Questions for deployments of GNOME [LWN.net]

Questions for deployments of GNOME

Posted Jun 12, 2006 4:10 UTC (Mon) by drag (guest, #31333)
In reply to: Questions for deployments of GNOME by h2
Parent article: Questions for deployments of GNOME

Bullshit.

So your telling me that Gnome people aren't working on improving Gnome,
that they don't believe that Gnome has problems?

That KDE has some advantage of self introspection that Gnome developers
lack?

I think that's a load of BS personally. I know that Gnome has problems,
but guess what Gnome is BETTER then KDE for what I want and what I want to
do. It's the default choice of MANY MANY Linux users and developers, many
of which were first using KDE with Knoppix or Suse and such but ended up
choosing something else. There is nothing you say that can change this
fact.

Anyways.

Since KDE is so configurable what is the easiest way to change it so that
I don't have to use ~/Desktop as the default folder. I want my desktop to
display the contents of ~/, how do I do that?

I've been clicking around in this and that for a good 20 minutes now and I
can't seem to find this elusive configuration item.

to post comments

Questions for deployments of GNOME

Posted Jun 12, 2006 5:10 UTC (Mon) by sbergman27 (guest, #10767) [Link]

> I've been clicking around in this and that for a good 20 minutes now and I
can't seem to find this elusive configuration item.

Keep clicking. It's there somewhere. I don't give up until after about an hour. If I haven't found it by then, I usually submit a bug report asking for another menu option to be added and they almost always say "yes".

It's done wonders for my productivity. My PHB seems to disagree. Can't understand why. Go KDE!

Questions for deployments of GNOME

Posted Jun 12, 2006 6:38 UTC (Mon) by warmcat1 (guest, #31975) [Link]

- Run "Control Center"
- select "System Administration" on the left pane
- select the child page "Paths"
- set your "Desktop" path

Questions for deployments of GNOME

Posted Jun 12, 2006 9:52 UTC (Mon) by Los__D (guest, #15263) [Link] (4 responses)

Of course you can't... In KDE it's impossible to find the useful features and options, because they're hiding in a forrest of useless ones...

How anyone can say that enhanced their productivity is beyond me, I've never seen so much clutter in my life.

Questions for deployments of GNOME

Posted Jun 12, 2006 17:03 UTC (Mon) by tjc (guest, #137) [Link] (2 responses)

How anyone can say that enhanced their productivity is beyond me, I've never seen so much clutter in my life.

From a productivity standpoint, complex configuration is costly up front, but free thereafter.

A simpler system may minimize the initial configuration cost, but you pay for it with the decreased productivity that comes from using a duller, less suitable tool for the task at hand. In fact, the longer you use it, the more expensive it gets, since the cost accumulates. And the wider the adaptation that such a system achives, the more costly it gets, since there are now more users suffering accumulating productivity losses.

For example, I use the Gimp a lot for 3 or 4 days a month. I tend to keep the main window in the upper-right corner of the workspace. My window manager allows me to maximize windows along the y-axis, which allows me to create a new image, which opens a new window, which I can quickly maximize along the y-axis, move flush with the main window by relying on edge resistance (another feature that my window manager supports), and dragging the left border to the edge of the screen. This is complex to describe, but the combination of verticle maximization, edge resistance, and central window placement makes it easy to quickly maximize my use of available space, which is important if I am going to do this a couple hundred times a day.

Occasionally I am forced to work on a system that has only metacity installed, the operation described above becomes awkward -- and after just a few iterations -- irritating. Even if I am going to be working on said system for just one day, I usually find it more productive to download sawfish and configure it before I start. Even if I only break even from a time standpoint, it's worth it just to avoid the aggrevation.

Questions for deployments of GNOME

Posted Jun 12, 2006 22:14 UTC (Mon) by Los__D (guest, #15263) [Link] (1 responses)

Huh? I use Compiz at the moment, but as far as I can remember, resizing along an axis is just Ctrl-click or Alt-Clicking maximize.

Besides, no one is forcing you to use Metacity for GNOME, it's just the default.

Questions for deployments of GNOME

Posted Jun 13, 2006 2:14 UTC (Tue) by tjc (guest, #137) [Link]

Besides, no one is forcing you to use Metacity for GNOME, it's just the default.

I'm using sawfish in fact, as I mentioned. It's been in a state of semi-maintance for years now, but I still find it better than the alternatives.

As far as vertical/horizontal maximization: yes, I think you can configure a keybinding for it, if you happen to find that convenient. I prefer to use the mouse (alone) for that sort of thing. I even wrote a patch for this feature back in 2002, but I was informed that it was "crack." I eventually got tired of patching my own version of metacity, so I reverted to sawfish. It seems to be faster anyway.

Questions for deployments of GNOME

Posted Jun 12, 2006 20:48 UTC (Mon) by petegn (guest, #847) [Link]

> I've never seen so much clutter in my life.

I have it's called gnome (should be gone) . :-)