25 Oct
2006
25 Oct
'06
12:59 p.m.
Drucer Ninetynine:
Hello list!
...
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.
25 Oct
25 Oct
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
3:08 p.m.
On Wed, 2006-10-25 at 12:30 -0400, Rob wrote:
"To do anything you want on this Linux machine
you
will never need to see a command line or edit a config file."
out of interest, how do you print a document without a command line and
without going into a document editor of some kind?
3:21 p.m.
On Wednesday 25 October 2006 13:07, Paul Davis wrote:
out of interest, how do you print a document without a
command
line
"File/Print" and then click OK. Works in kwrite, gedit,
Openoffice, pretty much any document-producing app worth
installing.
and without going into a document editor of some kind?
If you can't start one of those programs I mentioned without
dropping to a command line, you seriously need a new desktop
environment.
Rob
5:09 p.m.
Hallo,
Rob hat gesagt: // Rob wrote:
I think, this is really a matter of taste and what you're used to. I
completely agree that users shouldn't be forced to use the command
line. However there also is the other side: I am one of those users
who love the command line. I prefer a GNU Screen over a taskbar, my
file managers are rm, cp, mv and mkdir.
I'm quite fast with these tools, much faster than with most GUI apps
for things like starting programs, editing configurations, handling
files etc. and these tools are available on every *nix machine I saw.
But at work I have to use Windows XP, where I'm really missing my
trusted powerful bash. I think this is at least as bad as having to
drop to the command line now and then on Linux.
Ciao
--
Frank Barknecht _ ______footils.org_ __goto10.org__
and without
going into a document editor of some kind?
If you can't start one of those programs I mentioned without
dropping to a command line, you seriously need a new desktop
environment. 
5:11 p.m.
On 10/25/06, Frank Barknecht <fbar(a)footils.org> wrote:
But at work I have to use Windows XP, where I'm
really missing my
trusted powerful bash. I think this is at least as bad as having to
drop to the command line now and then on Linux.
That's what CygWin is for. :-)
--
Brett McCoy: Programmer by Day, Guitarist by Night
http://www.alhazred.com
http://www.cassandrasyndrome.com
http://www.revelmoon.com
5:26 p.m.
On Wed Oct 25, 2006 at 03:11:20PM -0400, Brett W. McCoy wrote:
On 10/25/06, Frank Barknecht <fbar(a)footils.org>
wrote:
no need, native bash.exe runs fine without it. grab it from minGW..
But at work I have to use Windows XP, where
I'm really missing my
trusted powerful bash. I think this is at least as bad as having to
drop to the command line now and then on Linux.
That's what CygWin is for. :-)
--
Brett McCoy: Programmer by Day, Guitarist by Night
http://www.alhazred.com
http://www.cassandrasyndrome.com
http://www.revelmoon.com
5:31 p.m.
Hallo,
Brett W. McCoy hat gesagt: // Brett W. McCoy wrote:
On 10/25/06, Frank Barknecht <fbar(a)footils.org>
wrote:
Unfortunately it's not installed everywhere. :(
Ciao
--
Frank Barknecht _ ______footils.org_ __goto10.org__
But at work I have to use Windows XP, where
I'm really missing my
trusted powerful bash. I think this is at least as bad as having to
drop to the command line now and then on Linux.
That's what CygWin is for. :-) 
6:31 p.m.
Am Mittwoch, den 25.10.2006, 21:30 +0200 schrieb Frank Barknecht:
it doesn't have the best package manager around :/
--
-- Leonard Ritter
-- http://www.leonard-ritter.com
-- http://www.paniq.org
That's what CygWin is for. :-)
Unfortunately it's not installed everywhere. :( 
6:42 p.m.
On Wed, 2006-10-25 at 22:31 +0200, Leonard "paniq" Ritter wrote:
Am Mittwoch, den 25.10.2006, 21:30 +0200 schrieb Frank
Barknecht:
it doesn't have the best package manager around :/
Are you kidding? It has the perfect package manager!
Start->Run->http://cygwin.com/setup.exe and just click through...
Lee
That's what CygWin is for. :-)
Unfortunately it's not installed everywhere. :(
10:50 p.m.
On Wed, 2006-10-25 at 16:42 -0400, Lee Revell wrote:
Are you kidding? It has the perfect package manager!
Start->Run->http://cygwin.com/setup.exe and just click through...
that is what i mean. there is no command line tool to quickly add a
package, and the package manager itself is quite weird... compared to
synaptics, for example.
--
-- Leonard Ritter
-- http://www.leonard-ritter.com
-- http://www.paniq.org
11:17 p.m.
Leonard "paniq" Ritter schrieb:
On Wed, 2006-10-25 at 16:42 -0400, Lee Revell wrote:
smart isnt that bad...;) but clicking through is nice too hehe :)
Are you kidding? It has the perfect package
manager!
Start->Run->http://cygwin.com/setup.exe and just click through...
that is what i mean. there is no command line tool to quickly add a
package, and the package manager itself is quite weird... compared to
synaptics, for example.
9:11 p.m.
On Wed, Oct 25, 2006 at 09:30:26PM +0200, Frank Barknecht wrote:
Hallo,
Brett W. McCoy hat gesagt: // Brett W. McCoy wrote:
Carry it on a thumb drive?
--
Joshua D. Boyd
jdboyd(a)jdboyd.net
http://www.jdboyd.net/
http://www.joshuaboyd.org/
On 10/25/06, Frank Barknecht
<fbar(a)footils.org> wrote:
Unfortunately it's not installed everywhere. :( But at work I have to use Windows XP, where
I'm really missing my
trusted powerful bash. I think this is at least as bad as having to
drop to the command line now and then on Linux.
