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What we need our x86 PC systems for is no longer a normal Personal Computer, but a Personal Workstation. For our Workstations, we don't need a Table OS, or a Server OS. But a work station OS, with UI features meant for people with a Keyboard, Large Screens, Who will be expected to have a lot of things going on at the same time.

LINUX.

I Personally would like to see less window decoration, and use the space for more application space. And be able to have many Apps running and visible at the same time. Perhaps in Re-sizable Frames vs Windows...

Have you seen this? Or this?

Normally now when I get out my PC it is because I have some real work to do, vs just goofing off.

Linux. Oh, we have Steam now, so you can even goof off if you want to.


TFA, TFS, and all the comments are just... so...
Linux users have been telling you Windows people that you should consider switching for so many years, but you never listen and all we Linux users hear is complaining.

There's lots of stuff about Linux that sucks or doesn't work right.

But at least I don't have to pay for it.
At least I'm not getting ads on my desktop or paying a subscription fee to use my computer.
At least I know my OS isn't spying on me no matter how innocuous the gathered data is.
At least I know that kernel APIs are stable and are being actively improved-- hell, I could roll up my sleeves and help myself if I really had to.
Forced updates? You mean you guys put up with that crap?

You have no one to blame but yourselves.

But don't mind me; you just keep right on using Microsoft products, giving them money, and rewarding them for abusing you.

So if Linux has a feature, Windows can't?

Nobody said that Windows can't have a feature. GP's point was that Microsoft shouldn't get any accolades for implementing something that has been available, depending on configuration and DE, in Linux for over a decade. You don't get a blue ribbon for catching up to where the rest of the racers have already been for some time.

Also, Microsoft has a very very long way to go to catch up to the customization that GTK and KDE have had for decades. That hideous blinding white was one of the reasons I switched away from Windows in the first place.

Plus, this is more than just the file explorer, it's ANY application.

Fluxbox has had this for a very long time. (I used fluxbox for years).
But why use tabs for organization if you could have your window manager (i.e. Awesome, i3) handle the arrangement for you automatically instead?

i3 since the normal desktop environment isn't X.

The root of my preferences lies in this need: as much space for _my_ application and as little as possible for the OS, but easily accessible when I need its functions, without running any occult desktop environments :)

Have you heard of tiling window managers? I use AwesomeWM myself; though I hear that i3 is really cool and the same for dwm and xmonad.

Fluxbox on an old Slackware laptop got me through college. Good stuff, though I have since moved on to i3wm.

As far as tiling WMs are concerned, I think Notion is my favourite because it's tabbed and static tiles instead of the more common dynamic tiling style. I use it on my laptop, or on my desktop inside a nested X server (xephyr) to group related programs into a single window. Especially useful for coding, with multiple files and terms open and the infrequently-used ones in smaller windows or in tabs that I switch to when needed.

Fluxbox on an old Slackware laptop got me through college. Good stuff, though I have since moved on to i3wm.

If you using a lot of terminals, I would suggest using a tiled window manager like i3. New terminal is only a key press away and it is very efficient once you master it.

I'm talking data de-duplication searching tools,

Son, are you kidding me?

multi-monitor window managers,

What?

downloading / p2p tools,

Excuse me?

media players,

You fail it

media encoders

Wrong

etc.

Are you even trying?


In unrelated news, slashdot doesn't let me post this reply as-is, because it consists of too short lines, on average. Wtf. Fooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

On the plus side, you don't really have to run any particular desktop environment on Linux, whereas it's much harder to customize radically on other systems. I'm currently using OSX with some attempted customizations, but the OS really doesn't support major changes to the default interaction model. I used to use Linux with Ion, and I've been playing around with Linux+i3 in a VM, and it's pretty impressive how you can completely change the default experience.

Incidentally, it takes some getting used to, but tiling window managers are really worth some experimentation with, if you're the kind of person who likes vim.

There are other DEs/WMs out there. XFCE, LXDE if you want a somewhat complete DE, WindowLab if you want something minimal but like your mouse, i3 if you like tiling (or xmonad if you swing that way).

KDE's sure to use more memory than some of the other competition, and if you're like me and only have 2GB of RAM in your primary machine, that's important.

"I'm working on a novel. Writing in in Symphony. Chapter I'm writing is in one tab, other chapters for referbacks are in others, character notes and plot notes, dialog snippets in yet others."

Tabs should be implemented as separate windows to be handled by a tabbed window manager (like i3).

http://i3wm.org/

Check out http://i3wm.org/

I've used KDE since the beginning, but used ion3 for many years (long after he abandoned development). I'm currently using kwin with very custom rules, but I dabbled in, and really should look at i3 again. It's capable of being easily configured exactly like my ion3 configuration, only with a much cleaner codebase.