[LAU] Linux/Musix/Debian on a UMPC

david gnome at hawaii.rr.com
Mon Sep 19 04:14:09 UTC 2011


Simon Wise wrote:
> On 16/09/11 04:06, fred wrote:
>>
>>
>> Le 15/09/2011 21:03, david a écrit :
>>> My existing musicbox (running an older versin of ArtistX) uses LXDE. 
>>> My server
>>> (running Aptosid) uses XFCE. My personal laptop is still running 
>>> KDE3. I've
>>> noticed that a number of KDE4 and GNOME3 have become quite hefty, and 
>>> music
>>> distros seem to be dropping them.
>>
>> Maybe, hum, Linux is a reflect of the society we are living in : more 
>> and more
>> for the eye candy, less to peoples' needs ?
> 
> Some like their eye candy, and luckily for them some are willing to 
> provide it.
> 
> But Linux offers choices - XFCE and others are there for those of us who 
> prefer that way of working.
> 
> And it looks to me like GNOME is trying to cater for the touch-screen 
> side of things ... a phone or small tablet certainly needs an interface 
> that can be used efficiently without a keyboard, on a small screen and 
> with a finger as the only pointer. That would take a lot of customising, 
> and a lot of work by the user, in XFCE or any other keyboard-oriented 
> desktop environment.

That's true, but you see, phones and tablets aren't really meant for 
creating text-based content. They're really meant for consuming content. 
So it's quite appropriate to have a different UI designed for those 
environments. Just like the Palm OS UI was designed and optimized for 
use with a stylus, and GoCorp's old Penpoint OS was designed from the 
ground up for use with a stylus.

I've never liked the GNOME desktop and particularly its apparent 
philosophy of restricting user customizability and functionality. I've 
firmly convinced that the first thing the GNOME design team asks itself 
at every session is, "What can we take away from users next?" Jokingly, 
I expect the GNOME desktop to eventually consist of a single button 
labeled "Shutdown" ...

Ever seen Ubuntu's Unity interface on a netbook? It's an interesting 
compromise between the needs of a small screen and the use of a keyboard 
& integrated pointing device.

-- 
David
gnome at hawaii.rr.com
authenticity, honesty, community


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