That's what CygWin is for. :-) 
5:44 p.m.
Brett W. McCoy schreef:
On 10/25/06, Frank Barknecht <fbar(a)footils.org>
wrote:
http://www.research.att.com/sw/tools/uwin/
--
http://www.mprims.net
But at work I have to use Windows XP, where
I'm really missing my
trusted powerful bash. I think this is at least as bad as having to
drop to the command line now and then on Linux.
That's what CygWin is for. :-)
5:25 p.m.
On Wed, Oct 25, 2006 at 09:08:08PM +0200, Frank Barknecht wrote:
I prefer a GNU Screen over a taskbar, my file managers
are rm, cp,
mv and mkdir.
Same here. I've also banned not only KDE but also all KDE apps from
my system. They just don't get installed. This will remain so until
they start to behave (which will never happen).
--
FA
Lascia la spina, cogli la rosa.
5:36 p.m.
On Wednesday 25 October 2006 15:08, Frank Barknecht wrote:
However there also is the other side: I am
one of those users who love the command line. I prefer a GNU
Screen over a taskbar, my file managers are rm, cp, mv and
mkdir.
And you have many desktop options available to you when your
needs are so simple. I spend most of my time at a command line
too, though I prefer Konsole's tabbed windows over screen for
local use at this point, but I am not most users, I'm a coder.
But at work I have to use Windows XP, where I'm
really missing
my trusted powerful bash. I think this is at least as bad as
having to drop to the command line now and then on Linux.
For you and me, sure. (I always install cygwin if I have to use
a Windows machine for any length of time.) But again, you and I
are not most users.
Rob
6:13 p.m.
On Wed, 2006-10-25 at 13:19 -0400, Rob wrote:
On Wednesday 25 October 2006 13:07, Paul Davis wrote:
no, no. i am talking about being in a file browser, not in a document
editor. lets say i find foo.txt or bar.png or baz.pdf and i want to
print it. what do i do?
because in a command line environment i don't have to start up an
editor, i just type "lpr foo.txt". it seems to me that this *must* be
possible from the GUI equivalent, but in GNOME at least i cannot find
it.
--p
out of interest, how do you print a document
without a command
line
"File/Print" and then click OK. Works in kwrite, gedit,
Openoffice, pretty much any document-producing app worth
installing. 
6:29 p.m.
because in a command line environment i don't have
to start up an
editor, i just type "lpr foo.txt". it seems to me that this *must* be
possible from the GUI equivalent, but in GNOME at least i cannot find
it.
In KDE it's right click->action->print.
Naturally this would only work with text or postscript files (and possibly
some other kde native formats), otherwise you'd need a app that converts it,
e.g. the app that wrote it.
/Robert
--
http://spamatica.se/musicsite/
6:31 p.m.
On 10/25/06, Paul Davis <paul(a)linuxaudiosystems.com> wrote:
On Wed, 2006-10-25 at 13:19 -0400, Rob wrote:
Do you mean something like the Windows 'Run' command? I don't think
Gnome has that, or I've never seen it. Of course Gnome does have a
terminal to instead of running the command it's open the terminal and
run the command. Not a big deal really.
I'm sure there is a finer point here?
- Mark
On Wednesday 25 October 2006 13:07, Paul Davis
wrote:
no, no. i am talking about being in a file browser, not in a document
editor. lets say i find foo.txt or bar.png or baz.pdf and i want to
print it. what do i do?
because in a command line environment i don't have to start up an
editor, i just type "lpr foo.txt". it seems to me that this *must* be
possible from the GUI equivalent, but in GNOME at least i cannot find
it.
out of interest, how do you print a document
without a command
line
"File/Print" and then click OK. Works in kwrite, gedit,
Openoffice, pretty much any document-producing app worth
installing.
6:41 p.m.
On Wed, 2006-10-25 at 13:31 -0700, Mark Knecht wrote:
actually, no. i am not talking about a "Run command" style interface. i
am simply amazed that whenever i go to show my wife or kids a document
that they should print but that needs no editing (e.g. my wife's resume,
a picture one of them took, etc etc), neither i nor they can find anyway
to do so without going into a heavyweight app and then doing the usual
File->Print method.
coming from a command line background, it seems ridiculous that the file
managers/browsers have all omitted to leverage the power of lpr and its
filter system.
no, no. i am
talking about being in a file browser, not in a document
editor. lets say i find foo.txt or bar.png or baz.pdf and i want to
print it. what do i do?
because in a command line environment i don't have to start up an
editor, i just type "lpr foo.txt". it seems to me that this *must* be
possible from the GUI equivalent, but in GNOME at least i cannot find
it.
Do you mean something like the Windows 'Run' command? I don't think
Gnome has that, or I've never seen it. Of course Gnome does have a
terminal to instead of running the command it's open the terminal and
run the command. Not a big deal really.
I'm sure there is a finer point here?
6:46 p.m.
On 10/25/06, Paul Davis <paul(a)linuxaudiosystems.com> wrote:
On Wed, 2006-10-25 at 13:31 -0700, Mark Knecht wrote:
actually, no. i am not talking about a "Run command" style interface. i
am simply amazed that whenever i go to show my wife or kids a document
that they should print but that needs no editing (e.g. my wife's resume,
a picture one of them took, etc etc), neither i nor they can find anyway
to do so without going into a heavyweight app and then doing the usual
File->Print method.
