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Killing Clutter With The Antidesktop
Espectr0 writes "Hate window managers? Cannot live without one? Well, you can, kind of. A Freshmeat editorial called 'The Antidesktop' talks about how you can get rid of flashy, bloaty window managers without loosing functionality." It depends on how many tasks you want to keep track of in your head, too.
I think this guy is taking it too far. If you really want to avoid all bloat, you shouldn't run X anyway. Seems to me someone who doesn't like windowmanagers etc. should just run stuff from the console (and definately not Mozilla).
The majority of people who can/want to run this kind of desktop, already do.
Hmm... reduce desktop clutter? You could try ratpoison, the counter productive approach, or you could get a bigger monitor... worked for millions of users, including myself.
Skiers and Riders -- http://www.snowjournal.com
This guy must have a good laugh at each GNOME/KDE flamewar ...
How many more times to I have to read the word 'loosing' where an author meant 'losing' before I am legally released from all obligations against torturing said authors? They're even pronounced differently, thus causing me to mentally trip on a conversational rock and fall in a pit of grammatical despair.
I love X Window's flexibility in adding window managers. I also hate it because I never, ever get the same convenience and experience in navigating an operating system as I do with Mac OS X and Windows. KDE and GNOME have gone through great changes to make this easier, but they are desktop managers, not window managers. Nowandays the distinction is subtle, but significant when you're trying to pawn off Linux to your mom.
That said, while Mac OS X (my choice) doesn't use X (but can with the XDarwin OSS project), a user can get quite minimalistic even with Apple's OS X interface. For instance, unlike previous versions of the Mac OS, you don't have to show one damned icon, or even the dock, in Mac OS X. To do it:
1) From the Apple menu, choose Dock-->Turn Hiding On. This hides the dock until you move the mouse towards the dock's hidden location.
2) Click on the Finder button in the dock (or click on the desktop) and choose Preferences from the Finder menu. Uncheck the options under "Show these items on the Desktop." That rids you of any hard drive, removable media, or network drive icons.
3) Move any other document icons (the only things that can be left) into a folder in your Home folder, or elsewhere.
4) Change your desktop background to something pleasant.
The only thing left on the desktop now will be the menu bar.
Users who prefer to navigate their applications in a menu-centric style can create an alias (shortcut/symlink) of their Applications and Documents folders and place them in the dock. From there, users can just click on the folder and, ala the Start button or typical window manager menu, navigate through to the item they need.
Vos teneo officium eram periculosus ut vos recipero is.
I'm coming to the opinion that the English language has actually changed so that "loosing" is now a valid spelling of the word. I hate it, I must admit, but you see far more people spelling it this way than the correct way ("losing"), and I guess that's how language changes.
English has evolved throughout its history - I guess this is just another evolution, albeit one I would rather not see.
Q.
That's great. Now if you can tell me where to download the source code for that, I'll be quite grateful, as I'm pretty sure the supplied binaries won't run on all the x86 machines in my house. Then, once I do get it compiled on my application server, what are the odds that I can run it as a display server on my thin-clients?
I do not have a signature
OK, this bugs me a little. I'm not a prescriptivist when it comes to (human) languages and in fact believe english should reflect the continuing evolution of social intercourse. I cheered when "d'oh" was added to the OED. But... In this case, the language would be losing functionality: two words with different meanings cannot be spelled the same way, one of the meanings would have to go and that would be a loss to the language and our ability to express ourselves.
...who "doesnt need a mouse" use Mozilla (or any other graphical web browser) for any length of time without the mouse, and be faster than anyone with one. While the keyboard certainly has its places, browsing the web certainly isn't one of them. There is a reason for all these insane web accessability standards everyone talks about yet no one follows, because navigating the web without a mouse is slow.
Don't knock me for having to use Windows at my place of work. All I'm trying to state is that there's a helluva difference between a desktop that looks fast and one that actually is fast.
I don't see this "ratpoison" WM as saving much in the way of keystrokes. In the way he uses it, he's got far more keystrokes to do than I do in my stock GNOME2.0 (Mandrake 9) environment. And GNOME2.0's WM is pretty lightweight (Metacity).
For example, I keep three "root" GTerm's on desktop 1 which is bound to "F1" -- yep, a single keypress and I'm on my first desktop. More GTerm's on 2, email & Galeon on 3, etc. I can get from app to app with single keypresses and occasionally an alt-tab if I want to "overload" a given desktop.
The biggest obstacle to eliminating the mouse in GUI land isn't the WM anymore. Metacity finally fixes the keyboard bindings for moving/resizing windows like -- [ahem] -- that other OS has had since 3.11.
