! AHHH even gnome-terminal works with autochanging my text color schemes... ahhhhhhhhhh......
Maximum Window heights and widths, stacking rules, icon boxes, plus nautilus behave differently now... better. Configurable workspace flips, configurable snap-to, macro definitions, menu rules... script that work with the window manager... WOOOOOHOOOO!
/me runs around skipping for joy, jumping up and down in defferent location as to not ruin the concrete
/me explodes into a puddle of utter pleasantness.
AHHHHHHH!
Below are the keybindings for E as it comes "from the factory"
CTRL+ALT+Home - Re-shuffle windows on screen to be Clean
CTRL+ALT+Del - Exit Enlightenment and Log Out
CTRL+ALT+End - Restart Enlightenment
CTRL+ALT+Up-Arrow - Raise window to top
CTRL+ALT+Down-Arrow - Lower window to the bottom
CTRL+ALT+Left-Arrow - Go to the previous desktop
CTRL+ALT+Right-Arrow - Go to the next desktop
CTRL+ALT+X - Close the currently focused window
CTRL+ALT+K - Kill the currently focused window nastily
CTRL+ALT+I - Iconify the currently focused window
CTRL+ALT+R - Shade/Unshade the currently focused window
CTRL+ALT+S - Stick/Unstick the currently focused window
CTRL+ALT+(F1 - F12) - Go directly to desktops 0 - 11
ALT+Tab - Switch focus to the next window
ALT+Enter - Zoom/Unzoom the currently focused window
SHIFT+ALT+Left-Arrow - Move to the virtual desktop on the left if there is one
SHIFT+ALT+Right-Arrow - Move to the virtual desktop on the right if there is one
SHIFT+ALT+Up-Arrow - Move to the virtual desktop above if there is one
SHIFT+ALT+Down-Arrow - Move to the virtual desktop below if there is one
/greg's brain dribbles out his ear (only his left one as the eardrum is perforated)
-- [link|mailto:greg@gregfolkert.net|greg], [link|http://www.iwethey.org/ed_curry|REMEMBER ED CURRY!] @ iwetheyFreedom is not FREE. Yeah, but 10s of Trillions of US Dollars? SELECT * FROM scog WHERE ethics > 0;
0 rows returned.
Edited by folkert
Nov. 22, 2005, 12:49:44 PM EST
Edited by folkert
Nov. 22, 2005, 01:23:47 PM EST
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Post #235,550
11/22/05 2:27:46 PM
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What hardware are you running that on?
One of the old bugaboos about E! was it was very resource-heavy. How's it these days? Are you running it on Barry's Quad Opeteron? ;-)
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
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Post #235,551
11/22/05 2:32:35 PM
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Re: What hardware are you running that on?
It was resource-heavy on old P233 boxes with S3 ViRGE graphics cards and 256MB of RAM if you were really lucky.
Today, it's just another WM.
Peter
[link|http://www.no2id.net/|Don't Let The Terrorists Win]
[link|http://www.kuro5hin.org|There is no K5 Cabal]
[link|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org|Home]
Use P2P for legitimate purposes!
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Post #235,643
11/23/05 9:37:01 AM
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Very Lean, comparatively
Xorg is significantly lighter on resource use, while using E!.
Matter of fact Metacity used 25MB and E! only uses 10MB.
Infact, that is with a ton of special fun stuffs enabled.
Xorg went from 200MB of resources IN USE with a tons reserved using Metcity, down to 100MB with E!.
Mind you, I was running Evolution, about 50 terms, VMware(with 768MB allocated), Firefox, GAIM and a crap-shoot of other proggys.
Even @ home it rocks.
Oh, I changed Window Managers with out restarting X or GNOME or even logging out. Everything survived.
The only problem I haven't figured out is registering the config stuff with GNOME, so it works from the "windows" thinger in the gnome-tool-center
Oh, also all key-bindings seem to be controlled by E! now... a bit annoying at first, but very very manageable.
-- [link|mailto:greg@gregfolkert.net|greg], [link|http://www.iwethey.org/ed_curry|REMEMBER ED CURRY!] @ iwetheyFreedom is not FREE. Yeah, but 10s of Trillions of US Dollars? SELECT * FROM scog WHERE ethics > 0;
0 rows returned.
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Post #235,653
11/23/05 10:36:06 AM
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OT: X's reported memory usage means nowt
Every lil' mmap() that uses shared memory is in that total.
Gauging X's performance by the size of its RSS is a fruitless exercise.
Peter
[link|http://www.no2id.net/|Don't Let The Terrorists Win]
[link|http://www.kuro5hin.org|There is no K5 Cabal]
[link|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org|Home]
Use P2P for legitimate purposes!
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Post #235,738
11/23/05 6:14:02 PM
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Yes, I understand that is the case.
But, I m talking about the code and data stack.
Those two mean more than RSS.
But in anycase.
-- [link|mailto:greg@gregfolkert.net|greg], [link|http://www.iwethey.org/ed_curry|REMEMBER ED CURRY!] @ iwetheyFreedom is not FREE. Yeah, but 10s of Trillions of US Dollars? SELECT * FROM scog WHERE ethics > 0;
0 rows returned.
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