OK - I completely understand and completely agree. However I think the
'printing in Linux' problem seems to go so far beyond the desktop
environment it's scary. Printing is jsut damnably hard in Linux no
matter how you try it. I have printers all around the house. With a
lot of work I can get one or two of them to be available to different
machines, but we run into formatting issues. The HP printer attached
to this AMD64 Gentoo box gives different results with the same
document printed from my wife's box or my son's box or even printed
from here.
no, no. i
am talking about being in a file browser, not in a document
editor. lets say i find foo.txt or bar.png or baz.pdf and i want to
print it. what do i do?
because in a command line environment i don't have to start up an
editor, i just type "lpr foo.txt". it seems to me that this *must* be
possible from the GUI equivalent, but in GNOME at least i cannot find
it.
Do you mean something like the Windows 'Run' command? I don't think
Gnome has that, or I've never seen it. Of course Gnome does have a
terminal to instead of running the command it's open the terminal and
run the command. Not a big deal really.
I'm sure there is a finer point here?
coming from a command line background, it seems ridiculous that the file
managers/browsers have all omitted to leverage the power of lpr and its
filter system.
I agree. I'm sure it could be easier and certainly more intuitive.
- Mark
7:04 p.m.
On Wed, 2006-10-25 at 13:45 -0700, Mark Knecht wrote:
OK - I completely understand and completely agree.
However I think the
'printing in Linux' problem seems to go so far beyond the desktop
environment it's scary. Printing is jsut damnably hard in Linux no
matter how you try it. I have printers all around the house. With a
lot of work I can get one or two of them to be available to different
machines, but we run into formatting issues. The HP printer attached
to this AMD64 Gentoo box gives different results with the same
document printed from my wife's box or my son's box or even printed
from here.
PostScript printers work perfectly. Don't blame Linux, blame the
proliferation of Win-Printers. Some of that junk needs a 100MB Windows
driver!
Lee
7:20 p.m.
Lee Revell wrote:
On Wed, 2006-10-25 at 13:45 -0700, Mark Knecht wrote:
HP can be a problem even with Linux. I use the Generic Postscript driver
with my HP LJ1200 (non-WinPrinter BTW). My wife's Linux laptop uses the
HP LJ1200 Linux driver for it. I've been told that the HP driver uses HP
PCL behind the scenes, not Postscript. So you get different fonts and
different font renderings, not to mention only half the resolution ...
--
David
gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com
authenticity, honesty, community
OK - I completely understand and completely
agree. However I think the
'printing in Linux' problem seems to go so far beyond the desktop
environment it's scary. Printing is jsut damnably hard in Linux no
matter how you try it. I have printers all around the house. With a
lot of work I can get one or two of them to be available to different
machines, but we run into formatting issues. The HP printer attached
to this AMD64 Gentoo box gives different results with the same
document printed from my wife's box or my son's box or even printed
from here.
PostScript printers work perfectly. Don't blame Linux, blame the
proliferation of Win-Printers. Some of that junk needs a 100MB Windows
driver!
9:16 p.m.
On Wed, Oct 25, 2006 at 11:20:21AM -1000, david wrote:
HP can be a problem even with Linux. I use the Generic
Postscript driver
with my HP LJ1200 (non-WinPrinter BTW). My wife's Linux laptop uses the
HP LJ1200 Linux driver for it. I've been told that the HP driver uses HP
PCL behind the scenes, not Postscript. So you get different fonts and
different font renderings, not to mention only half the resolution ...
I tried using PCL directly with my Business Inkjet 1200. I could get
black and white working that way, but not color.
I also tried attaching that printer to a Sun running Solaris and
installing cups and the open source HP supplied drivers. It compiled
fine and acted like it might work, but it locked up the printer every
time. I ended up breaking down and attaching it to a Mac. Grr.
--
Joshua D. Boyd
jdboyd(a)jdboyd.net
http://www.jdboyd.net/
http://www.joshuaboyd.org/
7:48 p.m.
Paul Davis schreef:
actually, no. i am not talking about a "Run
command" style interface. i
am simply amazed that whenever i go to show my wife or kids a document
that they should print but that needs no editing (e.g. my wife's resume,
a picture one of them took, etc etc), neither i nor they can find anyway
to do so without going into a heavyweight app and then doing the usual
File->Print method.
coming from a command line background, it seems ridiculous that the file
managers/browsers have all omitted to leverage the power of lpr and its
filter system.
in nautilus you can add that functionality with a script.
m
--
http://www.mprims.net
8:25 p.m.
in nautilus you can add that functionality with a
script.
I think it is way overdue for Linux WMs to move out of the "can" and join
the "do" realm. It is frustrating to see so much effort right now being
poured into desktop candy which is only skin deep, because once a desktop
user realizes that their printer, or their video, or their WPA wireless, or
their <you name it> "just work," they'll simply give up on it. And
before we
go off on a tangent, yes, it is not Linux's fault that certain vendors are
dubiously guarding their little patented zeros and ones, but at least we
could have a joint effort between WMs, Linux distros, and hardware vendors
to generate "safe" setups which "just work" and therefore reward
those
companies who truly are worthy of our hard-earned income. Until all these
pieces are in place, not much will change in the Linux desktop world...
Best wishes,
Ico
9:54 p.m.
Rob schreef:
On Wednesday 25 October 2006 17:48, mik wrote:
well, then the distributions should start installing these scripts, some
of which have been around for a long time
(http://g-scripts.sourceforge.net/), by default. i'm surprised the
ubuntu people didn't think of that yet.
m
--
http://www.mprims.net
in nautilus you can add that functionality with a
script.