What's the biggest obstacle then? The apps. Tell me, in Mozilla, how do you navigate a web page*? How, in Gimp, do you select a rectangular region? How, in Dia, do you create five objects? The theme? You use the mouse. You don't use the keyboard. You can't use the keyboard.
GNOME2.0 is addressing the problems. I'm not sure where and with what document, but every GNOME2.0 app I've seen thus far is so much more keyboard-compliant than any other Linux app I've seen to date, there must be some central document explaining in simple checkbox style what keyboard shortcuts apps must support.
* Yes, I know you CAN navigate a web page in Mozilla using the keyboard, but scroll down seven pages until you see a link you're interested in, press "TAB" and notice how it scrolls all the way back to the top where the first link is. F--king brain-dead. Useless.
fifth sigma, inc.
I don't consider that a problem. That's what makes OSS so good, to me. Obviously it's not so good for people who don't work the way I do. It seems to me that the people expressing my viewpoint are often lambasted as being elitists, but I think that's rarely the case.
I'm not one of those people who wants Linux to stay "1337," by keeping all the current non-users away. Instead, I simply find it irrelevant whether people use it or not. If they do, and it works for them, good. If it doesn't work for them, no loss.
Uncompassionate bastard that I am, I only see secondary benefits to Linux becoming more popular, namely that device and software manufacturers may be more willing to enable their products to be used on Linux. But I distrust non-OSS, and they are unlikely to make their products OSS, so I would probably find that benefit rather limited.
The ocean parts and the meteors come down
Laid out in amber, baby.
I'm using fvwm, because I actually want multiple things on the screen at once (since I want to watch for changes in one window while doing things in another window, or type notes on the things I'm reading in a different window; having overlapping windows is nice for this). I don't actually use the virtual desktops much (unless I find I want to do something totally different for a while, with an entirely separate set of windows). Fvwm, at least, can be controlled with keys and key combinations not normally used by other programs (rather than "^O"). I use mostly left-windows, shift-left-windows, alt-left-alt, alt-right-alt, shift-left-shift, and shift-right-shift; this leaves free every non-modifier key with every combination of modifiers on the traditional PC keyboard. This makes "left-windows 1" the X equivalent of "^A ^A". Fvwm is also good for mapping random keys and key combinations to scripts; I have the Pause/Break key start, pause, or resume the CD player.
.profile actually contains "screen; exit", so I never do anything on that machine outside of screen. The cool thing he didn't mention is that you can attach the same session multiple times, so that, if you want to see two of the virtual consoles, or even see a virtual console that's being shown on a different computer, you can do that.
Screen is, in fact, the coolest piece of software ever. I've been logged into my home server continuously since the morning of April 30th, when I installed a new version which wasn't happy with sessions from the old version. I've had sessions going nearly all the time since 1998. My
I use emacs server mode with a chunk of elisp to make each new buffer invoked from the command line appear in a separate frame. This puts the file name in the title (which appears in fvwm's window list), and I then have icons and window list entries for all of the file I'm currently working on.
Other than windows for programs I'm running (which are generally xterms, emacs, and a web browser), I have a digital clock. I sometimes have a modern art moving background (kind of hyponotic and relaxing, sort of a white-noise generator).
I like smooth curves (especially my wife's). I am not drawn to Spartan asceticism and the utilitarian "ideal".
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
Well, people will chime in and tell you that the Display Postscript / Display PDF display technologies and accompanying API's are a GUI solution for UNIX. While both NeXTStep and MacOS X look great, their windowing systems come with a significant loss in features; in particular, they are not network transparent.
... but I think there are projects out there trying to resolve this.
... look at the source of any Motif-using app and you'll see). Although, nowadays with projects like gnome, kde, tcl/tk, perl's gui hooks, etc ... it is almost trivially easy to code complex UI's for X.
I think most criticisms for X stem from the following reasons:
+ Adding fonts to X is, simply put, an absolute nightmare. Last I checked, it involves copy files to a directory, manually editing a text file, restarting your "font server", and other crap. This is just not acceptable
+ Back in the old days, writing apps for X was a nightmare. The low level drawing API that comes with X, called XLib, has more to do with drawing primitives like lines than with drawing and managing buttons, text fields, etc. AFAIK, the only decent API available for writing apps was Motif, which was only available commercially (note that many programmers will disagree with me that Motif is "decent" -- in fact, it is apparently a huge pain in the ass
+ XFree86 is a nightmare to configure. While Redhat does all kinds of fancy stuff to autodetect your video card/monitor, I tried Debian a few days ago and gasped at how little has changed in configuring XFree86 since 7 years ago. With a nervous laugh, I noticed that same line in xfree86config where you have to input your vertical/horizontal frequency ranges, and it warns you about how it might destroy your monitor. Aahhhh, fond memories of that very same config step that struck the fear of God in me as I installed Slackware for the first time when I was just a little tyke.
