25 Oct
2006
25 Oct
'06
2:34 p.m.
On Wednesday 25 October 2006 10:58, Kjetil S. Matheussen wrote:
I have always wondered why people bother to use other
window
managers than fvwm? I know about variety and choice, he he,
but its like using beos, windows vista, macosx, hurd, or some
other fancy new OS instead of linux, which is fast enough,
extremely stable, and can be configured to be or do whatever.
Just like fvwm.
I don't use fvwm for the same reason I don't use Gentoo or
Slackware. It's too minimal, too close to the metal for my
general use.
Linux is the operating system I use every day on half a dozen
different machines, between mine and my clients'. It's not just
some personal comp sci project where I have time to tweak config
files endlessly. I use GNOME or KDE and whatever window manager
they have set up by default. And any window manager I use will
be one that has a start menu, quick launch bar and task list on
screen by default. Currently my choice between the two is GNOME
because I'm running Ubuntu and some of the system menus seem to
be absent from KDE, but since I'm typing this in kmail, all that
KDE crap is running anyway, and I am offended by the fact that
gnome-panel uses 147MB of VM, so I'll probably end up switching
back.
These choices are not only for my own convenience, but because I
see a day in the future where I can seriously tell a pretty
normal user, "To do anything you want on this Linux machine you
will never need to see a command line or edit a config file."
It's already about 90% of the way there but then one of my
customers or my partner will ask me how to do something and I'll
have to grumble and open up Konsole.
If I'm doing something which needs all the CPU and RAM I can give
it (like music stuff on a non-Molnarized machine) or on really
slow machines I fire up IceWM, which at least has third-party
graphical config tools. I also like that its system bar goes
all the way across the bottom of the screen by default, like on
the Macs and Amigas I cut my teeth on 20 years ago. (The only
reason the "icons sprayed across the bottom of the screen" thing
works on OS X is because of their transparent background and
that nice smooth scaling effect.) Even then, it annoys me that
I can't just drag the start menu/task bar up to the top of the
screen (the way those Macs and Amigas had it) like I can with
the other two desktops. I also miss the temperature/heat
index/wind chill applet I wrote for the KDE panel.
E16 was popular with the tweaker set and I know e17 will be as
well. I personally have no use for weird bitmap themes or
partially transparent terminals or white-on-dark-brown color
schemes or weird ornamental fonts that make me feel like I'm
using a fake computer on the set of one of the CSI's or a
desktop interface that consists of "right click on the desktop
to do anything", and that's what I remember from e16. I think
you just have to be a little more, uh, elite than me to
appreciate that stuff.
Rob