"You" might be able to, and I'm sure I could, but a user who
doesn't know what a bash prompt or a configuration file is?
Rob
9:41 p.m.
On Wednesday 25 October 2006 16:40, Paul Davis wrote:
coming from a command line background, it seems
ridiculous
that the file managers/browsers have all omitted to leverage
the power of lpr and its filter system.
You do realize that most office document and image formats are
not plain text, PDF or Postscript, right? Because for all of
lpr's power, those are the only common formats it handles as far
as I know, and running "my-resume.odt" through lpr will waste a
lot of paper pretty fast.
Rob
10:36 p.m.
On Wed, 2006-10-25 at 19:40 -0400, Rob wrote:
On Wednesday 25 October 2006 16:40, Paul Davis wrote:
my family is well trained to consider only PDF as a portable "final"
image format. PostScript is an acceptable second. ODT, .tex, .doc are
all considered "unstable, in-progress formats". this is reinforced by
the kids' schools which use homework upload sites that accept PDFs (they
also accept .doc, but i tend not to call attention to that).
when my wife needs to print more gift certificates for her massage
therapy clients, or directions to a house party, or her resume for
another mosaic mural residency, she has PDF's finished and ready to go.
from the command line, its so easy, from a GUI, it seems more work than
it should be.
--p
coming from a command line background, it seems
ridiculous
that the file managers/browsers have all omitted to leverage
the power of lpr and its filter system.
You do realize that most office document and image formats are
not plain text, PDF or Postscript, right? Because for all of
lpr's power, those are the only common formats it handles as far
as I know, and running "my-resume.odt" through lpr will waste a
lot of paper pretty fast.
26 Oct
26 Oct
12:35 a.m.
On Wednesday 25 October 2006 20:35, Paul Davis wrote:
my family is well trained
<snip>
from the command line, its so easy,
from a GUI, it seems more work than it should be.
Sure, if you dictate the use of only certain file formats, and
ensure that your handful of users are "well trained", you can
claim that anything's easier than the alternative. But then you
haven't made the computer easier, just trained people to use
something that they would previously have considered hard.
Computers don't usually come with free training, much less
training that includes concepts like ".doc is an unstable,
in-progress format".
Nonetheless, I'm still optimistic that the day when users have
the option to be productive under Linux without a command line
is not that far off.
Rob
12:45 a.m.
On Wed, 2006-10-25 at 22:31 -0400, Rob wrote:
On Wednesday 25 October 2006 20:35, Paul Davis wrote:
lpr is remarkably forgiving of most of the things we throw at it. maybe
the kids should try printing mp3 files ;)
my family is well trained
<snip>
from the command line, its so easy,
from a GUI, it seems more work than it should be.
Sure, if you dictate the use of only certain file formats, and
ensure that your handful of users are "well trained", you can
claim that anything's easier than the alternative. But then you
haven't made the computer easier, just trained people to use
something that they would previously have considered hard.
"Export to PDF" once, lpr-print many, versus "fire up ooffice every time
you want to print" ... not sure which of those is harder.
Computers don't usually come with free training,
much less
training that includes concepts like ".doc is an unstable,
in-progress format".
the training for this actually is free. its duration varies depending on
how many documents you try to exchange and with how many other users who
believe that handle "word documents".
for our kids, it didn't too many shared homework assignments in which
they found that their lab partners couldn't share .doc files written on
different windows or mac machines (even ignoring linux) before this
lesson was easily learnt, with very little input from me.
Nonetheless, I'm still optimistic that the day
when users have
the option to be productive under Linux without a command line
is not that far off.
me too.
2:09 a.m.
On 10/25/06, Paul Davis <paul(a)linuxaudiosystems.com> wrote:
for our kids, it didn't too many shared homework
assignments in which
they found that their lab partners couldn't share .doc files written on
different windows or mac machines (even ignoring linux) before this
lesson was easily learnt, with very little input from me.
I wanted to add a hearty "amen" to this. I've had a really tough time
moving people to Linux at work, mostly b/c, as they say, MS Office is
compatible with itself, therefore we should stay on a platform that
supports that (Windows). That argument is absolute bullshit,
evidenced by the number of help desk calls I get per week of people
complaining about Office not playing nice with itself.
Now back to your regularly scheduled printing thread... :)
--
Josh Lawrence
http://www.hardbop200.com
12:49 p.m.
On Wed, Oct 25, 2006 at 10:45:36PM -0400, Paul Davis wrote:
lpr is remarkably forgiving of most of the things we
throw at it. maybe
the kids should try printing mp3 files ;)
Somewhere I have a tape of random stuff produced during my
early days on linux by doing "cat arbitrary_file_type > /dev/midi"
:-)
--
Paul Winkler
http://www.slinkp.com
1:54 a.m.
On Wed, Oct 25, 2006 at 01:31:03PM -0700, Mark Knecht wrote:
On 10/25/06, Paul Davis
<paul(a)linuxaudiosystems.com> wrote:
Do you mean something like the Windows 'Run' command?
On the off-topic of Run-command I want to recommend fbrun to
fluxbox/blackbox/openbox users. I don't ever use the right-click menu
any more; I have fbrun bound to alt-tilde and then type the name of the
application i want into the box (or most of it and press tab). Fbrun
disappears as soon as the application launches. I have xterm bound to
a different keypress for complicated tasks. It just makes launching apps
so much quicker.
Whilst I don't advocate that for users, one of my musician friends is
completely non-technical and thought that taht was the coolest thing
he'd ever seen. He said he hates having to wade through menus and click
icons all the time.
