IceWM 1.0.0 released

More Gnome WMs; A good thing. by winterstorm · 1999-12-27 02:47 · Score: 4

Right now I use the Enlightenment Window Manager for my Gnome desktop. I've never really liked it though. I also never felt like I had a choice. I like ICE's Mouse is optional feature but only time will tell if it is practical.

Something I've noticed about many of the WMs currently under development is that they seem to put a lot of energy into support for "themes". While it is an important practicality to allow users to customize the look and feel of their desktop what I see (especially under KDE and Enlightenment) is a lot of wacky features that don't seem practical.

I'd like to see more Gnome compliant window managers. Choice is a good thing. I feel like Oliver Twist actually, "Please Sir, Can I have some more?" :-)

Is another WM really what we need? by Skinka · 1999-12-27 02:54 · Score: 5

One thing I genuinely hate about Linux is the amount of "pretty good but not quite there"-software. There is a lot talent in the community, but way too much of it wasted on projects like "Yet Another OSS Replacement For ICQ", or "One More WM That Only Twelve People Use". Instead of having half a dozen pretty decent window managers, I'd much rather have one that is really good (like I have with MS Windows).

Quantity will never replace quality, no matter how free it is.

Re:Is another WM really what we need? by logicTrAp · 1999-12-27 03:17 · Score: 3

While I agree with the sentiment (it comes down to the whole splinter thing), the problem, as others have said, is the "Really good" part. You think MS Windows has a good window manager...I think it sucks rocks. The nice thing about having a flexible system like X is that one person's view of "good" doesn't keep you from implementing your view of "good." Of course, you can also claim this as one of its biggest problems since it admittedly leads to consistency problems. As for me, I like the fact that even tho everyone seems to like the NeXT look (I don't), I can still use fvwm2 and not be stuck with afterstep or windowmaker.
Re:Is another WM really what we need? by Skinka · 1999-12-27 03:48 · Score: 4

Who dictates what is "really good"?
Not who, but what. Answer: usability studies. With extensive usability studies Microsoft has been able to make user interfaces, mice, keybords, joystics etc. that most people think are great, and the rest find adequate to say at least. Maybe some day MS makes a usabilty study called "is stability a good thing" and decides to kill all those damn bugs in windows *g*.
The problem with a lot of open source software is that they have been made by programmers, for programmers. Software like that ends up being overly complicated with too many features and options (EMACS anyone?). I know the OSS community can't perform wide usability studies like Microsoft or Apple, but we really should try put some effort into improving what we have, instead of wasting energy on code forks and new programs that are just as bad as the old ones.
More can't hurt.
I disagree. More can hurt, and it is already hurting Linux. The amount of WM overwhealms me, there is just no way I'm going to try them all. I might try maybe three or four, but after that I'd just give up and boot back to Windows if I couldn't find the right one with those four tries. This actually happened to me, that is why writing this message with the Windows version of Netscape. The Linux GUI is just too clumsy. I do like the powerfull command line though.
Re:Is another WM really what we need? by Zoltar · 1999-12-27 06:19 · Score: 3

****With extensive usability studies Microsoft has been able to make user interfaces, mice, keybords, joystics etc. that most people think are great, and the rest find adequate to say at least. ****

I'm not so sure that I would agree with you there. I think that the majority of people who use computers don't have a clue about interfaces. They just know that when you click on this a little window will pop up and then they can type this in this box and then click here...etc. Most computer users are just happy that they can send emails and make greeting cards... they don't know or care about the design of a GUI.

(I'm going to make a broad generalization here ->) People like what they are "used to" and if they had to use something different today they would bitch and complain about how hard it is. I remember the first time I played with a Mac, even though it was similar to windows, it was just different enough for me to have to think before I did something. I remember thinking it was "cool" but I was happy to go back to my windows box.

I agree with you about programmers writing stuff for other programmers. This is generally not a good way to please the masses. But hey, I'm a big fan of tons of configurations and tweaks ( I love gnome and kde ) and scripts and the power of the cl etc...so I'm not the guy to make statements on what the public wants or needs.

Is this really an area that needs filling? by Kaht · 1999-12-27 03:03 · Score: 5

This is my main beef with Linux... there's always the latest this and the latest that coming out of the community... why can't some coders take a break from working on the coolest, most bleeding edge stuff, and instead try making stuff a little easier?

If we want to take more of the Microsoft market share, we need more users.. when you compare how I can change my resolution under Windows with a single click, and I've still got X running at 640x480, now -there- is an area that needs work.

This is a huge discouragement for new users. You can't expect that when you say "this video card and modem won't work, and sound is really complicated to set up" they'll just go "oh, good, I have this extra $500 I needed to waste somehow, why dont I replace most of my hardware?"

--
Devilled Eggs - A disturbing little creation of mine.

Re:Is this really an area that needs filling? by paul.dunne · 1999-12-27 03:30 · Score: 4

Here we go again... "If we want to take more of the Microsoft market share...". Who is this "we" I keep hearing about in this context? RedHat shareholders, or what? Linux developers will work on what they like to work on -- that's the whole point. Besides, if someone wants to use Linux, they should have a real reason e.g. wanting Unix on their desktop, or needing a reliable server platform; not be doing it "because it's simple" -- that's what NT is for. Sound isn't really complicated to set up, by the way; it just involves more than pushing a few buttons. As I've said, if these "new users" want things that simple, there are existing alternatives; and that's a good thing, because Linux sure isn't for them. To look at it another way, if you want to take more of the Microsoft market share, why don't you code up some of this "a little easier" stuff? Eh?