Fortunately, most of the above is being worked on. Despite all that I've said, I am an ardent X supporter. Its out of the box network transparency is a massive, let me repeat that, massive feature for anyone but the strict home user who only uses a browser and a chat program or two. Academic, scientist, programmer, administrator, office worker -- millions of professionals rely on X's network transparency every single day. No need to use/buy expensive, bulky, slow VNC clients or proprietary terminal servers. This is precisely why X is not going anywhere anytime soon.
Er... if you say so. Personally, I'd think that anyone who can remember
cp <source> <destination>
can remember
grep <pattern> <files>.
Of course awk is going to take longer to learn, since it's a Turing complete programming language, but you can get a lot done with
<some command producing columns of output> |awk '{print $<which row of output>}'
It'll take a while to learn, sure, but it's worth it if you need that functionality.
The only excuses for not learning the command line are laziness or (misplaced) intimidation. Anyone willing to put forth a miniscule amount of effort can learn enough command line to accomplish certain tasks faster than with a GUI.
I'm not saying everyone should use a command line, because certainly GUIs are useful and have their place. But really anyone who considers himself a power user owes it to himself to learn some command line.
Pretty's gotta go all the way down to the bottom, below "usable", "fast," and "capable". All of the most serious interface sins I have seen have all been committed in the holy name of prettiness.
I say this as a graphic designer- my job is to *make* the pretty. I don't feel an overriding urge to put the pretty on the desktop- and if I do want it, I don't want it built in. I want to stick my own prettiness on top of everything if I want it, and I want it to be consistent- and dismissible if it gets to be too much.
I am a major fiend for theming and customization, but *I* want to be the one doing it, and I don't want different applications having their own ridiculous ideas of how to "improve" the base appearance of the system.
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
At least check out screen. It's amazing software.
Personally its not God I dislike, its his fan club I cant stand (bash.org)
You should do what I do: put your karma where your keyboard is, and use the account you've got. Why are you getting so upset over something you don't even think is worth putting your name against?
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
The reason for this common confusion is quite simple: English (as usual) is absolutely brain-dead. Case in point: inconsistent pronunciation.
Cf.: choose and loose; chose and lose.
The O in lose is of the same length as the O in loose, yet only one receives a double O. However, this is inconsistent with the pattern in choose and chose, where an O terminated by a Z-sound receives the double O--with loose and lose the matter is the exact opposite. And the pronunciation of O in chose is inconsistent with the pronunciation of O in lose. (Admit it: how many of you at first sight said "chOHz and lOHz"?
Face it folks: there hasn't been a decent language in the western world since the fall of the Roman empire, when the barbarians corrupted all elevated discourse. It's all been downhill since then. Even modern greek is disgusting compared to its glorious ancestors.
And that is why people should learn classical languages: to escape the mire of the vulgarity that is every modern tongue. None can achieve even half the precision and elegance of the full case system (for example) or radical inflection (for another) that are found in (for example) Greek and Latin.
And while I'm on it: I'll split my infinitives any time I damn well please. That's a totally artificial rule introduced by the humanists who systematized English while high on Latin grammar (and rightly so), yet ignored its germanic origins. Just because in Latin an infinitive is a single unit, doesn't mean it is in English! Besides, the Latins thought nothing of inserting adverbs in the middle of their periphrastic verbal constructions, so why should we in our own? Besides, splitting infinitives introduces a nuance and precision that is otherwise lacking in English.
[Whew, I feel much better.]
We're removing the steering wheels and accelerator pedals from all the Tauruses. We're hoping that leaning into turns and shouts of "Giddyap!" will effect the same results, but without the bloat of steering wheels, which cut down the view of your fuel meter and accelerator pedals which just look dirty all the time.
Bill Ford Junior
Honestly, how are we EVER gonna get to HAL 9000 if DIY dorks like this one keep drop-kicking computer interfacing back to the punchcard era in the interest of "efficiency" and "privacy". If you mass up all the time I spend slogging through this GUI you'd get about eight minutes a week. Wow, THERE'S a decent visit to the john shot. The bulk of time people waste at the desktop is reading. Now, if we could design an interface that slams ideas into your head at mach five, we're onto something. As for privacy, who CARES what some carpal-tunnel farmhand thinks or does? "Oh, but we don't want our geek-friends coming over and changing the screen resolution..." So beat them up EVERY time they do it!
Point Click... it's like one step too long of a procedure, and I'm torn on which one to remove!
He went to a lot of trouble to get a mostly black screen. I get the same results with the power button on my monitor.
Windows XP SP2 told me to install third-party software that prevents viruses and protects stability... I chose Ubuntu