Best,
Chris.
-------------------
chris(a)mccormick.cx
http://mccormick.cx
25 Oct
25 Oct
6:37 p.m.
Hallo,
Paul Davis hat gesagt: // Paul Davis wrote:
no, no. i am talking about being in a file browser,
not in a document
editor. lets say i find foo.txt or bar.png or baz.pdf and i want to
print it. what do i do?
because in a command line environment i don't have to start up an
editor, i just type "lpr foo.txt".
... and thus fire up the "printor" software. ;)
it seems to me that this *must* be
possible from the GUI equivalent, but in GNOME at least i cannot find
it.
I guess something like Print is in the context menu of a lot of GUI
environments. It is in Windows, I guess it should be in Gnome as well.
But the point is, that a context menu is only so long, it starts to
get uncomfortable with more than a dozen entries. However in the
command line you have hundreds or even thousands of commands at your
fingertips. Just press TAB-TAB. If you want to print or if you want to
run a word count, if you want to upload with scp or whatever: It's all
there. To my knowledge the command line is the most flexible and
powerful "context menu" invented so far.
Similar things can be said about using textfiles and an editor for
configurations and settings. Where is the Settings GUI that lets you
do such a simple thing as add and store your own comment to a certain
dialog entry? - Not in Ardour AFAIK. ;)
Ciao
--
Frank Barknecht _ ______footils.org_ __goto10.org__
6:46 p.m.
On Wed, 2006-10-25 at 22:36 +0200, Frank Barknecht wrote:
I guess something like Print is in the context menu of
a lot of GUI
environments. It is in Windows, I guess it should be in Gnome as well.
Really? So you can right click->print a Word doc in Explorer and it
will print without opening Word? I don't remember Windows doing this...
Lee
7:05 p.m.
On Wednesday 25 October 2006 22:44, Lee Revell wrote:
On Wed, 2006-10-25 at 22:36 +0200, Frank Barknecht
wrote:
Not all is bad on the dark side.
Windows has a quite well working componentized framework for things like this.
The print component associated with the document at hand will be instantiated
without the entire app needs to be launched (atleast not visibly).
Many things on the dark side are however so horribly wrong... After atleast 5
years of being free of windows I have very recently been forced back due to
work... some things just drives me nuts, I'm making a list ;-).
/Robert
--
http://spamatica.se/musicsite/
I guess something like Print is in the context
menu of a lot of GUI
environments. It is in Windows, I guess it should be in Gnome as well.
Really? So you can right click->print a Word doc in Explorer and it
will print without opening Word? I don't remember Windows doing this...
9:13 p.m.
On Wed, Oct 25, 2006 at 04:44:51PM -0400, Lee Revell wrote:
On Wed, 2006-10-25 at 22:36 +0200, Frank Barknecht
wrote:
I would imagine that some Word .dlls would be opened for the calls to
the relevent Word COM objects.
--
Joshua D. Boyd
jdboyd(a)jdboyd.net
http://www.jdboyd.net/
http://www.joshuaboyd.org/
I guess something like Print is in the context
menu of a lot of GUI
environments. It is in Windows, I guess it should be in Gnome as well.
Really? So you can right click->print a Word doc in Explorer and it
will print without opening Word? I don't remember Windows doing this...
9:42 p.m.
On Wednesday 25 October 2006 16:36, Frank Barknecht wrote:
If you want to print or if you want to run a word
count, if
you want to upload with scp or whatever: It's all there. To my
knowledge the command line is the most flexible and powerful
"context menu" invented so far.
I've been using Unix for 20 years and Linux for 12, so for me,
yeah, I probably use the command line more than the context
menus. But we're not talking about you or me, we're talking
about people who are using "something else" and who thinks
visually (a GNOME developer would say spatially, but I don't
necessarily agree) rather than in code.
Even for my own purposes, I end up in the GUI a lot even if it's
just mc or rox (if I'm using icewm.) Suppose I want to burn
600MB of the largest files (out of a directory containing
hundreds of files and several gigs) to a CD. This is something
I do fairly often, with various changes to the criteria, in both
my personal life and business. Click the Size column, start
dragging until the file manager tells me I've got 600MB,
right-click, "Actions/Create Data CD" (under KDE, dunno about
GNOME since I haven't been using it long.) To select those
files at the command line, I would have to sit there and read
man pages for far longer than it would take to burn the actual
CD. I'd probably end up writing a perl one-liner that called
mkisofs and cdrecord.
Suppose I want to delete all the files I created since midnight
in a directory.... I could try to do it from memory
("find -mmin -1200 -type f | xargs rm -f" as I type this,
roughly, right? but I'd run it without the "rm" first just to
be sure...) or I could do it in like 10 seconds by sorting by
date in the file manager, selecting and deleting.
More relevant to this list, ever tried to use mp3cut and xmms
from the command line to trim an mp3 file? I personally find it
annoying, and will put up with an additional encoding generation
just to open the file in Audacity and see the waveform as I'm
trimming it. Needless to say, I've never even used command line
tools to trim a wav file, since there's no downside to using
Audacity.
People who aren't coders or admins usually don't even have the
option to remember the commands we learned years ago, and even
if someone taught them, most people just don't think that way.
The only way most people are even able to use computers is to
think of directories and web pages as physical places, daemons
and files as physical objects, and their dragging and dropping
as literal physical actions rather than a metaphor.
In summary: "Well, the command line works fine for me" is not a
valid counter-argument to "I want to be able to tell my
non-technical users that they'll never have to use a command
line."