Congrats to icewm by Cardinal · 1999-12-27 03:07 · Score: 3

I've used icewm off and on since the 0.8.x days, and have always had a fondness for it. Over the last four years, my wm has either been icewm, amiwm, or Enlightenment depending on my mood, and how stable E was at the time ;)

Icewm has come a long way, and throughout the development cycle it's always been a fast, usable window manager. It's nicely configurable, and now that it has a couple configuration GUIs, it's that much easier. It's good to see the 1.0.0 mark, and I congradulate the people behind it for their years of effort.

Somebody mentioned there being too many 'almost done' window managers in the open source world, and to them I'd like to point out that this community's definition of 'beta version' is slightly different from that of commercial software :) Just because something gets a 1.0 version number doesn't mean it was never stable or suitable for end users before that point. (Case in point, Enlightenment)

Yes, there are a lot of window managers, and perhaps some of them didn't need to be made, but I don't see any harm in having that much more variety. It's not like your window manager choice is going to make your X apps unusable (And if it does, that window manager has Issues :) )

KaufWM 1.0 released! Features Natalie Portman! by Kaufmann · 1999-12-27 03:08 · Score: 4

KaufWM also features a dorky face and thick glasses, and will do just about anything in exchange for a copy of _The Unix Hater's Handbook_. It's not Gnome-compliant, but has been rumoured to look like an elf.

See how easy it is to write a catchy headline? :)

Seriously, I move for Slashdot to stop posting this kind of 1.0 announcements. You can bet your ass that, as we speak, about half a million attention-thirsty Slashgeeks are hurriedly updating their pet WM projects to "1.0", with hopes of getting posted on Slashdot and scoring collaborators. So don't post this kind of thing - no exceptions.

--
To the editors: your English is as bad as your Perl. Please go back to grade school.

How does the windows gui suck? by NightHwk · 1999-12-27 03:28 · Score: 3

I've heard many people complain that the windows gui sucks, and that linux wm's that try to replicate its look suck by association.

However, I've never heard a good explanation as to why it sucks?

The same design concept is carried through most of the shell (with IE5 this became IE centric, but its not *that* bad, dont get me wrong, i hate ms too, but i'm not stupid about it)

-standardized key combos (cntrl-c copy, ctrl-v paste etc)

-one can get around fairly well without a mouse

-the task bar holds a lot of easy to access information (apps running, system tray, start menu)

-the start menu can be nicely customized (even further with the tweak utils).

-You can choose between an iconified desktop, and active desktop(blech) or no desktop at all (with the tweak utils).

-It's responsive in the tactile sense (buttons etc)

I'm sure someone could make a nice list of win9x gui foibles, but you could make a list twice as long for each of the popular window managers. Everyone knows M$ 'borrowed' a lot of its best gui features from the mac, and theres no reason X wm's shouldn't incorporate the same great features.

NightHawk

Set threshold at -1 FlaimBait to read this comment

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More WMs are nice and good, but... by muecksteiner · 1999-12-27 04:21 · Score: 5

I don't want to spoil anybody's party, but having one more not fundamentally different windowmanager is IMHO not what the community would need at the moment. The release of yet another one of these things is not really news worth posting.

The misconception that some people seem to have here is that (windowmanager with nifty features == sensible application development environment), which is not really true. For Linux to succeed, it has to get a *lot* easier to write applications, and this requires more than just WMs. KDE and GNOME are on the right track, but not nearly there yet.

Since there are preciously few examples of what a good ADE can be like, one can't really fault people for not knowing the difference. A nice example of what I'm talking about (which has the advantage that it's dead as a dodo, so I can't really be accused of advocacy) was NeXTStep. It had a degree of integration between display subsystem, API and OS that to my (naturally limited) knowledge has never been achieved elsewhere on a real, workable system (as opposed to, say, concept prototypes from academentia, which so often sound terribly nice, but are not really useable).

Anybody who knew NeXTStep will fondly remember the possibility to write applications mostly by drag-and-drop using InterfaceBuilder, and that drawing in windows was done using Postscript, which only had to be redirected if one wanted to print. Or the ability to use RenderMan streams in 3D viewports. Or the nice, orthogonal localization features. And so on.

People bought the extremely overpriced NeXT machines just in order to be able to use this ADE. At the moment Linux seems to be in a somewhat inverted situation: people use it despite the difficulties in writing GUI software for it. For Linux to _seriously_ threaten the monopoly of M$, better software development tools have to emerge. Let's not kid ourselves: KDE and GNOME in their current form are *not* contenders for prime time big productivity application development, although this may change. What one would need is a software development system that uses an unified imaging model, has a consistent class API that is not cluttered, has useable interface design and code management tools and generates nicely packaged applications that are easily localizable (my personal corollary would be: and that does not use X, but YMMV).

Unfortunately, XMas was two days ago, so we'll have to wait at least one more year ;-). But if anything along these lines happens, *that* would be worth posting as a "1.0 released" article.

just my $0.2E-32

Alexander Wilkie

P.S. Yes, I know about GNUStep, and the fact that Apple is using the old NeXT technology for its next-generation OS. The first is very slow in coming along, and the the second fact does not help us Linuxers at all.

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