Rob
26 Oct
26 Oct
4:41 a.m.
Hallo,
Rob hat gesagt: // Rob wrote:
In summary: "Well, the command line works fine
for me" is not a
valid counter-argument to "I want to be able to tell my
non-technical users that they'll never have to use a command
line."
I'm trying to use it like that at all. As I wrote in my first mail:
Nobody should have to use the command line. I'm just pointing out some
problems of GUI based environments, but they don't make them unusable.
For example even though I advocate the command line here, my preferred
software for doing sound is Pure Data, a *graphical* programming tool.
Some things I can better thing about "spatially" as well.
Ciao
--
Frank Barknecht _ ______footils.org_ __goto10.org__
5:26 a.m.
On Thursday 26 October 2006 02:40, Frank Barknecht wrote:
For example even though I advocate the command line
here, my
preferred software for doing sound is Pure Data, a *graphical*
programming tool. Some things I can better thing about
"spatially" as well.
And it's funny, because I spent some time a couple years ago
trying to figure out how to create Pd patches using a text
editor or even drive Pd from scripts. Didn't get very far, but I
like having options available to me.
Rob
25 Oct
25 Oct
9:14 p.m.
On Wednesday 25 October 2006 16:13, Paul Davis wrote:
because in a command line environment i don't have
to start up
an editor, i just type "lpr foo.txt". it seems to me that this
*must* be possible from the GUI equivalent, but in GNOME at
least i cannot find it.
Actually, under KDE, there's an "Actions/Print" context menu
item, but personally I open the file in its designated app and
print from there. It seems to be missing in GNOME by default,
but it's easy enough to press enter, wait a second, press
control-P and enter again to queue it for printing.
I do notice GNOME's file manager has an "Edit/Send To" menu item
which you could use if you really want to just use lpr or
enscript.
Rob
9:10 p.m.
On Wed, Oct 25, 2006 at 01:07:14PM -0400, Paul Davis wrote:
On Wed, 2006-10-25 at 12:30 -0400, Rob wrote:
Order an underling to do it?
Pay someone to write code that lets you right click on the document in
Nautilus and select Print? Actually, I wonder how hard that would be to
set up for files that are either recognized by cups and/or use CLI
programs to render them (DVI, TeX, Docbook, etc). A bit of a cheat, but
currently you can right click on assorted files, select Open With ->
Open with Other Application, then enter lpr in the custom command field.
Seeing as there is also Open with Document Viewer (see, that's not an
editor!), Open with "PDF Viewer", Open with XPDF, and as of a few
seconds ago, Open with "lpr", there must be a way to add a Print option
in a config file somewhere.
--
Joshua D. Boyd
jdboyd(a)jdboyd.net
http://www.jdboyd.net/
http://www.joshuaboyd.org/
"To do anything you want on this Linux
machine you
will never need to see a command line or edit a config file."
out of interest, how do you print a document without a command line and
without going into a document editor of some kind?
9:37 p.m.
On Wed, 2006-10-25 at 18:55 -0400, Joshua Boyd wrote:
On Wed, Oct 25, 2006 at 01:07:14PM -0400, Paul Davis
wrote:
I wonder if someone from Gnome is working on it already...
Lee
On Wed, 2006-10-25 at 12:30 -0400, Rob wrote:
Order an underling to do it?
Pay someone to write code that lets you right click on the document in
Nautilus and select Print? "To do anything you want on this Linux
machine you
will never need to see a command line or edit a config file."
out of interest, how do you print a document without a command line and
without going into a document editor of some kind?
9:44 p.m.
Joshua Boyd schreef:
Pay someone to write code that lets you right click on the document in
Nautilus and select Print? Actually, I wonder how hard that would be to
set up for files that are either recognized by cups and/or use CLI
programs to render them (DVI, TeX, Docbook, etc). A bit of a cheat, but
currently you can right click on assorted files, select Open With ->
Open with Other Application, then enter lpr in the custom command field.
Seeing as there is also Open with Document Viewer (see, that's not an
editor!), Open with "PDF Viewer", Open with XPDF, and as of a few
seconds ago, Open with "lpr", there must be a way to add a Print option
in a config file somewhere.
as i said: a script will do that.
put the following script in your nautilus-scripts folder and call it print:
#!/bin/sh
lpr $*
now, when you right click, you will have the option "print" under
"Scripts".
i can't check if it works though. my printer (dj 710c) does not work in
amd64.
m
--
http://www.mprims.net
26 Oct
26 Oct
9 a.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-user] Printing from WM (Was Re: E17 - our choice of WM in the future?)
On Wed, 25 Oct 2006, Paul Davis wrote:
On Wed, 2006-10-25 at 12:30 -0400, Rob wrote:
Start xpp, drop file in File-strip, select printer, click Print
(acctually doesn't work excactly as advertised here with xpp 1.5 and
rox 2.3. You have to trim the "file://" part)
Xfce has a printer icon to add to its launch-bar that you can drag-n-drop
to (haven't tried it myself though).
- Peder
"To do anything you want on this Linux
machine you
will never need to see a command line or edit a config file."
out of interest, how do you print a document without a command line and
without going into a document editor of some kind?
11:55 a.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-user] Printing from WM (Was Re: E17 - our choice of WM in the future?)
On 10/26/06, Peder Hedlund <peder(a)musikhuset.org> wrote:
On Wed, 25 Oct 2006, Paul Davis wrote:
I hadn't heard of xpp. I built it, selected a pdf printer (to save
paper in case of disaster) and tried dropping an Open Office
spreadsheet file into it. It crashed with no messages and disappeared.
It's probably far too much to ask for tools like this to understand
filetype associations and bring up the right apps. I showed that at
least in this case it didn't work.
- Mark
On Wed, 2006-10-25 at 12:30 -0400, Rob wrote:
Start xpp, drop file in File-strip, select printer, click Print
(acctually doesn't work excactly as advertised here with xpp 1.5 and
rox 2.3. You have to trim the "file://" part)
Xfce has a printer icon to add to its launch-bar that you can drag-n-drop
to (haven't tried it myself though).
- Peder
"To do anything you want on this Linux
machine you
will never need to see a command line or edit a config file."
out of interest, how do you print a document without a command line and
without going into a document editor of some kind? 
6:43 a.m.
On Wednesday 25 October 2006 17:30, Rob was like:
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.
Yep, that's the issue for most set-ups. I find Ubuntu (gnome version) gets
pretty close to this, so I put it on most of my public machines. Can't stand
using it myself, mind you. ;)
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.
Dunno about elite, you just have to like and want it. Mmm, so I'll probably
try E17 when I get time. Heh. :]
--
cheers,
tim hall
http://glastonburymusic.org.uk/tim
We are the people We've been waiting for.
4:12 p.m.
--- Rob <lau(a)kudla.org> wrote:
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.
It's not about elitism and it's not about wanting
fonts that look obscure. It's about personality. It's
about having that complete freedom to choose how your
desktop looks and behaves. I think a lot of us people
who make music want to have a personal touch even when
it comes to their desktop software. The reason I
brought up this conversation was to find out how you
artists feel about WM that was created by artists.
Carsten Haitzler (aka rasterman) - the main man behind
the Enlightenment project has said that he's not a
coder, he's just an artist who has to write code to
make art.
I'm not completely satisfied with any of the desktop
software choices out there at the moment (there are
some very good WMs, but things could be better) -
that's why I'm hoping E17 - once officially released -
will "save me" and give me that satisfaction I'm
looking for. If some of you have found satisfaction
with any of the available desktop software choices out
there then be happy. Not all of us are that lucky. And
I do not know if this sounds naive, but I believe when
I'm completely satisfied with my desktop software I
can make better music. If I do not have to be annoyed
about anything and can just concentrate on making
music then I believe the result will be better. This
is why I think it concerns us musicians and this is
why I think it's worth to see the trouble to test many
different desktop environments - it's not all the same
what environment we use to create music. To put it
this way - if you have messy room where you are trying
to write a new song - do you feel that it is the best
environment trying to write a new song? What if the
room was clean and things would be in order, would
that have any effect on your songwriting? OK, these
are personal things. Some people might feel at home if
the room was messy, some people would not. I really
hope E17 - again, once officially released - will make
more of us Linux musicians happy and offer us creative
and functional environment to make music.
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
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27 Oct
27 Oct
4:53 p.m.
Drucer Ninetynine wrote:
--- Rob <lau(a)kudla.org> wrote:
I imagine he said that with tongue in cheek.
Part of the reason that e17 has taken so long to get to this stage is
because Raster has been otherwise employed in Tokyo working for Dokomo
writing code for their latest Linux based cellphones among other things.
--
Patrick Shirkey - Boost Hardware Ltd.
Http://www.boosthardware.com
Http://lau.linuxaudio.org - The Linux Audio Users guide
========================================
"Anything your mind can see you can manifest physically, then it will
become reality" - Macka B
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.
It's not about elitism and it's not about wanting
fonts that look obscure. It's about personality. It's
about having that complete freedom to choose how your
desktop looks and behaves. I think a lot of us people
who make music want to have a personal touch even when
it comes to their desktop software. The reason I
brought up this conversation was to find out how you
artists feel about WM that was created by artists.
Carsten Haitzler (aka rasterman) - the main man behind
the Enlightenment project has said that he's not a
coder, he's just an artist who has to write code to
make art.
5:01 p.m.
On 10/27/06, Patrick Shirkey <pshirkey(a)boosthardware.com> wrote:
<SNIP>
I imagine he said that with tongue in cheek.
Part of the reason that e17 has taken so long to get to this stage is
because Raster has been otherwise employed in Tokyo working for Dokomo
writing code for their latest Linux based cellphones among other things.
For kicks I built E17. It runs on my AMD64 machine and looks fairly
nice but many of the basic windowing operations seem sort of slow
compared to Gnome.
I suppose there are instructions around for how to build some menus
but default out of the box it didn't give me access to any
applications other than Firefox and a terminal so it is very minimal.
I didn't look yet at what sort of memory footprint it might have.
Since it seems slower than Gnome I wasn't that interested.
Just my 2 cents,
Mark
6:12 p.m.
--- Mark Knecht <markknecht(a)gmail.com> wrote:
For kicks I built E17. It runs on my AMD64 machine
and looks fairly
nice but many of the basic windowing operations seem
sort of slow
compared to Gnome.
Did you check the configuration tool? Check it out -
you can set the value of frames per second. I do not
remember what the default value was, but I could set
it up to 200 frames per second with my 2.8GHz P4
system with Matrox Parhelia P650 graphics adapter. It
was faster than anything else I've tried with this
computer (and I've been running XFCE mostly).
Anyway, maybe you compiled it with wrong options or
something. It should not be slower than Gnome under
any circuimstances. I suggest you wait until it's
officially released and then test it and see if you
like it.
__________________________________________________
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Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com
7:08 p.m.
On 10/27/06, Drucer Ninetynine <drucer99(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
Anyway, maybe you compiled it with wrong options or
something. It should not be slower than Gnome under
any circuimstances. I suggest you wait until it's
officially released and then test it and see if you
like it.
Any idea if/when this will show up in the Debian repos for Etch?
--
Josh Lawrence
http://www.hardbop200.com
7:33 p.m.
--- Josh Lawrence <hardbop200(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Any idea if/when this will show up in the Debian
repos for Etch?
--
Josh Lawrence
http://www.hardbop200.com
Unfortunately I do not have any idea when it's
officially released, but my guess is the CVS version
is already available for Debian. Even some Ubuntu
users have been able to install it by using some
unofficial repositories - I guess Debian users would
be able to use the same repos.
____________________________________________________________________________________
We have the perfect Group for you. Check out the handy changes to Yahoo! Groups
(http://groups.yahoo.com)
7:36 p.m.
BTW, here you can find some results of speed tests
(E17 was tested against several well known desktop
environments):
http://www.rasterman.com/index.php?page=News
Scroll the page down to "Sunday, 29 May 2005" -
because I do not know how to link to that exact part
of the page.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Access over 1 million songs - Yahoo! Music Unlimited
(http://music.yahoo.com/unlimited)
7:49 p.m.
On 10/27/06, Drucer Ninetynine <drucer99(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
--- Mark Knecht <markknecht(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I didn't find any configuration tools, or they weren't obvious when I
looked around with my mouse. None the less I'm not really talking
about anything esoteric. It's just that I'll try moving a terminal
around or flipping firefox in back and in front of something else and
it seems sluggish.
No big deal as there was a deal breaker I ran into immediately. When I
run MythTV in a window under Gnome I can move it around on my screen.
When I run it in a window in E17 I can move the control part of the
GUI but when the video starts playing it's stuck in the upper left
corner of the screen. That's not true on Gnome or KDE. However fvwm
and E17 all fail the same way. fluxbox, interestingly, doesn't give me
window decorations and incorrectly starts the video in the upper left
even when the GUI is located elsewhere, but at least fluxbox allows
the playing video to be moved where E17 and fvwm do not.
For kicks I built E17. It runs on my AMD64
machine
and looks fairly
nice but many of the basic windowing operations seem
sort of slow
compared to Gnome.
Did you check the configuration tool? Check it out -
you can set the value of frames per second. I do not
remember what the default value was, but I could set
it up to 200 frames per second with my 2.8GHz P4
system with Matrox Parhelia P650 graphics adapter. It
was faster than anything else I've tried with this
computer (and I've been running XFCE mostly).
Anyway, maybe you compiled it with wrong options or
something. It should not be slower than Gnome under
any circuimstances. I suggest you wait until it's
officially released and then test it and see if you
like it.
Yeah, most likely it's something I did or something they are not aware
of. Looks to me like they have a lot of work to do to come up to full
usability though.
I've removed it from my system as it doesn;t look of value ot me right now.
Cheers,
Mark
7:54 p.m.
On Fri, 27 Oct 2006 14:49:51 -0700
"Mark Knecht" <markknecht(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On 10/27/06, Drucer Ninetynine
<drucer99(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
FWIW I use the ROX desktop with OroboROX as the WM. It seems pretty
snappy to me, and VERY configurable.
--
Will J G
--- Mark Knecht <markknecht(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I didn't find any configuration tools, or they weren't obvious when I
looked around with my mouse. None the less I'm not really talking
about anything esoteric. It's just that I'll try moving a terminal
around or flipping firefox in back and in front of something else and
it seems sluggish.
No big deal as there was a deal breaker I ran into immediately. When I
run MythTV in a window under Gnome I can move it around on my screen.
When I run it in a window in E17 I can move the control part of the
GUI but when the video starts playing it's stuck in the upper left
corner of the screen. That's not true on Gnome or KDE. However fvwm
and E17 all fail the same way. fluxbox, interestingly, doesn't give me
window decorations and incorrectly starts the video in the upper left
even when the GUI is located elsewhere, but at least fluxbox allows
the playing video to be moved where E17 and fvwm do not.
For kicks I built E17. It runs on my AMD64
machine
and looks fairly
nice but many of the basic windowing operations seem
sort of slow
compared to Gnome.
Did you check the configuration tool? Check it out -
you can set the value of frames per second. I do not
remember what the default value was, but I could set
it up to 200 frames per second with my 2.8GHz P4
system with Matrox Parhelia P650 graphics adapter. It
was faster than anything else I've tried with this
computer (and I've been running XFCE mostly).
Anyway, maybe you compiled it with wrong options or
something. It should not be slower than Gnome under
any circuimstances. I suggest you wait until it's
officially released and then test it and see if you
like it.
Yeah, most likely it's something I did or something they are not aware
of. Looks to me like they have a lot of work to do to come up to full
usability though.
I've removed it from my system as it doesn;t look of value ot me right now.
Cheers,
Mark
6399
days inactive
6401
days old
linux-audio-user@lists.linuxaudio.org
58 comments
24 participants
participants (24)
-
Brett W. McCoy -
carmen -
Chris McCormick -
david -
Drucer Ninetynine -
Folderol -
Fons Adriaensen -
Frank Barknecht -
freak -
Ivica Ico Bukvic -
Josh Lawrence -
Joshua Boyd -
Kjetil S. Matheussen -
Lee Revell -
Leonard "paniq" Ritter -
Mark Knecht -
mik -
Patrick Shirkey -
Paul Davis -
Paul Winkler -
Peder Hedlund -
Rob -
Robert Jonsson -
tim hall